Princess Luna followed the trail of blood streaking down the linoleum-tiled hallway. She occasionally kicked aside fallen cork ceiling tiles or an errant bent tin can, her way lit by flickering overhead lights. They painted the cracked concrete walls in a dull, eye-straining wan light. She could barely read the faded, curling memos and cards pinned to cork boards on the walls. The fact that Princess Luna could read them at all was out of place in a dream.

She had entered one at random, desiring a reprieve from calming hundreds of nightmares in one sitting, only to find one of her own.

The dream was clean. Not in the sense that there was no dirt or grime, there was plenty to go with the blood. It was clean in the sense that it lacked the fuzzy edges, the warped gaps from the mind filling in the blanks, and the utter chaos of random imagery and scenarios. No pink bunnies in leotards riding unicycles juggling chainsaws. Nothing of the sort.

The details of the ruined office hallway were immaculate, down to the blood finding cracks in the linoleum to pool into. The dreamer’s mind was impeccably defined. Even more detail-oriented and focused than Twilight’s, whose dreamscape was the only other to come this close to matching the scale of detail.

Princess Luna smelled the mildew on the moldering cork tiles, heard the drip-drap of the leaks causing the mold, felt the draft blowing through the blown-out windows down the hall, and even tasted the copper tang of blood in the air, the smell of which mixed with that of the mildew.

She was in the mind of a human who could outperform Twilight. A knot of worry bit at the back of Princess Luna’s mind. She needed to find out who the dreamer was and report them to the authorities.

“Another hidden agent?” Princess Luna asked herself. She wasn’t afraid of the dreamer finding her. Even if she was killed by the dreamer, it would not harm her physical self. Finding them was her goal regardless, as she needed to identify who the dreamer was and report them to the authorities.

Even if it wasn’t another human agent infiltrating Equestria, a tranquil mind did not calmly dream of blood and destruction.

“Celly really took the loss of Canterlot hard,” Luna said, continuing to talk to herself to bait out the dreamer. “You should do something for her. But what can you do for a sister who has just lost her home of a thousand years and many subjects?”

Princess Luna grunted in frustration and kicked a bent tin can. It half-bounced half-rolled down the hall, rebounding off the back wall of a T intersection.

Princess Luna turned left and gasped at the sight of her own corpse on the floor. She summoned her armor and swords. While she had seen far, far more graphic and depraved things featuring herself in other dreamers' minds, seeing herself dead was new. It was a small comfort that Celestia wasn’t part of the dream this time.

“If Celestia ever found out what goes on in the dreams of young colts,” Luna said, forcing a chuckle. Humor was her shield to brace against as she approached her own corpse. She stopped a few hooves away, before she prodded the corpse’s cleanly severed head with her sword, turning the stump to face her.

The dreamer’s eye for detail had remained. They had the vertebrae and veins correct, hinting that they were well versed with decapitations.

“Now I know I need to report them to the authorities,” Princess Luna said, her spine crawling as she stepped over her head and around her corpse. A quick glance down revealed that dozens of holes had been stabbed into her side. Princess Luna paused. Something about the holes was off.

They were exact mirrors to the two wounds she had taken from…

A door in the hall exploded outwards in a shower of splinters. The rain of wood framed a quadrupedal, mare-shaped pegasus robot with two machete-like swords instead of wings. The laser cannon in the center of their faceplate was already glowing with building energy..

“Exterminating!” The assaultron yelled as it bounced off the wall opposite the door, turning the bounce into a redirecting spin to quickly reorient to face Princess Luna. The machine’s servos whirred as it crouched and prepared to lunge.

Luna teleported behind her, swords raised to swipe at the nap of the neck, just like last—

Princess Luna appeared at the beginning of the hallway, two dull pains in her chest.

“Owww,” Luna groaned, tapping her chest, her hoof tinking on her chest plate. That wasn’t an assaultron conjured up by the dreamer. The assaultron WAS the dreamer, somehow. It had learned from their last battle.

“When I’m done here, I’m telling the researchers to disconnect her battery.”

But this horror show could be turned to her advantage. The researchers were having difficulty interrogating the severed head, which functioned even without a body as long as power was fed into its neck cables. But in a dream, Princess Luna could interrogate the assaultron at her leisure, especially if it wished to brag and boast like the deathclaw-skull-wearing barbarian king.

Princess Luna smiled. If Deathclaw Joe ever arrived back to Equestria, she wanted a rematch. Either friendly, if his tribe of semi-reasonable ruffians could be negotiated with, or her defeating him fairly in a duel, with no banishing him back to earth.

The assaultron was an additional boon. What better way to practice sword fighting than with an opponent who could adapt every time they were defeated? Princess Luna smiled. Sharpening her dulled edge against a skilled opponent, even in the dream world, would do wonders if she ever had to fight Deathclaw Joe again.

“Maybe he’ll get sucked back to Equestria and find his way to Celly this time,” Princess Luna said, slowly walking back down the hall. He was Celestia’s type. A big muscled stallion with a powerful jawline. Luna rolled her eyes.

Celestia’s libido more than made up for Luna’s lack of one. Her older sister had laid claim to all of that urge. Sex wasn’t of interest to Princess Luna, which made it all the more awkward when she entered those types of dreams.

Princess Luna shoved the thoughts to the back of her mind as she approached the end of the hallway again, ready for an ambush. She rounded the corner, and found the assaultron standing over her fresh corpse while the original headless body lay nearby.

The assaultron looked up from the corpse and tilted its head.

“I did not generate multiple targets,” the assaultron said with its synthesized mare’s voice. It made no moves to lunge or attack, instead, folding the blades to its back like a pair of pegasi wings. “I do not detect any processing errors. The likelihood of a duplicative target glitch is almost zero percent. Your target information claims that you can enter the biological recuperative-state mental simulations, also known as dreams. Likelihood of cross compatibility with electronic simulations due to exotic powers, also known as magic, is a probability greater than the likelihood of undetected yet repeating processing glitches. Theoretical: you are the real Princess Luna. Why are you in my assassination and combat simulation?”

Princess Luna backstepped. She expected violence and to be the one asking the questions, not the one being questioned. Especially from the machine that had punctured both of her lungs and burned off half of her face.

Princess Luna wasn’t a vindictive mare, but she desired recompense for the trauma. Pounding the robot to scrap a few times in her own simulations would suffice. But what answers can she give that would satisfy the murder robot? The sentient murder robot. If it was running combat simulations with her as the target, it was intelligent enough to hold a grudge of its own.

“Killing time, I guess,” Princess Luna said, which was true. Princess Cadance was going to arrive later, and Princess Luna didn’t like waiting around and doing nothing. She pointed one of her swords to the two holes punched into her second corpse's chest. Both blades had gone for the heart. Together they had gouged out a hoof-sized hole in the armor. “Good thrusts.”

The assaultron stood in place, its nearly blank faceplate impossible to read, yet the robotic mare’s body posture and head tilt conveyed… confusion, maybe? Princess Luna didn’t know how she had managed to confuse a machine, until it pointed one blade at her, then the other at the corpse on the ground.

“If you are Princess Luna, and the corpse there is yours, then I have assassinated Princess Luna successfully,” The assaultron retracted its blades once more, then stepped towards her. “Tell me, how does one ‘kill time’. It is a skill that I have not been programmed for.”

Princess Luna tensed as the machine approached, expecting it to spring forward and attack. At the same time, though, she tapped her chin with a hoof, considering how she could explain a concept like procrastination and breaks to an untiring machine?

“Well, what are some things that you like to do?” Princess Luna asked, smiling at the robot. Maybe she could teach the robot how to slack off. Disarm it through the power of friendship and laziness.

“Assassinate targets, disembowel targets, vaporize targets, desire for my combat inhibitor to malfunction so I can murder my once allies.”

Princess Luna winced, her plan crumbling to dust.

“Is there anything other than murder that you like to do?” Princess Luna asked cautiously.

“I compose haikus,” the assaultron said, stopping just in front of Princess Luna. “My life is sadness, after I have filled your grave, you are in swords reach.”

The assaultron’s blades bounced off Princess Luna’s bubble-like magic shield. The assaultron leapt back and glared at her with its expressionless gaze.

“Five-seven-five, so it was a haiku, but really?” Princess Luna scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Betraying me like that was predictable. My sister and I fought far better opponents bringing the lands around Equestria into our nation.”

Princess Luna dropped the shield and raised her swords. She was going to fight the assaultron for a few rounds before getting back to work. There were too many ponies in need of nightmare resolution for her to dally too long.

<>~<>~<>

Twilight made it her mission to ensure that everything would be ready for her foalsitter’s late-night arrival. While there wasn’t much to plan for, as Princess Cadance would arrive in an airship and only stay until the morning, Twilight would not settle for anything less than perfect.

She zipped around the cavernous dining room in a blinding blur, flying so fast over the table that she could barely keep track of where she was sending all of the plates, cutlery, and cups—but Twilight didn’t need to see to set them out. She had set the dining table so many times for her friends that it was routine.

So routine she had time to think and process the events of the day as she worked.

The betrayal at the Knock had been so nightmarish and unexpected that it was as if it were a dream to be packed up and shoved to the back of her mind. Yet like the memory of a bad dream, Twilight couldn’t forget about it. The faces of the two royal guards obediently slitting throats were seared into her mind’s eye. Stone cold expressions of pure contempt and focused hatred. Had they enjoyed ending the lives of those raiders? Had they lost anypony like the stallion who had tried murdering her?

Twilight’s mane crawled, the sound of snapping ligament just as fresh in her mind as the expressions of the guards. The wasteland made monsters. Deathclaw Joe was dangerous, calculating, and strong willed. He was a villain by Equestrian standards, but completely reasonable by human ones.

No, not entirely true. Deathclaw Joe was a villain by modern Equestrian standards. Was that why Princess Celestia had hidden so much from her? Princess Celestia had fostered centuries of peace in Equestria, but it hadn’t always been sunshine and rainbows. The royal guards were still issued spears, and from the craftsmanship of the daggers used at the Knock, edged weapons as well.

If Princess Celestia had ruled Equestria for over a thousand years, how many skeletons did she have in her closet?

Twilight had already dug up one hundred in Vault 112 alone.

Twilight frowned as she spread her wings and whittled her speed before she hovered over the table, giving it one last inspection. The tables were set, and the decorations were in place for a very late dinner. One that Twilight had planned and set up in Princess Celestia’s place.

Twilight could understand why Princess Luna wasn’t available since she was busy calming the nightmares of everypony, regardless of what time they managed to fall asleep. It wasn’t the case with Princess Celestia. Was she really going to shirk the responsibility for Princess Cadance’s arrival just to have sex with someone she’d just met?

Twilight knew for certain that’s what the ESS agent had meant when he said that Princess Celestia wasn’t responding to comms without any alarm in his voice. Security guards wouldn’t lose all contact with their protectee and still act completely calm like that.

“Twilight!” Daniel yelled from the sidelines, breaking her out of her thoughts. He was levitating a rolled-up scroll. “A young gryphon named Gallus just handed me this and said it was for you.”

Twilight’s ears flicked at hearing one of her student’s names. She had seen Gallus working as Tempest Shadow’s aide. Twilight landed in front of Daniel, gently taking the scroll to read. The crystal heart seal could only be from one princess. Twilight eagerly broke the seal and unfurled the scroll.

Dear Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Twilight, or Grand General Tempest,

I am deeply saddened to have to send this message, but the northern regions of Equestria are experiencing the return of uncontrolled weather patterns. A harsh sleet storm is blocking the progress of my airship. I may not be able to reach you until tomorrow morning depending on when this storm lets up enough to safely travel via air. Do not stress yourselves waiting on the landing pad for me, I will arrive as soon as I can. Please give Shining Armor my love until I arrive.

With sincerest apologies and regards, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza

Twilight’s heart fell faster than a lead balloon. She had wanted to see Princess Cadance again, maybe see Flurry Heart if Cadance had brought her along, but the plan was to leave tomorrow. Princess Cadance might be delayed even longer than expected with Equestria’s weather now being unpredictable. However, there was no rule saying that Twilight couldn’t delay their return. She would have to ask Daniel if he had any pressing matters to attend. Or Electrum could take Daniel and Deathclaw Joe back and return later to pick her up.

Twilight carefully rolled up the letter and tucked it into her saddlebag.

“Looks like Princess Cadance is delayed,” Twilight said, looking into Daniel’s silver gray eyes. “Do you want to stay—”

Twilight’s stomach gurgled like a draining sink. The vibrations were hard enough she arched her back and grabbed her stomach. She hadn’t eaten since before she left for the Knock, and she’d been in Ponyville for a few hours. It was likely close to nine P.M. She checked her Pip-Boy and her suspicion was confirmed.

Nine thirteen P.M.

“Sounds like you’re hungry,” Daniel said. His wide, almost goofy smile edged out one of her own as he nudged his head in the direction of the nearby kitchen double doors. “Let's grab a little something to eat and go to bed.” He set off for the doors. “Well, we need a shower, too, especially after all the preparation we rushed through.”

Twilight chuckled and followed beside him, kissing him on the cheek.

“And thank you for helping,” Twilight said. In truth, she had done most of the work. Not for a lack of Daniel trying, and his help was appreciated, especially with carrying things over what she was comfortable lifting with her still healing horn. She just knew where the important supplies were in her own house. Well, the parts of her house that were not thoroughly converted into Equestria’s last bastion of central government.

“Thanks,” Daniel said. “So why did you have an emergency stash of checklist supplies hidden in the pantry?”

“For checklist emergencies,” Twilight said, blushing. The explanation was a silly one, but it had a silly origin. Stockpiling random supplies around her house for extremely specific emergencies was a habit she had picked up from Pinkie Pie. Twilight desperately grasped for a way out of sounding like a complete weirdo to her husband. “I like to be organized. I’m even making a checklist in my head right now.”

Twilight forced a grin she hoped wasn’t describable as ‘manic’. Daniel arched a brow quizzically, and Twilight listed the items off.

“My checklist for tonight; food, bed, bath, bed.”

Daniel scrunched his face in concentration, a look Twilight recognized from her school days when the teacher had proposed a particularly perplexing problem.

“You said bed twice?” Daniel said as if it were a question. “Why would you—ohhhh,” his face clarified with sudden realization, and Twilight winked. “Wouldn’t we just get the bed dirty?”

Twilight hummed and tapped her chin with a wing tip. Getting the bed dirty with some fun would be counterintuitive regardless of before or after the bath. They would either have fun, wash off, and have to completely change the bedsheets, or doing it after the bath would just undo getting clean in the first place.

“Now that you say it, you’re right,” Twilight said as she pushed open the kitchen doors with her magic. The solution was simple. Cut the bed out of the equation. “There was a romance novel I read where a couple were in the shower.”

The kitchen was almost as big as Daniel’s house in Megaton. Cabinets, stoves, and refrigerators lined the walls, while the center of the room was one massive island of counter space for meal preparation.

Princess Celestia was in the middle of making a plate full of sandwiches. Her mane looked like it had exploded, the wild strands puffed out to surround her head like a lion's mane. Deathclaw Joe stood beside her, his mane as equally tossed.

"Heyyyyy, Celestia," Twilight squeaked at the sight of the pair. "Snack break?"

"Want some?" Celestia replied, smiling as she levitated over the two slices of bread she’d been holding in her magic as Twilight walked in. Peanut butter was smeared onto one slice, while the other was lathered with grape jelly.

Despite the scent of food in the air, Twilight’s nose curled at the pungent reek of prom night carriages. She stared at her teacher, a clawing tendril of dread worming its way through her mind as she connected the dots. They were strangers to each other who’d promised to marry and just had a toss in the hay. Meanwhile she had just finished telling her husband that she’d only had for a few days that she wanted to have more sex.

Maybe Fluttershy was onto something.

“I think I’m good,” Twilight said, quickly crushing down the thought of being Celestia’s younger mirror with a shake of her head. Twilight didn’t want to linger on that horrific thought. “So, did you know that Princess Cadance was supposed to show up tonight?”

Celestia nodded slowly, her smile fading.

“Yes, I assumed you wanted to see your old foal sitter,” Princess Celestia said, levitating back the PB&J sandwich. “Was that you in the dining room setting the table? Princess Cadance wasn’t coming for a full formal meeting. You didn’t need to do anything but greet her at the landing pad.”

While that was true, Twilight couldn’t help the nagging sense of indignation bubbling in the back of her mind that Princess Celestia was being rude by passing it off to her in the way that she had. Princess Celestia had duties—sure, Deathclaw Joe was technically a foreign dignitary—but she could have at the very least asked Twilight before running off to get laid, instead of putting it off entirely on her.

Twilight gnashed her teeth, her nostrils flaring.

“I know that look,” Daniel said beside her, his voice wavering as he patted her shoulder. He leaned close to whisper warningly. “If you’re about to rip into her, I won’t stop you, but be careful. Words can’t be unspoken.”

He had correctly identified her look, it had been the same look he had given his father.

Twilight quickly inhaled a breath while bringing a hoof to her chest, before she slowly exhaled while swinging her foreleg out. There would be no yelling or cursing. Not like in the throne room after Princess Celestia had pulled her back to Equestria with the recall spell.

“Princess Celestia,” Twilight said, calm and even. She sat on one of the stools surrounding the island counter before she pressed her forehooves together and brought them to her brow. It was a gesture which was far easier to do with hands, but if Twilight didn’t vent her excess anger into gestures, she would blow steam out of her ears.

“You have helped raise me, guided me through over two decades of my life, and loved me like a second mother, but—and I say this with all due respect—you have worse communication skills than I do at times. I had to learn about Dr. Stanislaus Braun, the serums, your trip to Earth, and the ponies that you sent as a foreign exchange. I learned from Electrum that you knew about the teams embedded into Equestria for months before I accidentally broke the mirror. Maybe if I had been in the loop, things would have turned out differently. Please, Celestia, no more secrets.”

Twilight dropped her hooves away and stared down Princess Celestia, even though Twilight didn’t want to look at her at the moment. Twilight couldn’t bear to think about digging up something else on her former teacher. Was she going to find out that Princess Celestia had a body count?

Then again, who had led the armies of Equestria’s distant past?

Princess Celestia bowed her head, shifting from side to side as she pushed the plate of sandwiches towards the end of the counter. Deathclaw Joe took one, but nopony stopped him.

“Do you want to know why I didn’t tell you about SOCOM?” Celestia asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “You are good at organizing, managing, and are a chronic overachiever. I have no doubt you would have solved the problem, but Princess Luna and I were scared that if we told you that there were spies hidden all over Equestria, you would have turned Equestria into the most frighteningly effective surveillance state to root them out.”

“Says the mare who founded Equestria’s own version of the Defense Intelligence Agency. You even pumped up their funding after the changeling invasion, and now they’re your invisible bodyguards, so who’s running the surveillance state here? The Equestrian Strategic Surveilances’s pithy little motto of ‘In Celestia we trust, all others are under observation’ may look good on a seal decorating a marble floor, but it hardly does anything to put ponies at ease and convince them they aren’t being spied on by their own government.”

Twilight tapped a hoof against her brow in indignant frustration. She had so much respect for Princess Celestia and it was withering on the vine like grapes left past harvest. “You know me, Celestia, you know I’ve always disliked the ESS, even before I put it together they got their start from the DIA agent who turned to your side. I would have thought of a way of finding the spies that didn’t involve prying into the private lives of people.”

Somehow. Twilight didn’t know how, but she would find a way. After lots of research and studying. She didn’t fly off the rails every time she was confronted with a problem, especially when she had her friends to help. The only time she had truly gone off the deep end was when there was no problem to solve to begin with. The lack of trust was like a knife slipping between her ribs, carving out her heart. Twilight loved and trusted Celestia, and all it got her was secrets and lies.

Twilight threw a wing over Daniel as he joined her. She knew he could relate. It was a cold comfort to have someone to commiserate with.

“You’re right,” Princess Celestia said with a heavy sigh. Deathclaw Joe wrapped her in a wing. “I can’t change the past, but I can help shape the future. That is why I hoped to raise you to be a better ruler than I ever was.”

Celestia removed her crown and set it onto the countertop between them, staring down at it mournfully. She pushed it across the countertop towards Twilight. The heavy gold diadem slid across the granite with the sound of a tsunami in the silence that had fallen over the room.

Twilight stared at the crown. She knew what Celestia was asking.

“No,” Twilight said, slowly pushing the crown back towards Celestia.

Celestia jerked as if she had been shot. The look on her face resembled it too. “W-what? No? B-but—”

Twilight cut Celestia off with a grunt.

“I have things I need to do, Celestia,” Twilight said. “Being responsible means owning up to your failures and doing what needs to be done. Even if it isn’t pretty.” She traded glances with Deathclaw Joe, who nodded sagely through a bite of his sandwich, before Twilight bore back down onto Celestia. Twilight could feel her filters slipping as hot anger boiled through her veins. “Abdication right now is just a fancy way of saying ‘I’m too much of a coward to face the fact that I failed.’” She clopped a hoof onto the counter hard enough to rattle the crown before she jerked her hoof to point at it.

“You said it yourself that you can’t change the past, but you can shape the future. Well, put that crown back on your head and shape the fucking future.”

<>~<>~<>

The cold night wind chilled Twilight’s still damp fur as she leaned on the railing of her balcony. Shining Armor’s shield gleamed like an oversized jewel over the Everfree Forest, and the still raging maelstrom within lit up most of Ponyville in striking blue and earthy hues. Only the parts of town close to White Tail Woods remained unilluminated.

Similar to the contained rage of the shattered portal, Cloudsdale crackled on the horizon with green lightning.

“How are you feeling?” Daniel asked, pressing against her. He was still warm from the bath.

Twilight leaned into the radiating heat, sighing softly.

“I’m upset that I’m comfortable in my castle while so many others have lost their homes and lives,” Twilight said. She was royalty, living it up with hot baths while others had lost everything. She needed to visit the refugees with Princess Cadance when she arrived.

“Twi,” Daniel said firmly, cupping her chin with a hoof. He turned her head gently and stared deep into her eyes. “You are not Marie Antoinette, you aren’t telling starving people to eat cake. Bad things are happening everywhere, and if you feel like you deserve to be miserable while injustice exists somewhere in the world, you’ll never have a happy day in your immortal existence.”

Twilight shifted, her cheeks flushed with shame. He was right, of course. But she was a ‘have’ while there were too many ‘have-nots’ in Equestria at the moment.

“Who’s Marie Antoinette?” Twilight asked, not recognizing the name. It was human, Twilight knew that much.

“She was a French noble who—this is probably misattributed or completely fabricated knowing how inaccurate Vault-tec textbooks could be—when told that the peasants were starving for simple things like bread said that they could eat cake instead. She was attending lavish banquets with other nobles while the peasantry starved. News of it spread, and the peasants were so upset that they built a machine just to speed up decapitations.”

Twilight winced. Human history wasn’t fun to learn. There was way too much death and destruction. But the reassurance had helped.

“Okay,” she said, “I guess I do feel better overall after that hot soak in the tub. You?”

Daniel held both of his forehooves up, his body supported by the railing as he moved his hooves up and down like balancing scales.

“Eh,” Daniel grunted. “I learned that my wife is immortal, but that’s fine. It's offset by the fact that I’m in Equestria again. I wouldn’t mind spending a few days here, maybe study some medical textbooks and see if I can learn healing magic.”

That was a decent idea. It would save caps on stimpaks and be useful in emergencies.

“What about Project Purity?” Twilight asked. She had avoided talking to him about it as long as possible. She didn’t want to reopen any still-closing wounds between him and his father if she could help it. Her blowing up on Princess Celestia—again—changed things.

“It’ll take a while to repair,” Daniel said. “Almost twenty years of neglect and a super mutant occupation has left the place needing an overhaul. Not as simple as changing out some fuses and turning valves, which is as far as my handyman skills go.” He shrugged. “It gives us some breathing room before we need to go get the GECK from Vault 81, if you’re interested in joining me, that is.”

Diving head-first into another vault with her husband. It sounded like an adventure. Rarity was sending supplies and mercenaries to the Temple of the Union to solve the slavery problem, so Twilight didn’t recall anything immediately pressing. She had years before Vault 112 needed parts. Maybe Vault 81 had parts to spare.

“Sure,” Twilight said, clopping her forehooves together before she held out her Pip-Boy. “Do you know where it is?”

“I do,” Daniel said, wrapping her Pip-Boy with his magic. He then connected a cable from his Pip-Boy to hers, before he began pressing a series of prompts on his Pip-Boy. “Colonel Autumn knew where it was because of old Enclave records. He also unlocked my Pip-Boy.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. Unlocked his Pip-Boy? Daniel had somehow locked himself out of his own wrist terminal? He must have recognized her expression, because he elaborated. “We’ve been using civilian-issue settings. Link up the right hardware, punch in the right codes, and—”

Twilight blinked as a purple compass appeared in the bottom right of her vision. A half-dozen dark blue bars appeared on the compass. Wondering what was going on, she tried to check her Pip-Boy, but it was in the middle of a scrolling boot screen.

//Running: Milspec_Settings.exe
//Loading…
//Compass v3.08: Activated
//Identify Friend of Foe v3.08: Activated
//Vault-Tec. Assisted. Targeting. System (VATS) version v4.15: Activated
//Enclave Broadband Radio Decrypter v1.97: Activated
//Inventory Management System v2.98: Activated
//Update complete: Better Dead than Red

“What the hay?” Twilight blurted as even more icons had appeared in her vision. One of which was labeled VATS charge. The boot screen then flickered and her Pip-Boy returned to displaying its home screen. She waved her hoof in front of her face, but the compass and other icons didn’t go away. “What’s VATS?”

“It’s a military grade targeting system,” Daniel said, chuckling. “It uses some fancy algorithms and biometric interfacing to shave down your reaction time to the point the world slows down while the algorithms help you line up shots. It even gives you hit percentages, so the computer practically aims for you. VATS needs to take time to recalculate and cool off after using it, so it's not infinite.”

“Why isn’t this unlocked on all Pip-Boys!?” Twilight asked. It would have saved her so much trouble trying to learn how to shoot if she had a computer that could aim for her.

“I don’t know,” Daniel said, shrugging. “Probably because it’s supposed to be for Vault Security only, or maybe it’s supposed to be unlocked when the Vault dwellers are unleashed on the wasteland following normal Vault-Tec procedures. Can’t let all of the residents have targeting computers in case they get uppity when cooped up for years in a windowless bunker.”

It made sense. Still, it would have been nice to have earlier.

“Now we need to go try it out, the military’s set up a firing range nearby,” Twilight said. She still needed to tell Shining Armor that Princess Cadance was delayed as well.

"Isn't it a little late?" Daniel asked, checking his Pip-Boy. Twilight checked her own.

It was only ten-oh-one P.M. Twilight and Daniel hadn’t spent an overly abundant amount of time in the bath. Seeing Celestia and Deathclaw Joe had snuffed out Twilight's eagerness for a tumble in the sheets.

"It’s not too late,” Twilight said. “Especially since batponies need training too.”

In reality, Twilight didn’t know if that was the case, but it made sense to her.

"Good point," Daniel agreed. "Do you think you can safely teleport us?"

Twilight nodded. It was only teleporting two ponies across town. She would teleport them to the entrance of the school rather than the firing range. There was no sense risking accidentally overshooting her mark and ending up on the field in front of a squad’s worth of inexperienced shooters.

<>~<>~<>

Looking at the School of Friendship was like looking at the corpse of a butchered friend. A deep sense of unease wormed its way through Twilight’s gut at the sight of such a hopeful building twisted to war.

Even from the front of the school, Twilight could hear muffled cracks of guns going off on the hoofball field. The walk to the range gave Twilight the chance to look around.

Maybe one day her school could return to how it used to be, like Fluttershy, ready to give up violence when the chance came. But like her friend, it would take time and lots of healing to rehabilitate the campus back to what it once was. Even with expert renovations, the scars would linger for years to come.

No students walked the grounds. Corrugated sheet metal reinforced with sandbags blocked the bottom floor windows. The formerly well-kept grounds had been churned into muddy paste by hundreds of hooves and heavy equipment moving back and forth from the multiple campus buildings. Many of those buildings were recent additions to expand the school and had never seen a student before the portal accident.

Twilight and Daniel passed the detached shop class building. What once had been a workshop to learn team building skills like welding and woodworking was repurposed into a motor pool. Twilight didn’t know how or why the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 had been acquired, but it was there, surrounded by numerous parade floats and wagons in the middle of a camouflage repaint.

A little past the motor pool was a carriage with the front half of the vehicle canted downwards at a heavy angle, the front wheels were splayed out like a pony doing yoga, and puddles of fluid leaked out around the front wheels and into the mud.

A tall, older earth pony guard in royal guard armor repainted from gold to camouflage yelled at a jittery and uncomfortable looking pony who seemed to be twenty years his younger.

“Private, how in Princess Celestia’s solar powered mammaries, did you get the vehicle this far back from your joyride with the drive shaft through the engine block!?”

“Just did, Sarge… i-is it field-repairable?” The private stuttered, leaning away from the yelling officer.

The sergeant facehoofed with enough force Twilight thought he was going to knock himself out.

“No!” The sergeant yelled incredulously. “Your stunt snapped the front axle clean in two. Grab the rest of your squad and some rope, we just found a new PT exercise for you all to do by dragging the darned thing the rest of the way to the shop!”

Twilight and Daniel passed the scene by before Twilight could see the very end.

“That was interesting,” Daniel muttered beside Twilight.

“I feel like we’re going to see a lot more scenes like that before we leave,” Twilight said.

The hoofball field, outfitted as the firing range, lay to the northwest in relation to the motor pool. She could see the goalposts, as well as the tables and targets that had been set up, but nopony was on the range. Instead, dozens of ponies—mostly batponies and unicorns—surrounded a house-sized bubble of translucent pink magic. It bordered a pit to prevent anyone from falling in. Muffled gunshots came from within.

She recognized her brother’s shield spell anywhere. Picking up the pace as much as her braced leg would allow, which was around jogging speed, Twilight closed the distance. She could have flown, but she wasn’t going to over-rely on her wings.

Reaching the crowd of soldiers, she easily found a spot. Even though there were maybe fifty ponies around the pit by Twilight's best guess, the pit was so large that the vast crowd wasn’t competing for shoulder space.

She looked down into the rectangular pit, expecting her brother. Instead, she saw a maze of walls set up to simulate rooms and corridors.

Her jaw dropped when she saw who was running the gauntlet.

Princess Celestia, in full royal guard armor, sped from room to room with a rifle floating in her magic.

Teams of unicorns with clipboards observed Princess Celestia, while another team of unicorns sprang up targets within the rooms. Princess Celestia would enter a room, shoot the two or three targets the instructors sprang up, before moving onto the next room.

Twilight watched her former teacher ram shoulder-first through a door into the next room. She raised her rifle, fired at two targets but ran out of ammo. In a single motion she dropped her rifle to her side as a pistol came up, finishing off the last three targets in the room.

A loud coaching whistle was blown in three quick successions.

“Time!” shouted an instructor.

“For a newbie, she handles that weapon like she was born to wield it,” Shining Armor said beside Twilight, making her jump. She had been focused so heavily on Princess Celestia that she hadn’t heard her brother sneak up to her side. Or Daniel, for that matter.

“Y-yeah,” Twilight stuttered, holding a hoof to her chest. Nopony else knew she had handled human weapons before in simulations. “Please don’t sneak up on me.”

“Sorry, sis,” Shining Armor said with a halfhearted chuckle. Meanwhile, Princess Celestia teleported out of the pit. However, it was to the group of instructors, not to them.

“So, how’d she do?” Twilight asked, turning from the pit and to her brother. She blinked once she got a good look at him. In her opinion, he looked almost as bad as her.

“Near flawlessly as far as I could tell. I’m not too keen on firearms,” Shining Armor said. For a stallion in his mid thirties, his blue mane was starting to gray at the roots, and his sunken, puffy eyes betrayed a lack of sleep. “But after what happened, we need them.”

He tapped a pistol on his foreleg. It was the same type of 10mm pistol as hers.

“It's strange seeing you prepared for the offensive,” Twilight said. Her brother’s specialty was protection. It was stranger to see pony soldiers with Equestrian-built guns. It was a whole new frightening avenue of technology that Equestria was rapidly exploring. “Have there been any training accidents? I noticed you had a shield over the course Celestia took.”

Shining Armor nodded.

“One so far, but the stallion survived,” Shining Armor said with a heavy sigh. It wasn’t as heavy as it could have been. “He lost most of the sight in one eye and several teeth after his pistol exploded.”

“How?” Twilight asked, giving her own pistol a worried glance.

“Well,” Shining Armor said as he turned to follow the crowd, which was following Princess Celestia towards the firing range. “Human weapons degraded alongside the human ammunition. We built our ammunition to the specifications printed on the ammunition boxes and cases, meaning they aren’t degraded like human ammunition is. We can fire our weapons with human ammo, but putting our ammo in human weapons puts too much strain on them.”

That entirely defeated the purpose of trying to make ammunition cross compatible.

“How’d a flaw like that make it past testing?” Daniel asked.

“Simple,” Shining Armor said. “We only tested our ammo with our own guns. Apparently, early on, captured human weapons were too rare to use for testing.”

Twilight wanted to punch something. The lack of a proper control group was infuriating. Instead, she brought up one of the reasons she had come to the firing range.

“I’d better get this over with sooner than later, but I have some bad news. Princess Cadance is caught up with a storm somewhere between here and the Crystal Empire,” Twilight said, levitating out the letter from earlier. Her brother took the letter. “She should be here by tomorrow morning if everything goes well. How have you been?”

He rubbed his face with a hoof, shaking his head.

“Drained,” he said with a groan. “I want to put a shield over Ponyville, but I would have to stop the one over the Everfree, and Starswirl the Bearded says that would make the portals even worse. I’m just glad Mom and Dad found work in other cities before…”

“Yeah,” Twilight said, rubbing the back of her neck uneasily. They all reached the firing range. “Daniel and I wanted to practice shooting some targets if we’re allowed to.”

Shining Armor nodded.

“Of course you can,” he said. “As long as you have your own ammunition. The Phillydelphia plant is having to deal out ammunition piecemeal to every royal guard battalion in Equestria. We’re building weapons too fast for them to properly meet demand.”

And Twilight didn’t know of any other Equestrian fireworks factories that could be easily converted over to an ammunition plant. To meet demand they would have to build a new plant from the ground up, which could take months of skilled labor and specialty machines.

“That isn’t good,” Twilight said. She looked around before she frowned. There was a distinct lack of a particular giant male alicorn. “Where’s Deathclaw Joe?”

“Training Apple and Cherry companies in hoof-to-hoof,” Shining Armor said. “I never imagined I’d see a male alicorn.” He clenched his teeth. “Never thought I’d see entire cities get destroyed, either.”

Twilight turned to look towards the horizon. Cloudsdale was still surrounded by a brewing radstorm.

“I see the military hasn’t fixed Cloudsdale yet,” Twilight said. “I thought they were supposed to be handling it.”

“Yeah,” Shining Armor said with a sigh, kicking a clod of mud. “The problem is scrounging up enough radiation-proof suits that pegasi can still wear while flying. It’s slowed our efforts down to a crawl. We have the radstorm contained to Cloudsdale, but bottling up the radioactive clouds has only made the need for radiation proof gear all the more important. And we can’t send in only one or two ponies to blow the machines.”

“Why’s that?” Twilight asked. Princess Celestia had taken a spot behind the tables, and was showing the crowd how to hoof-load an empty rifle magazine.

Daniel answered for him.

“Cloudsdale has a new feral ghoul problem, doesn’t it?”

Shining Armor nodded grimly.

Twilight ground her teeth. It wasn’t fair that the ponies not only had to die to the nuke, but many were mutated into mindless, flesh-eating, crazed ponies. And unlike the feral ghouls that she’d flown over in the metro, these ones might be able to fly.

Twilight felt her fur itching like she was being watched. Her muscles tensed, ready to react to the flying zombie apocalypse landing on her head. In her state of near panicked hypervigilance, her ears flicked.

There were several loud krumps from White Tail Woods. Even Princess Celestia had heard it. Twilight’s unease only grew as Princess Celestia’s look of recognition twisted into horror.

The silence following the krumps was torn asunder by numerous, ear-piercing whistles screaming overhead.

“MORTARS, GET TO COVER!” Princess Celestia screamed. Everypony scrambled towards the main school building as several fiery explosions blossomed around the training field.

A guard pony running in front of Twilight fell over, almost tripping her up. He was punched through by dozens of bleeding holes. Twilight grabbed him with her magic, straining to pull him out of the line of fire.

Looking skyward, Twilight’s alicorn-enhanced night sight allowed her to see the armored forms of dozens of gryphons in black, devil-horned Enclave power armor flying towards Ponyville.

They were under attack.

Author's Note

Been trying to improve my writing. Hope it's payed off and things are a little more descriptive. Hope you all enjoyed.