Selene continued along, just below the cloud cover. He had managed to make it to the beginnings of the Rockies, and they reached up at him as he continued north. At this point he still had plenty of distance between the clouds and the tops of the mountains to fly, but further to the north the mountains reached all the way up into the cloud deck. When he reached them he would either have to risk flying in the clouds, climb well above them, or land and walk the rest of the way over.

Or just go around, he thought absently, scanning the twisted forest below. There are no boarders to a Pegasi, after all.

Between the half-dead trees he thought he spotted something bright white standing out clearly in the late afternoon light, but he couldn't be sure. He cautiously circled around, holding his wings still as he glided silently across directly over the top of whatever he had seen. There, another group of ponies... There were only five this time, one walking in the center with four making a square around them, slowly making their way along a mountain path between the knurled trees.

Selene continued passed them, gliding a decent distance away before flapping hard to regain altitude, raising to slip just inside the clouds above. Lets see, where are they going? West, heading away from the Slaver camps, or at least where I think they Slaver camps are... He checked his compass to be sure he hadn't gotten turned around. Yep, they're heading west. I need a closer look.

Again, Selene descended in a glide, this time coming in lower and a bit behind them, and slowed down as much as he could without stalling and falling out of the sky, to both minimize what little noise his passing would make and give him more time to look. The four ponies on the flanks were clearly Slavers, their twisted and rusted metal armor designed to frighten. What little leather they wore was likely stolen from the ponies they killed.

The pony in the center was different. While ponies with brightly colored coats and manes were quite common—even Selene, who's mane and coat were naturally dark still sported a bright cyan stripe down the center of his mane—it was rare to see them in all their glory. Most ponies traveling the wastes had allowed their coats and mane to stain to a darker color, both to make it harder to spot them and because it was very difficult to stay clean in the wastes even if one wanted too. Selene had allowed his cyan streak to stain into a darker green for these same reasons: water was a rare commodity, far too rare to be wasted saying clean, and he quite liked being hard to spot.

The pony in the middle of the Slaver formation apparently didn't care about any of these things, because their fur was bright white. Day glow white. Hurt your eyes looking at them, even in the dreary Wasteland twilight white. Here I am, come rape and murder me white. It wasn't terribly surprising they had been captured.

It was hard to tell anything more about them from this distance, as they were covered in a dark black cloak and hood, although enough of their legs and muzzle was visible that it honestly didn't help conceal them much. If it wasn't for their bright white coat, Selene probably wouldn't have noticed the group passing below him in the first place. Although on second thought, that very well may be what saves them, because who would be better suited to save them than me!... What? I never killed any slave-mare I was trying to rescue before: that never happened... Besides, I don't have any grenades left anyway!

Without spending another moment thinking, Selene glided further way, far enough he would not easily be heard, and began to drive himself back into the air with powerful flaps, again ending up just inside the clouds. It's time to save whitie!

As Selene positioned himself directly behind the group, he couldn't help but think there was something wrong here... Whatever; I'm a God! I'm sure it'll all work out...

He began his dive, only then thinking about how he was going to kill the Slavers if he didn't have any grenades. Umm... he rummaged around at random through his weapon holsters, drawing his 10mm light pistol in his left hoof and his combat knife in his right. That'll do! Thank the God's I'm ambidextrous!

He angled towards the right rear guard, coming down and slamming his chest on her back. Thankfully she was only lightly armored; if he had tried that on a more heavily armored Slaver he'd have ripped himself to pieces on their bent, jagged armor. As the Slaver-mare broke his fall, Selene drove the knife into the base of her skull, causing her to crumple to the ground in a heap, unmoving.

He quickly rose to his hooves and leveled the pistol in his left hoof at the rear-left raider. "Double skill motherfucker!" Selene emptied five of the nine rounds in his pistols clip. It was too small of a caliber to guarantee the Slavers death from anything less, even with every round impacting the stallions neck and head. He crumpled to the ground, screaming and spasming. He was so badly wounded he would be unable to stop the bleeding let alone attempt to retaliate. He would be dead soon enough.

"So who's next!" Selene shouted, pointing the pistol at the sky beside his head in what he imagined was an impressive action pose.

The two front guards reacted faster than he imagined was possible to the sudden rear attack. One, a large earthpony stallion, grabbed the hooded white pony from the center and shoved them behind himself. The other front guard, a small light blue mare whirled around and drew an assault carbine that made Selene's hunting rifle look pathetic, and his pistol look juvenile.

"What the fuck!?" she shouted, leveling the weapon at Selene's torso as she advanced.

No reason to waste time trying to aim for a ponies head when you're using a repeating rifle with that high a caliber, Selene thought to himself as he stared wide eyed. His stupidity had possibly just saved his life; if he had immediately tried to fire on the mare after killing her comrade she likely would have gunned him down before he could kill her. Instead he had pointed his weapon in the air and given her the time to take control of the situation, no longer needing to kill him to protect herself. Instead of killing him they were likely to try and take him as a slave instead.

Although I'd honestly rather die... think, think... "Oh my," he began, simply dropping the pistol that would do nothing but get himself killed if he tried to use it, "what a beautiful fur color you have..."

The mare did not look impressed. "Hooves on the ground!"

"Yea, ok," Selene mumbled, making sure not to get too close to his pistol still laying on the ground near him as he placed his hoof on ground, still furiously thinking.

The stallion said nothing as he drew a pump shotgun from his back and moved around the Selene's right.

Well shit... I was hoping I'd only have to deal with one gun at a time... now what...

The Stallion moved in on his right side, and began stripping his weapons away, cutting the strap holding his bolt-action hunting rifle at his said and tossing it away, followed by his SMG, then his few knives, then began to move on the the rest of his equipment.

It would have been faster just to remove his armor: everything else was attached to it, but Selene needed the time. What, what, what... Despite his eternal optimism—being a god and all—he was starting to panic.

His eyes were drawn to the white pony he was risking his life to save. She—those delectably curved eyes and large lashes could only belong to a mare, or a very convincing transsexual, either way truly deserving the feminine pronoun—looked calm, almost peaceful. She wasn't looking at Selene though, which struck him as rather odd since he was the new arrival after all.

She was sizing up the stallion on Selene's right, and after a quick glance at the mare still holding her carbine leveled at Selene, the white mare finally turned her gaze on him, staring directly into his eyes. Uummm.... I... Umm... Ah, ok...

She was quite tall for a mare, just a tiny bit shorter than Selene who was quite an average height for a stallion. He forced his eyes away from hers, and found himself looking over what of her body he could see. Her legs were quite long, but proportioned as you would expect from a well shaped mare, just all around larger. From a distance you wouldn't even know she could likely kick clean through a tree trunk...

Her sides underneath the cloak did bulge a little wide, even for a mare, but Selene suspected that was just her gear strapped at her sides... which did raise some interesting questions, most important of which was, why is a slave mare traveling with slavers allowed to keep her equipment?

Selene didn't get a moment longer to ponder the implications, because the white mare suddenly whistled, loudly. Purely on instinct Selene leapt backwards at the earsplitting sound, dragging the stallion who still had a firm hold on his armor to the ground.

The blue mare who was still holding her carbine aimed at Selene also started, jumping sideways away from the white mare, but keeping her eyes and weapon on Selene. "What's happening!?" she shouted, without looking away.

"That's going to cost you your leg, you bastard!" the pegasus stallion growled, surging to his hooves and bringing his shotgun up.

"What!? I just—" Selene began, staring into the barrel of the lethal weapon. The shotgun was suddenly surrounded by a dark purple glow and just a moment later kicked back into the stallions chest, and leaned back to point up under his muzzle. He didn't even have time to scream before the weapon discharged, taking the front half of his head clean off.

Well that's one down, Selene thought, not quite sure how he had managed to do that, or what to do next.

The blue mare with the carbine was still aiming directly at him, and while she was momentarily stunned by what had just happened there was no way Selene could close the distance before she fired on him, and his weapons had been cast too far away by the stallion to be of any use. Umm... I...

The blue mares carbine took on the same dark purple glow the stallions shotgun had, and was pulled down away from Selene, then a circlet of metal was ripped free of her armor and wrapped itself around her neck, cutting deep into her skin. In sudden panic she dropped her carbine to the ground, and began to cling to the metal circlet that was choking her, but it was too small and buried too deeply into her own flesh for her to get purchase on.

Rather than waiting to simply choke her unconscious, the metal circlet continued to squeeze tighter, cutting deeper and deeper into her neck as blood started to pour out from under it all the way around her neck. In just moments it had cut so deeply that bone snapped and was crushed. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she was released from the magic hold and left to crumple to the ground.

...Nope, no idea how I did that... But hey, four on one, and I won! So what if I only know how I killed the first two, I'm the best...

"Hey," he called out, tearing his eyes away from the poor blue mare who had been garroted by her own armor to look to the white pony, the last pony left alive besides himself. "It's ok, you're safe now."

"Am I?" She asked coolly, slowly stalking forwards with her head lowered slightly. Whether she had lowered her head in fear, caution, flirting, or reverence—I am Luna's spitting image after all—Selene couldn't tell.

Actually, as she pressed closer, it was beginning to look like she was stalking him like prey. Well that's stupid—how do you stalk somepony from the front? Silly unicorn. "Umm, I mean, yea, of course you are, and congratulations: you're my first fan!"

"Fan?" she spit the word, like he had spoken some high blasphemy, her eyebrows coming together in a fierce expression nearing rage. Admittedly, it looked kind of cute.

Well ok, I'd understand if I was some self obsessed pegasus who landed in front of your captors to make the declaration, but I took care of the danger first! I have my priorities perfectly in line, thank you very much! She had begun to move around his right side. Selene extended his right wing, leading edge tilted up, to herd her back in front of him.

Instead of shying away from his wing as he expected, she pressed her left shoulder into it as she turned to face him, still leaning most of her weight into his wing. The sudden pressure pulled Selene off balance, and sensation of her dragging across the sensitive underside of his wing distracted him quite a lot more than he needed to be at the moment.

Danger! Danger! his mind started shouting at him, but the mares eyes—a very dark blue contrasting starkly with her ridiculously white coat—held his attention, or at least what little remained. "You know what I mean," he muttered, despite the fact he didn't even remember what they had been talking about. He shifted his hooves around to better take the mares weight. His wings were strong enough to take his own weight for hours while flying; her's wasn't adding much to be honest, but she kept wiggling around and it was distracting.

"Hey, so what were you doing out here? You don't look like a Raider, but they let you carry your own equipment?" To make the point Selene gave the mare a quick jolt through his wing, and whatever was hidden under her cloak at her sides rattled. The mare lowered her eyes away from his for the first time, looking a bit embarrassed, giving him a moment to think.

Seriously, what's going on? Why are Slavers traveling with a posh unicorn? Wait, a unicorn!? Before he could follow the logical train of thought, which as with any sane pony ends with, she's a powerful unicorn, get the fuck away, she suddenly pressed forward, dragging her shoulder further along the underside of his wing, nearly reaching it's base.

The sudden spike of sensation completely ruined what logical thought Selene was capable of, leaving him faintly wondering if it was a good idea to dance with a viper. Well, snakes can make very good dance partners... so lithe and nimble...

The Unicorn brought her head back up, and stared directly into Selene's eyes, but there was something almost vacant about them, like she was focusing on something else entirely. Danger! Selene's eyes wandered around the Unicorns face, noting the darkened patches under her eyes—whether they were makeup or just part of her natural coloration he couldn't be sure—and her excessively long lashes, but otherwise noting no distinguishing features, which was itself rather unique: most ponies wandering the Wastes had plenty of scares. Either she rarely got herself into fights... or she always won them.

Selene's eyes moved up to her horn, which was glowing with a faint purple light. Selene's mind suddenly flashed back to guns shooting their owners, and armor strangling it's wearer. Danger! Danger! "Umm..."

"Don't worry, darling," the Unicorn mumbled, raising her left foreleg on top of the leading edge of his wing, and running her hoof down all the way to it's base at his side. The leading edge of a wing wasn't actually all that sensitive, and actually had to be pretty tough to take the force of the air in a steep dive. The really sensitive parts were on the underside of the wing, right were she was leaning her shoulder. It was a common mistake non-pegasi made when trying to flirt with a pegasi, but Selene found the gesture cute even if it was ineffective.

That's when the mare suddenly stepped back and turned away. With the weight instantly removed from his wing Selene stumbled forward, although he was able to catch himself without falling.

Selene looked back to the Unicorn, who had stepped back just out of reach, her horn flaring brightly now. Her demur smile had twisted into a one sided grin, teeth showing. The world exploded into bright colors, shifting from a neon red, to a muted green, then a dark blue before finally settling on a deep black.

Selene had expected to feel himself hit the ground, but the sensation never came. He had one last chance as competent though before the darkness swallowed it, and he spent it on the first thought that came to mind.

Fucking. Unicorn. Bitch...

Author's Note