(Chapter 2: Game vs Reality, and Magic)

(Vault surface)

(6:46 A.M)

Throughout the Commonwealth, there was one particular place. A false sanctuary for those who had entered. A simple vault that will begin a story that will last for generations.

The vault was built upon a hill that looked over a small neighbourhood that lived away from the city. The land that surrounded the vault was dead and rotten. Wherever plant life lived, It absorbed any amount of radiation it was nearby. A simple stream of water surrounded the neighbourhood, disconnecting it from the hill. An old wooden, decayed bridge, is the only connection the neighbourhood has to the hill.

For years the little neighbourhood of Sanctuary has only heard the sounds of radroaches, and giant flies known as Bloatfly.

Suddenly there was a small shake on top of the hill. Gears that are centuries-old turn and move swiftly. A single platform on top of the hill slowly began to open. The vault has finally been reopened.

Slowly Eric and Luna raised from the vault, ready to begin their journey. And the first test was the visuals.

Luna looked above her. She could see the elevator doors at the top opening. The sounds of gears turning, fascinated Luna. The sun's bright light just started peeking through the cracks. For an entire second Luna’s world went completely White…

Then came the coughing… Luna felt her lungs give in to the air. The air itself tasted awful, nothing like back home in Equestria…

“Hey, Hey! Are you all right!?” Luna could hear Eric call out to her, as slowly her lungs relaxed and her vision cleared. “Yes…*cough* we are fine.*cough*” Luna said through her coughing.

Ever so slowly, she looked at the world for the first time… and it was worse than what she expected… everything is just dead… whatever structure she could see was clearly damaged and decaying…

That horrifying question, reared its ugly head around the corner. ‘These bombs were worse than what we expected…’ She thought to herself. “Is the air poisoned, with this... radiation?” She asked Eric.

Eric took a deep breath in. “No... I feel fine… i’m not sure, but it could be the pollution in the air… but I’m not an expert... do you have factories?” He quickly asked her.

She thought to herself, remembering the paper she read when trying to deal with the court rulings. Something dealing with military factories and civilian factories. “We believe, we’ve heard such a recent invention, upon our Country. But they are mainly in Manehattan and fillyadelphia.”

Eric looked at her confused. “Manhattan... and Philadelphia…?”

Luna looked at Eric with confusion and a hint of green… Literally… “Manehattan and Fillyadelphia.” She said again.

Eric thought of continuing the conversation, but thought of more important things than just name similarities. “Sure… anyways it could be the fact that you’re not used to pollution yet or small bits of radiation that I can’t feel… or something like that…” ‘Did that make sense… Did I just talk out of my ass?’ Eric thought to himself. Truthfully, he has no idea what pollution could do to someone who has little to no experience with pollution.

Luna looked around. She tried to grab the air for any magic, but there was none to be found. The air itself tasted awful and if pollution was the problem, she would have to talk to her sister as soon as possible. “How can you stand the taste of pollution every day?” She said while looking at him.

Eric looked at her, with a questioning look before asking “taste?”

Luna looked up at him. “Yes, the air tastes terrible. Without a hint of magic too, it just tastes horrible.” Luna was about to continue, but felt her stomach heave in a bit. She controlled her stomach before it gave it’s opinion again. Then just stared off into the horrid wasteland.

Eric thought that some water could help her but then he realized something. Where was the purified water. He was certain he didn’t set it down, but the next thing he knew there was a purified water can in his hand. He stated it dumbfounded but chalk it up to game mechanics

Eric passed her a bottle of purified water and Luna drank it down with ease. The refreshing drink soothing her aching throat. Eric decided he was going to need to test out the game's limits Later.

A word hadn’t been spoken between them for a good minute, and when Luna was about to ask him about another question. She noticed that he was smiling. “Art thou... all right?” Wondering how he was taking this.

Eric saw the state that his... friend..? Companion. was in. Thankfully she looked to be able to deal with it and so he decided to set his sights onto the view. A smile touched his lips. He remembered the first time he ever walked out of the vault. nostalgia greeted him as he saw the gorgeous view of this world. “Art thou... all right?”

Eric turned his attention back to Luna before answering. “yeah, just taking in the view. I’ve seen this site so many times in the game, yet in person, it’s as beautiful as ever.”

Luna looked at him dumbfounded, before abruptly laughing then coughing. *Cough* Hah Hah *Cough* “Thou are quite the jester!” She quickly drank the last of the purified water. Unfortunately seeing his confused look made her pause. “Thou cannot be serious… how can such death and destruction give way to any beauty!? Most of the plant life is dead or dying along with the population. Thou hast told us of monsters... yet we’ve haven’t seen any… that terrorize everyone and kill people daily. Where is the beauty?”

Eric was shocked at her statement before thinking it over himself. There was a slight pause until Eric chuckled to himself. It got to the point where Luna was annoyed but Eric continued.

“Well I guess it’s a very special type of “beauty”. Unfortunately I don’t think I can really explain it to you. You’ll just have to find it yourself.” Eric explain to her which only made Luna more annoyed.

“That didn’t answer our question at all. We don’t see beauty anywhere.” Luna stated again.

Eric turned to her. “And you might never see it. Unfortunately that doesn’t matter whether you see this beautiful world or not. It’s still dangerous and what we need to be more worried about is his survival. And who knows maybe you’ll find the beauty along the way. Now come on as soon as you get ready we can make our way down to Sanctuary.”

He started moving back. Finally Luna stepped away from the edge of the Mountain that looked over the town. It wasn’t too big and she could spot a simple river flowing through. At first she was relieved, but then remembered what Eric told her and remembered why they needed to carry water.

Shaking her head in disappointment she eventually turned away. Turning around she spotted several strange contraptions made out of metal. In front of one of the strange contraptions, were three wooden crates.“You check those out and see if you can find anything useful, I just got a grab a few things.” She could hear Eric say as he went into a strange building that was beside the vault.

Deciding it was best to follow along, she made her way over to the wooden crate. Using her hoof she quickly pushed open the top part of the crate with ease.

The first thing she pulled out was a bottle of what she could only assume to be alcohol and a cloth pouring out of it. It wasn’t the only one either; she found two others and wondered what their purpose was. She found a few bullets but was unaware if they were able to be used in the 10 mm pistol that she was given. Finally there was a red bag they had to label Rad Away on it in the bottle that looked to be medicine of Red-X.

Then she found the bottle caps… She ignored them.

Eric made him Way to the vault control…. Room? He didn’t know what it was called, but it had a panel that controls the vault door, a single wooden crate, a table, and a first aid kit on the wall.

Inside the wooden crate was a grenade. Eric stares dumbfoundead at the circular object for a second. The world of fallout registering in his head again. He never thought he would see a live grenade. Then again he didn’t expect to be in the world of fallout, with a magical blue ‘Princess’ pony either. He picked up the grenade and felt it in his palm. He even saw the pin he needed to pull but decided the smartest move is to put it away.

As he made his way to the med kit. He found inside a RadAway in a Rad X. He was glad to get some counters to radiation.

The only thing left was a wrench on the table but finding steel in the wasteland is pretty easy.

Eventually Eric made his way beside Luna. “What were you able to fine?” he asked her.

She looked up at him. “We don’t know. We found 3 beverages, they have Strange cloths attached to them. Along with some ammunition although some bullets seem to be sharper than others. Finally we found ‘Rad’ stuff, it seems to be some sort of medicine.” She said listing off the items.

Eric took a look at the items but kind of figured it out what they already were. “Not a bad start! For both of us being not so lucky this is one of the best starts I’ve had. For starters we didn’t get drinks. WE Got Molotovs!” He quickly snagged the three from her. “I’ll show you what they do later.” He said before she could protest.

He then grabbed the bullets and examined them. Then he realized that he never examined bullets before. Although the sharper bullet looks like a 308 round. Similar to his fathers hunting rifle.

Painful memories flooded back in after remembering about his father’s rifle. He hoped he didn’t get any blood on it.

Eric focused back onto the task at hand. He remembered what he could do to figure it out. He gave Luna the smaller smoother bullet and spoke. “Why don’t we test out our Pip boys. Focus on putting the bullet away. Then turn on your pit boy and try to find the ammunition section. Once there it will tell you what bullet it is and what guns It could work with.”

She looked at Eric confused but closed her eyes. Slowly she felt the bullet leave her grasp. She opened her eyes again and looked down at her Pip boy.

Eric did the same. He saw the familiar green screen light up. At the top of the screen he saw five different categories on the Pip boy. STAT. Which was the one he was currently on. He saw that he was really close to levelling up to level two. INV. His inventory stores all of his equipment and supplies. DATA. Finally enough he only has the Jewel of the Commonwealth Mission; get to Diamond City. MAP.

And RADIO. He only had some classical music in the Diamond City radio

Finally he went to where he was needed which was in INV. The first one on the list was his weapons. But instantly a single weapon caught his eye, and it wasn’t the baton or the 10 mm pistol.

“Fathers Hunting Rifle.” His eyes shot open as he looked at the 2D picture of his father’s rifle.

Still in disbelief he made his way over to the ammo section. There he saw he had 108 bullets of a 10 mm pistol. Then he noticed he had 6, 308 rounds. His fathers weapon was fully loaded with the extra bullet.

But shouldn’t one of them be used… unless… he didn’t know what to think at the moment so he decided to see how luna is doing.

As soon as she looked at it, it flashed on catching her by surprise. Instantly she was greeted with a green screen with a pony that looks similar to her, walking in place. She saw many different symbols, stats and writing that she didn’t understand. However she did notice the tags on top of the screen. (STAT, INV, DATA, MAP, RADIO) had a dale beside the top right of the screen that had the same stats.

Slowly she turned the dial with her magic to INV. Instantly everything changed. most notably the words underneath. The word “WEAPONS” glow brighter than 1000 Suns to her eyes.

Finally everything clicked in. The tags meant Stats, Inventory, Data, Map and... Radio? She scolded herself for not seeing the easy connection earlier but was impressed how the game organized itself. Just a little bit lower down the screen she could see that she had a 10 mm pistol and a baton.

seeing that she was an inventory. She looked around until she found… AH!! Ammo! She quickly moved over to the section and noticed that she had 12, 10 mm pistol ammo, and 3, 38 round ammo.

“Oh! I see you already getting the hang of it?” Eric’s voice broke through the silent and unknown to Luna. She was Smiling!

“Indeed! Ha! Ha! We have finished thy test! We have found three, 38 round ammo!” She shouted a bit excitedly.

Eric chuckled “All Right. Congrats on figuring out a Pip Boy. Now we can head down to Sanctuary.”

Still smiling Luna nodded her head and looked at Eric. “And what is so special about Sanctuary?”

Eric looked at her and smiled back. “Well for starters it’s one of the safest places in The waste land and also most of the weak enemies are over here. However it’s falling into disarray since it’s absence but I’ve turned Sanctuary into a fortress several times. I’ve even come up with my own “meta” strategy.” He said with a bit of a chuckle.

Luna and Eric made their way at the back of the mountain, away from the cliff, and slowly followed the pathway down it. The pathway turned right hugging the mountain all the way down. But before they even got halfway they made it to the front gate. Luna looked over the bodies that scattered the floor. “What hath happened to those folk?”

Eric looked at the bodies with a bit of a frown. “They simply didn’t make it inside. They were just the first of Billions.”

Luna’s eyes widened at the prospect of so many dead her world didn’t even have their first billion yet. “To has't such destruction… We hope own people shall nev'r maketh such a device.” Eric noticed Luna’s speech pattern changed slightly. She seems to slowly go further into English. He decided not to comment on it.

They continue on walking. Slowly as they moved, Luna could hear the slight sound of running water. The river that circled sanctuary had one of its thinnest areas at the back of sanctuary. With a small crooked old wooden Bridge. Luna doubted the liability of the bridge. Just staring at it made her feel uneasy.

Without hesitation, Eric walked onto the bridge and simply crossed. “Don’t worry about it! The Bridge can definitely hold up more weight than you’re carrying.”

Luna decided to ignore her feelings on the matter and just cross the bridge. Surprisingly it held up pretty well.

Finally they had made it to Sanctuary.

Instantly Luna noticed the buildings. The first two buildings were blue and would look amazing if it wasn’t for the fact that they were broken down and had several holes in them. As they made their way closer to Sanctuary, she noticed a third blue building that was completely caved in on itself.

From there they found themselves in the middle of the street. Luna noticed several buildings of blue and yellow, old rustic metal boxes that were everywhere, the wildlife has re-made it home in the crack and crevices of this abandoned street. It reminded her of her old home and what had become of it.

Eric on the other hand had a small frown for once. Luna looked up at him worried. “Is everything all right?” Luna asked in a more regular worried tone.

Eric looked around even more confused and sad. “Yeah, I’m all right.” he said, “But someone was supposed to greet us here. Our first NPC and companion.”

Luna looked around Sanctuary in confusion. We bethought thee hath said this lodging wast abandoned.”

“Yes it is, besides the occasional bug. However there was one resident who has stayed at Sanctuary for over 200 years. In the game he is a good friend and an amazing butler robot.”

Luna looked at him confused. “What is this robot thee speaketh of?”

“Codsworth… is a machine. Our technology has advanced enough to create machines that can move around as if they were people and even talk like us. There’s different robots for different fields. Codsworth is known as a mr.handyman. A Machine that is a jack of all trades. They mostly tend to be butlers or help out at work. But they are armed enough to become butchers. If their programming goes haywire they can become very deadly and dangerous as a Mr. Butcher. But Codsworth has way more independent thought than any other handyman or butcher. While he still has his programming he’s practically completely loyal to the main character… However, he’s always outside of his house.” He proceeds to stare down the street. Waiting for Codsworth to appear at any moment

Luna looked up at Eric. “So what art we going to do?”

Eric looked at her. “I guess I’ll have to give you a tour myself. Look out for a floating ball with metal arms.”

Luna tried to imagine such a creature. And instantly felt her brain crash trying to do so. Automatically her body followed Eric as he made his way down the street of Sanctuary. After turning left and following the street they made their way to a fourth blue house. While Luna loved the house designs they could’ve been at least a little bit more creative in the pattering

Suddenly she heard the sounds of buzzing wings of bugs. Looking through the window of the house she saw a giant fly. She felt herself shiver at the prospect of seeing such a large creature fly around.

“Bloatfly.” She heard Eric say. “Nasty fuckers that fling shit at you. Thankfully they’re only best feature is their range. Other than that they’re free game.

The bloatfly noticed them and instantly let out a screech. It started flying towards them in a zigzag motion, shooting little balls through the window. Luna quickly dodged an attack coming straight for her, but Eric replied to the bug by bringing out his rifle.

he felt his fathers weapon materialize in his hands perfectly with the flashing light. Quickly as it came the light faded and all that was left was a hunting rifle with it’s barrel to the fly. With quick aiming he fired the rifle. The bug exploded into Gore as it’s body split a part. He removed the extra bullet out of the rifle before placing it on his back. Surprisingly it actually stuck

Eric looked back at Luna with a smile, “Ready to continue?”

A good portion of the morning was taken up scavenging all of the houses and clearing them from bugs. Eric decided to let Luna get some training in and also to help her work on her bloodlust. After that was taken care of Eric took the opportunity to show Luna where they would be sleeping.

At the end of the street of Sanctuary there were three houses. The one on the left and the one at the very end had caved in and were useless. However to Lunas amusement the blue house on The left was still intact. Still there were a lot of holes in the walls and ceiling.

“We art going to catch but a wink in th're?” She said a bit dumbfounded. Art thee sure it’s stable? How shall t not fallen liketh the oth'rs?

“Come on it’s not that bad. And besides if they were going to cave-in they would’ve done it right now. However just for you. I’ve come up with a solution.” Eric walked away from the blue house and for the first time made his way towards a yellow House. It was in the centre of Sanctuary it was a lot more different than the rest. There were benches outside underneath the patio. Tables meant to upgrade weapons and armour and a yellow stand to hold power armour.

Of course Luna didn’t know any of that and only watched Eric make his way towards a red workstation.

Eric looks at the red workshop. “OK how do I do this?”, he asked mainly to himself. That’s when he noticed that there was a slight bit more detail with the workshop. He noticed labels on drawers that usually don’t open and when he did open them pretty easily he saw stacks of blueprints.

Luna watched Eric with interest. Seeing Eric at the workstation she saw him go through some drawers and pull out some blue papers. She questioned this town on their variety of blue as much as she appreciates it. Eric seemed happy looking at The blue papers, before turning around to one of the buildings that collapsed on itself. She watched him move closer and placed his hand onto the building. Suddenly Luna feels a huge amount of magic suddenly spike. The entire collapsed building glows in a white before suddenly disappearing. The entire building was gone within a blink of an eye and Luna only knew one creature’s power that could do it. Chaos Magic!

suddenly everything made sense to her with these “game” mechanics. The purify water trick. The disappearing objects into the Pip boy. The house disappearing was a glowing spark of chaos magic.

And at the centre of it all Eric was the one doing these Game mechanics. She stared at Eric and her vision started going dark. Was she being played this entire time. Does Discord have her trapped in some mental prison. Was everything she went through all for nothing- “Hey! You OK?” Her train of thought was completely derailed as Eric came into view. Her eyes locked onto his.

What she expected with the glowing yellow eyes of the serpent, hidden under layers of deceit and trickery. Yet when she stared into his eyes she saw nothing but worry and kindness coming from a creature she barely even knew. His eyes felt so genuine the longer she stared into them. No hidden deceit or trickery could be found in those eyes. such eyes she has gotten used to.

“I’m ok” she quietly said. Not realizing she broke the Royal We.

Eric hesitantly nodded his head noticing a change in tone and demeanour in Luna but also noticed her smile. “Well,” he said, “I've come up with a solution that will give us extra protection and hopefully won’t make the building collapse on us.”

Luna watches him walk over to the building again and place his hand on the wall. At first she thought he was going to get rid of another house until a sheet of metal appeared perfectly on the side of the house. It didn’t cover it entirely but a good portion of the wall had an extra thick layer of metal. Eric moved around the entire outer wall, placing an extra layer of metal he even patched a few holes on the roof.

“How does that look?'' Eric said after he was done. Luna didn’t realize her jar was slightly hanging Open.” We must admit that your effort has surprised us.”

Eric chuckled a bit. “I can only do this in certain areas that would be considered a settlement and have the workshop.”

Luna nodded her head as they both made their way inside the house. At first the house was nothing but a mess. The first room had stuff barricaded pointing at the front door. Just before the barricades there was a hallway to extra rooms to the left. After cleaning the bug corpses and anything that wasn’t useful Luna proceeded to start taking away the barricade. That is until Eric stopped her. “There’s no need... whoever built this barricade knew what they were doing in fact I actually have a plan for it.” Eric made his way over to the barricade. Instead of removing everything he only removed the little useless pieces but keeping most of the stuff there.

It was a lot of work. But eventually Eric got his defences back to his standards. And with Luna’s help they did it in record timing to, just before the sunset.

They placed a wooden fence and guard towers that attached itself to each of the houses. The entire street was now considered a small fortress. Only the front bridge and park were open but soon Eric would have plans for them too. for now Eric scavenged every building for anything that would be useful.

Then there was the fortification that they placed on their house. Making sure that it was bulletproof and comfortable. Eric was hesitant to allow Luna to practice with the 10 mm pistol. However, he found a pipe pistol and more 38 rounds that go with it and Luna was able to practice for an hour. She tested her aim on little bottles and even the building we’re fortifying. Just to make sure it was bulletproof.

(As the story says, all materials place smooth themselves over their environment)

The barricade Full of junk such as barrels, a toilet sink and other stuff became a wall fortress of junk that protected their coaches. The wall of junk was protected by a single machine gun turret in the far corner of the room. Finally Eric had moved a cooking station in the middle of the couches

And that’s where they currently are. Eric had a single chair couch that was comfortable for his back and the barricade behind him made him feel safe. Luna was currently laying on the longer couch just staring out of one of the many holes in the roof that I wasn’t able to get. Besides all that The wall he was able to place on the already existing wall was surprisingly well done. He wouldn’t have been able to do it so easily without the realism in this world. Moulded and fit perfectly in place of where I wanted to put it. Usually the game would have its default position but it seems to actually move to its environment.

As Luna laid there she thought of a few questions. She was already upset at the fact they would have to sleep at night. He said that it was too dangerous for them to venture out at night with the amount of gear they had. Still she believe they had a lot of gear but complied. However there was still one question on her mind. “How do thou control the sun and moon?” The question from Luna caught Eric off guard. “I’m sorry?” was all he could reply. “Who moves the great spheres in the sky.” Luna said, looking towards him.

“Ummm… We don’t?” Eric said slowly. “Do you?”

The answer was still shocking but Luna sort of expected it. She felt the sun move all day but that connection with the sun and moon is still gone. It’s not her sister's sun and it’s definitely not her moon. Perhaps the sun moves on its own... but even then that would be preposterous. She was sure there was a reasonable explanation for the sun moving.

“Yes, Apologies if we confused you. Many things feel different about this world, without magic. The very base principal of all life. All of this is still very hard to believe.” she said.

“I feel ya.” Eric said. “While it’s true that I’m not from a different planet, dimension, or race and I have somewhat of a clue what’s going on. This is still very shocking. I didn’t even think something like this was possible. But I guess life has other plans for me.” ‘Still to move the goddamn sun’ he thought to himself.

Eric scratched his arm which didn’t catch Luna’s attention. ‘God it’s only been a day and I am already starting to scratch. If things don’t change. I might need to take some jet or maybe even a psycho just to get rid of this feeling.’ He thought to himself

Luna heard the pot boil as she could smell the radroach Eric was cooking for himself. While she is a little hungry and was only able to have a few cans of food, she and Eric had a small argument about the vegetables at the yellow house, but Eric made a good argument about planting and making more vegetables at our “homebase“. She might have to go back to eating meat in order to survive out here. She just wished it wasn’t bug meat. Luna felt sick to her stomach but one has to do what they have to do to survive.

Eric stood back up and made his way over to the pot, slowly he started turning it.

“Do thou mind if We have some?” She asked quietly.

“You eat meat?” Eric said a bit surprised, “Sorry I had no clue-“ “No it’s fine” Luna interrupted. “We ponies have the ability to eat meat but it mostly resigns with fish. However I have had... other occasions of eating meat.”

Eric nodded his head. In just a few minutes Eric was done cooking and with a few plates they found, they had roasted radroach.

Eric stared at the floating radroach pieces entering Luna’s Mouth. “OK seriously, how many tricks of this “magic” do you have?”

Luna stared at Eric and slowly started to recall all the spells she could do. However there was something blocking her that she didn’t realize was blocking her. Her knowledge of the craft of casting spells was mostly forgotten. The amount of spells she had at her disposal were disastrously low. And she knew only discord could force her in such a state.

“We know many spells mostly ranging in the Elemental and Moon class with some major combat spells. Telekinesis is one of the easiest to achieve in the elemental class. All the way to the hardest one. teleportation. That “scythe” thou seen was a combat spell amplified by our moon class. It’s one of our special creations. The Moon class has some of the most advanced and powerful spells to date.-“ but before she could finish, they were interrupted by a loud barking.

The barking broke the silence of the Sanctuary instantly causing Luna to prepare herself on her hooves. However Eric recognized the barking and in sheer confusion he said the word.

“Dogmeat?”

Author's Note

Hello everyone here’s the chapter For The wish. Apologies if it wasn’t as expected and the pacing was maybe a bit slower and faster in some areas. However I just wanted to get most basics out of the way and save the good stuff for the next chapter that will be out sooner than expected.