In a barren and brown dirt field a large green machine stood slumped slightly besides a small group of boulders, beside it a purple mare was using water from a canteen to wash her hands before drying them on one of her work rags she carried with her.

Twilight had to admit, fingers were very useful, though they didn’t beat Chrysalis’ aide they still got the job done nicely. The UNSC Mantis, piloted by the alicorn had landed in this tan dry, barren field after stepping through the rift and after concluding she still didn’t seem to be home she had done a quick visual scan for enemies and when she found none began to walk the mantis a ways till she found the rocks to provide some privacy.

Once that had been dealt with and she cleaned up she looked at the Mantis, while she absolutely loved the vehicles ability to cause death and mayhem it also would probably scare the first person who saw it and that could lead to accidents, so reluctantly the mare stored the mech till she would need it again, she would also need to check its ammo count as well as what it fired, which meant she would need to work on the replicator she had to get it working to make ammo and other supplies, right now it was a food replicator so could only make meals and it had limited power. Twilight would need to work on getting it to be able to be powered by her magic as well as replicate more than just food and drink, she looked forward to tinkering with the alien device but before she could do that she needed to figure out where she was.

Taking her binoculars out and climbing on the largest boulder she had used for privacy the soldier swept the horizon with the binoculars set to maximum zoom. After a few second of her slow scan she spotted what looked like a house a few miles away from her current location, with an objective now firmly in mind the mare hopped from the rock, stored her binoculars and donned her armor.

Once she was fully armored and armed the mare began to trek across barren land towards the distant structure. She walked so as not to use up valuable energy, she had been in combat not that long ago and wasn’t sure when she would be able to sleep again much less get something more than the military issued protein bar she snacked on as she walked, she only ate half of it and stored the rest as the bars were for used in the field by EDF soldiers when on long missions so they could keep their strength up and she only had three in her survival kit. She had to agree with the general consensus, that despite the fact the bar’s package said it was apple flavored, the high protein bar tasted nothing like apples, she wasn’t sure what it tasted like actually but it certainly wasn’t anything one would choose to eat if they had a choice.

As she neared the building she saw it was indeed a house as she had thought though it was in bad shape, the windows were all empty of glass and most of white paint had long since flacked off as well as one side of the of the house looking like its paneling had been blown clean off by a very strong wind.

If not for what was clearly neglect on the home owner’s part by the long dead lawn and mostly destroyed white picket Twilight felt the house would have been nice. It was clear that someone was home as she could see lights in the windows on the first floor and making sure she looked as friendly as one could look in full combat armor with an assault rifle slung on her back she approached the door, or where the door would have been if not for the fact it looked in it had been blown off its hinges, idly the mare mused that it looked like the house had been raided.

Twilight dropped to quadruped mode as it seemed to be a pony sized house as she reached the door and was about to knock on the door frame when she heard a giggle that could only be described as unbalanced from inside. “Heheh, what you think we should do with her?” The voice, a stallion, asked

“I don’t know, ask the boss.” Another stallion’s voice answered.

“I told you two idiots to shut up so you don’t wake her. “A mare’s voice said with annoyance.

“Come on, can’t I have just a little fun with the little bitch?” The first voice asked.

“No, if she is hurt we won’t be able to get a good price for her.” The mare said with annoyance and Twilight heard enough.

With a scowl on her face Twilight barged into the house and made her way to where the light was coming from which seemed to be the living room. She found four ponies in the room, one mare and two stallions, and one filly lying unconscious in a cage that seemed to be made from shopping carts however it was the room’s decor that caught the military mare’s eye. One of the walls was decorated with a ponies headless corpse that had been nailed in place fully spread eagle and had been disemboweled, what she assumed was the pony’s head was sitting on the mantle place above the fireplace a fork jammed into each empty eye sockets. On the other side of a room was the scattered parts of another pony that had been dismembered and the parts arranged into a collage of gore. While Twilight could enjoy art when she saw it as much as the next mare, it told her all she needed about the three ponies around the campfire, why the fire wasn’t in the fireplace she had no idea, that she needed.

The three ponies dressed in a grab bag of objects to serve as armor, with a few smears of blood thrown in for good measure, jumped to their hooves as the mare barged in and interrupted their talk of selling the filly. “Who the hell are you!?” The mare, a unicorn, demanded brandishing a shotgun of a design Twilight was unfamiliar with and was in need of some serious TLC as it had rust along the barrel, Twilight could almost cry at the sight of such poor gun maintenance

“Hehe, its’ another bitch!” An earth pony stallion said with glee in the voice of the unbalanced pony from before as he brandished a large butcher knife held in his mouth.

The last pony was another unicorn wielding an unfamiliarly designed pistol in similar disrepair as the shotgun, what did these ponies have against basic weapon maintenance, in his magic. Twilight put on her friendliest smile. “You do realize I have to kill you all right?” She said gesturing to the filly in cage.

“Oh yeah, you and what army? There’s three of us and only one of you.” The mare said with clear superiority and Twilight’s smile only grew wide.

After about ten minutes Twilight walked out of the house humming a cheerful tune she had heard somewhere, she wasn’t sure where, her armor had a splash of crimson on it and the filly was resting comfortably on her back, held in place by the alicorn’s wings as she wondered off into the barren wasteland to put a bit of distance between herself and the house that had some new art decorating the walls.

<<>>

Broken Dawn slowly started to come to; her head was swimming as consciousness slowly returned. The first thing she noticed was the fact she was laying on something soft, the second was that she was breathing air that didn’t stink of rotting bodies

Realizing there was no stink when there should be caused the memories of being ambushed by the raiders and knocked out by a blow to the side of the head to come rushing back and her dark green eyes shot open and looked around franticly.

She blinked several times as she relied she wasn’t in a raider camp and in fact there wasn’t any sign of the raiders anywhere. She didn’t really know where she was actually as she was sitting in a seat covered in some rather comfortable cushioning and around her was mostly metal with glass held in a frame in front of her and was open above her and to her sides, with just a think beam running between the two seats. In front of the other seat was some sort of wheel like on motorized boats, though this didn’t look like any boat she had ever seen, and the fact she could see the tri-barrels of a weapon that was clearly mounted behind the seats above her told her this defiantly wasn’t a boat, oh and the fact it she was surrounded by land and not water told her as well.

Brushing her red and pink mane out of her eyes, reveling a small horn, the dark blue unicorn filly sat up and started to look around the strange vehicle, everything looked brand new like it was freshly built. She had seen what “new” looked like as she had looked at the pictures in old magazines and it showed what new objects looked like and this vehicle looked new.

As she looked around she looked out the side of the vehicle and found a face topped with a dark green helmet mere inches away from hers and wearing a smile. “Oh good! You ar—“

Whack!

The pony stumbled back clutching her nose with a hoof, her eyes squeezed shut as Dawn pressed herself to the raised area between the two seats, her heart beating like mad and threating to burst from her chest as she tried to get control of her breathing.

“Ow! Son of a bitch you got a hell of a right hook kid!” The pony said rubbing her nose vigorously and Dawn took a closer look at her as her heart and breathing calmed. The other pony was purple and wearing a dark green helmet as well as armor with some smeared blood on the front that looked like she had tried to wipe off but had failed to get it all off and the filly could see a horn poking through the front of the helmet, but what the filly noticed most, besides the scars on the other ponies face, were her eyes, they were purple but something was off about them, they didn’t look right, like they were unnatural.

The other pony blinked several times before she lowered her hoof and looked at down with sheepish smile. “Suppose that wasn’t the best way to greet you after you just woke up was it? “The mare said as she rubbed the back of her head with a hoof, her eyes closed and Dawn noticed for the first time that the mare’s legs were made of a purple metal.

The mare lowered her hoof back to the ground. “Sorry for startling you, I didn’t mean to.” She said and smiled warmly. “My name’s Twilight, what’s yours?” Dawn narrows her eyes at the mare and tried to figure out what her angle was acting friendly like that. The mare’s smile slowly faltered. “Are you ok? Can you speak?”

“I’m fine.” Dawn said crisply, her eyes locked on the mare.

The mare nodded. “Ok that’s good, you’ve been out for a few hours and I was starting to get worried as your head injury didn’t seem that severe but you were out for a long time.” The mare said and nodded matter of factly. “Do you remember your name?” Dawn nodded her head. “Ok….mind telling me?”

Dawn’s eyes’ narrowed once more. “Why should I?”

The smile dropped from the mare’s face into a confused frown as she tilted her head to one side. “Because I told you mine, it’s only polite you tell me yours.”

Dawn rolled her eyes at what the mare was saying, she sounded like a stable-pony who was fresh from the stable, come to think of it the mare did look rather clean and well fed so she probably was. “You don’t need to know my name as it won’t really matter in the end.” She said simply and sat down on her haunches in the seat.

“Oh? And why’s that kid?” Twilight asked.

“Because you will probably be dead in a few hours is why.” Dawn said with a shrug.

The mare blinked and scratched her chin with a hoof. “No, I don’t think so, that doesn’t sound like me.” She said thoughtfully before nodding as if reaching a decision. “No that defiantly doesn’t sound like me. I don’t die easily.”

Dawn sighed at how stupid stable ponies were. “Look, it doesn’t matter what you did in the Stable, it won’t matter in the end and you’ll be dead unless you are extremely lucky to find somepony willing to hire a…whatever it was you did in the Stable if they can put up with your stupidity.”

The mare blinked and tilted her head once more. “What’s a Stable?”

Dawn blinked; no way could this pony be that stupid not to know where she lived until recently. “It’s the underground shelter you lived in before you came out here.”

“So it’s a bunker.” The mare said and nodded. “Ok, well I don’t now, nor have I ever lived in a bunker, I did live in a sewer for a time but that was a looooonnnng time ago.” The mare said sweeping her hoof through the air to show how long ago it was. “As for what I am, I am a soldier, pure and simple.”

Dawn blinked at the mare, who was she trying to fool saying she wasn’t from a Stable when it was clear she was, and what was that about being a soldier? Yeah she seemed to have military armor but those weren’t too hard to come by as there were many old army bases around if one was willing to risk venturing into them as many had security systems that were still active.

There was only one possible explanation, this pony had run into trouble and it had been bad as a lot of ponies saw Stable ponies as easy targets do to the fact they didn’t know anything about how to survive and were ridiculously friendly and so now the mare was trying to hide the facts.

“Anyways I don’t recommend wondering off as though the head injury wasn’t to bad it could have still done something I can’t detect so I recommend resting for a few hours.” The mare said as she went around to the front of the vehicle. “If you need something just call kid.” She said before disappearing from sight around the front of the vehicle.

Seeing as it was a stable pony which meant she wasn’t dangerous in the slightest Dawn decided to take her advice and rest for a few hours and watch the mare to try and figure out what she was doing. Dawn watched as the mare moved around the vehicle she sat in and inspected it from top to bottom. Dawn also inspected the vehicle from where she lay with all for legs tucked under her in the passenger seat, she been trying to figure out what was wrong with the vehicle besides the fact Dawn had never seen something like it and that it looked new and it finely hit her. It was huge, bigger than it should be to allow a pony to operate easily, almost as if it were designed for something larger than a pony.

After a couple of hours of watching the mare go over the vehicle in great detail she watched as the mare climbed behind the wheel of the vehicle. “So then kid, will you at least tell me if there is a town or something nearby? “I’m kind of new to the area and don’t know where anything is out here.” She asked looking at Dawn.

The filly thought about it for a few moments and decided there was no harm in telling the other mare where the nearest settlement was, checking her Pip-buck to get her location the filly spoke up. “Chapel is north east of her.” She said and looked up at the mare, noticing she didn’t seem to have a Pip-buck, probably stolen from her during whatever happened that lead to her trying to lie about being from a Stable. “Northeast is.”

“I know which way that is, my helmet has a compass.” The mare said interrupting Dawn. “You may want to hang on.” She said as she reached behind the wheel and pushed a button, a growling sound coming from the front of the vehicle made Dawn jump and nearly bolt for her life but the sound of the mare laughing stopped her. “Jeez kid, it’s almost like you’ve never heard an engine before.” She said smiling with amusement at the filly who scowled back.

Dawn then noticed that five fingers had sprouted from the mare’s front hooves and she used them to grip the wheel as she pressed on of the peddle on the floor with a hoof and the vehicle shot forward throwing Dawn against the back of the seat. “I warned you.” The mare said with a chuckle as she looked from Dawn to out the window in front of the vehicle.

Dawn recovered and sat in the seat holding onto the raised area between the two seats for dear life as she watched the terrain race past as the vehicle rocketed through the wasteland. How did this thing work? Nothing like this worked! The filly looked over the dashboard in front of her, it looked new….because it was new, brand new which meant it functioned.

Turning her head she looked at the mare behind the wheel a small smile on her face as she drove the vehicle, just what sort of Stable did she come from that they had working vehicles like nothing else in the wasteland? “Do you like music?” The mare suddenly asked breaking Dawn out of her thoughts. Before the filly could answer the mare continued on. “Of course you do, everyone likes music.” She said as she pulled a small flat rectangle from her saddle bags in a purple magical glow and placed it in a stand attached to the center of the dashboard. A screen on the object turned on and Dawn watched in wide eyed amazement as the mare used her magic to expertly navigate through all the menus that popped up rapidly, Dawn wasn’t sure what they said as reading wasn’t exactly a priority to survive, least not a main one, she enough to get by on the items she finds.

After reaching whatever it was she had been looking for in the endless menus the menus vanished and were replaced by bars that moved up and down as a strange TUNEstarted to play from both the object as well as speakers mounted on the vehicle.

Dawn blinked as the strange music played and then somepony started singing, it wasn’t like anything she had ever heard on the radio, in fact it was nothing like any music she had even heard about before. The mare seemed familiar with the song as one of her fingers tapped the wheel in time with the beat of the song and her head bobbed with it as well, after a bit she actually started to sing along with the song showing she knew it well.

Who in the name of the Goddesses was this strange mare? Dawn didn’t know if she had made a mistake or not staying with the mare and not slipping away the first chance she got, either way it was too late now as they were going too fast for her to leap from the vehicle and though the mare had gotten her saddle bags and quick inspection reveled they were empty of most of her items so that meant no health potions which meant getting a broken leg would be a death sentence as she had no food or water either, all she had was the few items she had salvaged before the raiders jumped her.

Come to think of it what happened to those raiders? They wouldn’t have just knocked her out and stolen her supplies then left her there alive would they? No that’s not how raider worked. For a moment Dawn thought maybe the mare had dealt with the raiders but that thought was quickly snuffed out by simple logic of her being fresh from a Stable so wouldn’t be able to kill anyone. Something must have scared off the Raiders or they liked the idea of her starving out in the wasteland, either was a possibility.

As the song came to an end the vehicle came sailing over a hill and at the speed the mare had it going it actually left the ground and Dawn clutched the center piece tighter as her heart threatened to escape from her mouth and her stomach became floaty. “Woohoo!” The mare yelled at the height of their jump and then they came crashing down and kept going as Chapel grew in the distance, thank the Goddesses! She wanted to be out of this crazy vehicle.

The mare used her magic to turn off the music as another song started up and the only sound was the vehicles engine and Dawns own thundering heart. “IS that Chapple?” The mare asked pointing over the steering wheel.

Very carefully and trying to keep as tight a grip on the center peace as possible the unicorn filly looked over the dashboard and out the windshield. “y-yes.” She croaked out and dropped back down to hug the center piece tightly, she chided herself for letting fear into her voice but this thing was going faster than anything she had ever seen and she was on it and the fact it had just left the ground not a moment ago didn’t help.

The mare didn’t slow down at all as she headed straight for the town and dawn was afraid she thought she meant the large city behind the town, of that was the case Dawn would have to jump from the vehicle before it reached the mercy line on the bridge and take the broken legs.

However as the vehicle came roaring into the town the mare hit the brakes and turned the wheel causing the vehicle to skid around as it came to a stop in the center of the town. Dawn wasted no time leaping from the vehicle. “Land! Sweet glorious land!” She said as she hugged the dirt and killed it, couching and spitting as some got in her mouth.

“Dawn? Is that you?” A voice asked and the filly looked up to see several other foals, all wearing capes with a rearing foal on them staring at her wide eyed as well as several adults. Realizing how she was acting dawn jumped to her hooves, a slight blush on her face.

“Yup, yup! It’s me.” She said a bit too quickly and chided herself once more.

The fillies and colts, known as the crusaders blinked at her. “Are you ok?” One of them asked.

“Never better!” She said a bit loud and almost face hoofed at how she was acting, it’s not like traveling at that speed had harmed her, it was just…she had never traveled faster than a gallop and that vehicle traveled a lot faster than that.

The Fillies and colts looked at each other then back at Dawn and she could tell they didn’t believe her. She couldn’t believe she had acted that way in front of the Crusaders after telling them she didn’t want to join their group of wasteland orphans. While Dawn was an orphan, her parents apparently having been killed by raiders or something, she didn’t know, they just never came back one day when they had gone out to scavenge, she preferred being on her own as it allowed her to hide easier and plus anything she found she didn’t have to share so it meant more food, more water and more caps.

She wasn’t saying the Crusaders wanting to band together was a bad thing, she knew that having more than one pair of eyes made searching buildings faster and easier plus most ponies meant more directions could be watched for threats as well as having somepony on watch while the others slept, though Dawn just found a really good hiding place and slept that way. It was a good system in the wasteland but she just preferred not having to worry about taking care of the younger foals that the group had as well as the older.

“Dawn, did you bring in any good salvage?” one of the foals asked as the adults started to file away, seeing it was just Dawn, there were very few adults that lived in Chapel as most didn’t come here to live here.

Dawn recovered from her ride with that question and stood up as tall as she could and puffed out her chest. “You know I did.” She said then remembered her saddle bags were mostly empty do to the raiders. “But on my way back I got ambushed by some raiders and lost most of it in the fight.”

The younger foals eyes widened and some of the other ones leaned forward to hear more. “You were ambushed by raiders? How did you escape?” One of the younger ones asked.

“It was easy, there was only about twenty of them is all.” She boasted. “IF they want to catch me they would need to bring a few hundred.” She said with pride.

“You escaped form twenty raiders?” A younger filly asked with awe as she looked up at the older unicorn filly.

“I only counted three when I found you kid.” A voice said from behind dawn and she froze, she had forgotten about the strange mare in telling her story. “And they didn’t seem too much of a threat as they had no real training and there weapons were in such poor repaired I’m surprised they didn’t explode when they fired them.”

Dawn slowly looked back over her shoulder and her eyes widened as the mare came around the front of the vehicle, the driver side had been facing away from the gathering of ponies do to the spine it had done as it came to a stop. What caused her eyes to widen was the fact the mare was on two legs and not four and stood tall over all of them and she could hear gasps from the fillies and colts as the mare leaned against the front of the vehicle and the wing son her back shifted to balance her. Dawn hadn’t seen them as the entire time the she had watched the mare she had never been at an angle to see her back.

She head lead an alicorn to Chapel! Where they had many unicorns for it to round up. She knew the others had noticed as well as some of the adults when she heard one of the other foals scream out. “ALICORN!” and the town exploded into chaos.

Author's Note

Crossover: Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
Maximum Level Reached

Strength: 6(+)
Perception: 7 (+)
Endurance: 5(+)
Charisma: 6(+)
Intelligence: 8
Agility: 6(+)
Luck: 7

Cyberntictly Augmented: Your body has been augmented with cybernetics in your legs and eyes and ears. Plus 10 to Strength, Plus 5 to Agility and Plus 5 to Perception

War Veteran: You have been forged in the fires of war and you are no stranger to pain. Plus 5 to Endurance.

Soldier of Magic: Your time serving as a rebel soldier against a superior force, forced you to push your magic beyond its limits multiple times giving you a permanent boost to your magic level making you the same level as a young Alicorn while still a unicorn.

Alicorn: You have ascended to become one of the fabled Alicorns, not only do you have a pair of wings now your magical level ahs received a significant boost. (if you have taken the Soldier of Magic perk it wills stack with this perk bringing your magic level up to the same level as The Princess of The Moon.)

Commander: You are a high ranking military officer with years of experience behind you, you know how to lead troops into battle as well be able to read the flow of the battle. Your authority extents to those who are not part of your branch of the military, even if they have never heard of the EDF. Plus 5 to Charisma as well as some NPCs will follow your orders when you give them and listen when you speak.

Test Subject: You were subject to some of the most inhumane medical experiment imaginable at the hands of a sociopathic scientist for over a month. This time being experimented on in the name of science has had a permanent effect on your body. Plus 10 to Endurance. You are now immune to all stun spells and anything that uses electricity to try and disable someone. However this perk has the draw back in that you now have a profound fear of Biology labs and when in a Biology Lab any bonuses received from all perks save the Cyberntictly Augmented perk are negated unless it effects Endurance and you may suffer panic attacks or make poor decisions out of fear.