Fallout: Equestria L.U.N.A.

by SkyDreams

>[subroutineAdapt]

>[System] : addGroup.Faction(Herders)
>[Group.Faction(Herders)] : Status(Neutral)
>[Set.Priority] : Herders(9)

"Toggle. We- I was wondering. What exactly are 'The Herders'? And where are we going?" The duo had been traveling down the mountains along the railroad for almost a whole day and there was no sign of any other life in the area, aside from the occasional over-sized roach. Almost the whole trip had been spent in silence. Luna had started entertaining herself by counting the wooden boards under the tracks, which was starting to get boring now that she realized she had a calculator programmed into her new body that flawlessly recorded every board they passed by. Needless to say the game had become nothing more but watching the number go up.

The ghoul mare taking the lead leaped about a foot in the air when Luna spoke up. She must have forgotten there was somepony behind her. "Oh shit! Sorry Luna. The Herders? They're what's left of the ponies that the sentinel you're riding in saved. The stable ponies like hiring us to move wondering groups of feral-ghouls out of their trading paths."

Luna perked up a bit, becoming somewhat excited. "The Stables? Stable-Tech succeeded!? Ponies made it to the shelters in time!?" Stable tech was owned and founded by Apple Bloom, Applejack's sister. Together with her friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell they created a series of vaults across Equestria to save the citizens and preserve the culture of Equestria in the event of catastrophic balefire annihilation. When Apple Bloom approached her with the idea near the beginning of the war she was furious with the lack of faith that Equestria would be victorious. In hindsight, that lack of faith had been well founded.

Toggle nodded. "Well sure, lots of ponies made it to the stables. For the most part though, it was a death sentence all of its own. There's a stable town out there called New Appeloosa. Their stable, Stable 24, opened up just a couple years ago and it spawned a load of mutated demon lizards. The damn things killed most of the residence before they evacuated. The survivors settled down in an old cargo yard not to far from there."

News of the stables turning deadly was alarming to say the least. "Oh I see... But some of them still survived right? What if-" Luna was cut off before she could finish the question.

"Trust me, princess. You don't wanna go exploring stables. They're generally empty because everypony inside is already dead." Toggle stated, as a matter of fact.

The idea of walking, or rolling, into a stable that had more or less become nothing more than a large metal crypt was unsettling. Those stables were designed to open up once it was safe right? Perhaps it would be best just to let those that were safe come out when they were ready. It seemed pointless to try and rescue them if the only ones that were alive were the ones that would be perfectly safe. "I understand. So The Herders, you are trying to rescue more ghouls than just your family aren't you?" Luna asked, trying to steer the conversation back to her original question.

Toggle nodded, taking on a business tone as she spoke again. "The Herders represent the hope that Equestria and her peoples will revive and as such we take on the responsibility of caring for and controlling the ghouls that populate the wasteland." She smiled back at Luna, dropping into a more casual tone. "It's what we tell ponies who ask about us. Simply put, yeah. Those ponies are still in there somewhere and we want as many of them to survive as possible so that we can bring them back. Equestria can never die as long as we survive, you know?" Toggle turned the side of the last mountain and began the final descent into the wasteland its self. "Anyway, to answer your other question, we're heading to New Appeloosa. We keep steady work keeping the ghouls off the train tracks from there to Old Appeloosa. Normally we would be heading to Ponyville, but I would like to avoid talking to the rangers about... well, you."

"That is a question I had been thinking about. Who are the Rangers and why wouldn't they like me?" Ponies wanting to disassemble a sentinel, a guardian of Equestria, had been a difficult concept to grasp, especially since she was their Princess.

Luna's question actually prompted a short laugh out of the moody mechanic. "Sorry, I may have mislead you on that. They would 'love' you. But not in a good way. They would love to have a new sentinel, not a Princess. They would take you apart and put you back together as an empty robot and a set you up guarding some rundown fort or something. The rangers are obsessed with hoarding technology. Especially any technology that can be used as a weapon. Admittedly, they are good for repaired house appliances and batteries if you can get them to talk to you."

"I see, much like the waste processor that Apple Turnover mentioned." Luna added in, showing that she was paying attention.

Nodding, Toggle continued. "They've always been hesitant around us but ever since Sunshine started to get bitey they have been keeping their weapons ready around us. I don't know how much longer they will-" Toggle was cut off as a nearby rock exploded into a shower of stone chips and dust, the bark of a high caliber rifle echoing off the mountain walls. Luna's EFS identified the rifle as a Windrider .308 hoof-loaded rifle, one of the first rifles mass produced by Applejack early in the war. The rifle was powerful but slow. "What the hell!?"

Shouting could be heard from only a few yards away. "Kill the zombie and get the guns!" Before anythign more could be said, a group of ponies in armor made from battle field scraps and kitchen appliances started charging into view from behind a pile of rubble that had once been beautiful statues, welcoming visitors to Canterlot. They were all wielding blunt instruments or makeshift blades, one was simply swinging around a golf-club wildly.

As Luna began to assess the situation, text began flooding her vision again, along with flashing red lights.

>[Warning] : Danger imminent.
>[Execute] : combatRoutine(1)
>[Target] : Traitor(0-5)
>[Boot] ; Core(3,4,5,9)
>[Core(3)] : combatInhibitor.Status(criticalFailure)
>[Core(4)] : sparkleAssistedTargetingSystem.Status(criticalFailure)
>[Core(5)] : ordanancePackageOne.Status(criticalFailure)
>[Core(9)] : shieldMatrix.Status(criticalFailure)
>[Warning] : System.Status(nonfunctional)
>[Execute] : emergancyAdaptRountine(1)
>[System.Message] : "Swing for the stars!"
>[System.Message] : "Yeehaw!"

Power began to shift through Luna's body and focus in her arms. With the guns non-functional, she could feel that she would be exceptionally strong if she tried to hit somepony with them. "Why are they attacking us! What is going on?!"

Toggle just barely dodged another bullet as she jumped behind Luna's protective armor. "I have no idea, this has never happened before! I've never had to fight ponies before, only mutated creatures! Just knock them out or something!"

There wasn't much time to react, the raiding ponies were already too close for comfort. Without thinking about it to heavily, Luna struck out at the one swinging his golf club about. Mid swing, she bellowed out a battle cry in a deep robotic, definitely stallion, voice. "Surrender and die Zebra sympathizers!" There was a hiss of steam as the pistons in her arm spun into action and rocketed her broken gun arm into the side of the would-be attacker's skull. There was a gut dropping crack as the attacker's head was ripped straight from it's body and showered bloody bits onto the mountainside wall and half of the attackers.

In a moment of shocked silence, the attacking ponies came to a halt and watched with unrestrained fear as the now headless body of their golf-loving friend slowly tilted and fell to one side. The makeshift weapons dropped from their mouths all at once and they began to turn tail. Luna wanted to stop, but something had clicked on and would not click off. The raiding ponies tried their best to run, all the while shouting for every pony to escape. The tires under her legs kicked at the dirt, steam gushing from her back, as she rocketed towards another of the attacking traitors. "Better wiped than striped!" She shouted, once again in the voice of an actual sentinel.

She caught up to the next pony before the mare could even finish turning around, bringing the rocket launcher arm down of her spine. She snapped in half like a twig under one's hoof, screaming as she stopped being able to move her rear legs. Another went down as Luna's machine-gun arm came up to crush a stallion's rib-cage. The fourth was smashed under the weight of both arms swinging in unison. She was going to continue on to the fifth when a warning flashed across her screen.

>[Warning] : Heat capacity exceeded.
>[Core(1)] : Temp.Status(110%)
>[Execute] : coreCooldown(1)
>[System.Message] : "15 seconds until cool-down complete"

Her whole body stopped moving, slouching over as she felt a mechanism attempt to open up where her energy core should be. With the modifications that were made to her, the mechanism did not open. Instead she heard the continuous beeping of overcharged recharger-rifles automatically cooling their breeder cells. Luna was relieved as she watched the remaining two ponies run off to meet up with whomever had been shooting the rifle. Looking back, she was appalled by the damage she had caused, having only meant to knock them out. It was as though each attack had been pushed to full force regardless of her wish to use restraint. She had never killed another pony before and was unsure of how to feel. The only thing she was sure of was the guilt building in her empty robotic chest.

Fifteen seconds of silence later, Luna's cool-down sequence ended and she was free to look about the battle field once more. She noted that she was still over the operational threshold for heat before turning around. It was a scene like straight out of one of her visits to the battle field. It was horrifying and filled with pain, the one mare that she had permanently disabled still crying out and asking for death. This is not what a princess was supposed to be, she swore that she could feel a small part of her dying away.

"Holy shit! That was awesome!" Shouted Toggle, charging over like Pinkie Pie back when she was sober. "You destroyed those guys like they were nothing! Gotta work on that heat-sync clearly, the dispersion rate is waay to slow." She flipped out a couple of tools as she began fiddling with Luna's mechanical bits. "You know I was iffy about using that quad-breeder carburetor to manage the power flow from the recharger-rifles? Clearly-"

Luna felt the need to cut off this pony's excitement over her work. "Toggle please. How can you be excited right now? I've just killed 4 ponies!" How on Equus could she have ignored that fact so nonchalantly?

It was like looking at a professor who you had just given the 'dog ate my homework' excuse. Toggle fixed Luna with a simple disappointing stare. "Princess, please listen. You're a Sentry bot now. You were designed with the specific intention of killing as many dissenters as possible and protecting good ponies like me. And you just did that! You protected the HECK outta me. Besides you only killed 3 ponies. That one is still alive." She pointed at the disabled mare who was still screaming in pain.

Not wanting to be near somepony so heartless, Princess Luna backed up in disgust. "That doesn't make any of this better! That mare will never walk correctly again and the other three lost their chance to compensate for their crimes! I should have subdued and arrested them! They needed to be tried in a court of law!"

Toggle jumped up and put her fore-hooves on Luna to put her face as close to Luna's as she could. She gave off an air of grim understanding. "Luna." She said, making it clear that she was leaving out the formal title of 'Princess'. "There is no law out here. There are no courts, no royal guards, and NO PRINCESSES! You are not a princess anymore. Equestria might have survived through her people but the Kingdom did not." She looked back at the pony corpses, continuing her lesson. "I don't know why those ponies attacked us, but they did and now the wasteland is claiming them. It's do or die out here Luna. Be sure that you're not the one dying, that's the only rule." She looked back to Luna before getting down. "Adapt or die."

Comments

[Earthpatriot117]

I would like to see more!

[SkyDreams]

9531017
I'm glad you like it! I plan to release more so stay tuned.

[Rhymer]

hummmm... Luna as a Sentinel. Interesting. Oh, the things you can so with this. Someone (thing) powerful enough... and possibly armed well enough... to wreak havoc all over the place... but run by the spirit of the Princess of the Night... Who only wants to protect Her ponies, and help them live and 'do better'.

The conflict between smashing those raiders, and her desire to have captured them to help them learn from their mistake, is a good example of the 'conflict' I am speaking of. L.U.N.A. will have more and more such occurrences, and chances to learn how the Wasteland works... While having ever more chances to make changes of Her own.

Perhaps, she might even regain her magic... or use of magic... If Toggle can somehow get her hooves on Luna's horn (Last seen in FOE: or was it FOE:PH, as a set of bones overlaying someone's armor).

Keep up the good work, I'm liking this one.
the Frank Pony