Fallout Equestria: The Ranger of Seamane

“You could not predict what would happen in a single instance, a single throw of the dice, a single pitch in the seventh inning, a single toss of the coin”

        I took a long breath as I surveyed the stairwell. This wasn’t the first time I had ventured into a prewar facility on my own so there was no reason for me to be so nervous. I listened to the thrum of the ventilation to calm my nerves while I let my eyes adjust to the darkness of the stairwell lit by only the emergency lighting system.

I took my first step onto the stairs and heard part of the stair crumble away. I took a step back and re-examined the stairs, they looked weak. Which made me thankful for the foresight of lightening my load. Still though, I didn't trust the stairs that much. However, if I needed to I probably could manage to run along the walls, just so long as I left my equipment at the bottom or some place safe and then brought it to me.

        With my trepidation diminished I wrapped myself in my magic to lighten myself to the weight of a feather. I lept over the railing and descended with all the haste of a falling leaf. It felt like a better idea to not test the stairs now, who knew how strong they were, maybe they would dramatically only support one trip across them.

        My hooves silently touched the ground and I dropped my magic having descended down the two stories quickly and quietly. I stretched a bit and then pulled out my shotgun, I quickly checked what it was loaded with as well as if I had forgotten to reload it. With the quick check over I reloaded it and racked fresh shell. Now I was ready for most things with some heavy buckshot.

I didn't really even know how to fight the damn elemental, but, I was well armed and armored. I just wished that I hadn't been so hasty in heading out so I could have attempted to reinforce the weaker areas of my armor where the elemental had managed to penetrate. But, with the ranger helmet, from Foresight, I had a lot more protection for my head and neck, as well as my ears.

        I looked around as I gathered my bearings, I saw markings for ventilation, storage, reactor, and command center. I then looked at my Pipbuck calling up the auto map into my vision. With a few moments of looking at the blueprints I had uploaded into my Pipbuck I knew which path I needed to take to get to control.

With a light step I headed down a hallway where I saw exposed pipes along the sides of the hallway, it was labeled everything other than storage, which was what I wanted. The sounds of machinery grew as I trotted down the dusty hallway. It seemed all the dust from the outside had gathered here, even the air was filled with it. I continued on, shotgun ready in my magic.

        This hallway would take me to the heart of power production and thus onward to a security door, which was almost redundant with how hard it was get to with first getting into the power production area, as well as just to this part of the facility. Thankfully I had a key card that would let me in theory through the rest of the facility, even the command center.

        The door to the power production center sat in front of me. I opened it and felt warm wet air roll out. The drone of ventilation equipment grew and I heard the electric buzz of electricity. The metal walls had turned rusted red and black, bathed in yellow light. I closed the door behind me and then turned to examine the contents of the room closer. I made out the room went down another floor, but, what was down there was mostly pipes, where I was had plenty of catwalks to navigate with over the heavy industrial machinery, because that was safe, not.

        I honestly did not understand old world design philosophy of catwalks everywhere. Why were catwalks so loved and over used? Why would you use catwalks over heavy machinery, just why? I mean okay, yeah it is faster than having to walk around a parameter or in between the machines. But, a suspended bridge right over a huge set of industrial fans that pumped air through the ventilation system that could turn me into paste faster than I would be able to cry out in pain wasn't smart. Or maybe they felt it was cheaper to pay a family off for an accidental death than it would be to pay for lifelong disability and possible health problems.

        I lightly tread upon the still standing catwalk until I got to a point where a segment had fallen down atop of the industrial ventilation system. I used my magic to test the strength of the next suspended segment of catwalk as I evaluated my options. The first option was simple, jump across the downed portion of catwalk land and roll to spread out the impact then keep going. However, the next segment didn’t seem all that sturdy from what my tugging at it with my magic suggested. The other was the hope to navigate this maze of catwalks and find an intact catwalk that regrouped with the path I was currently on.

        “Well, I have time, lets wander around and hope I can find something to take me to the command center.” I told myself as I turned and started to trot back and hunt for another intact catwalk.

        The universe had other plans for me. The catwalk’s mountings were worn from entropy and from the blasts of two hundred years ago, as well as the more recent blast that ruptured a  fourth of the base. Like the stairs these catwalks weren't long for this world, or for this world while serving their intended purpose. As such my back tracking was cut exceedingly short as in I only got to turn around before the mountings for the catwalk tore out mountings. I plummeted and spun and unguarded from the giant fan that would very quickly turn me into nothing but diced pony bits and red mist.

        The metal of the catwalk struck the quickly spinning ventilation fan which shrieked as only metal on metal could. I heard something groan below me. I took this moment to attempt to get up and start to scamper up the almost vertical surface of the catwalk only to lose my grip and fall past the stopped fan blades. Nery a second later the catwalk gave and the fan resumed it’s rotation, the air pushed me deeper into the massive tube into the heart of the ventilation system of the facility.

        My back struck the side of the pipe as it began to curve and flatten out after having descending an unknowable distance. Not because I couldn't guess, but, because there was no light to see by as I fell.

        I gasped and rolled while the air blew over me. I coughed a few times as I felt the metal below me continue to slide past. My armor was pelted by small bits of metal, likely bits of the catwalk and fan falling down with me. I rolled too my hooves and ignored the dull pain in my back. I took look at what was ahead of me. I couldn't see very far as the tunnel had no lights and turned down again. As I understood this I also realized the yawning gulf of darkness closed to consume me as the wind blew me against the low friction surface that made up the tunnel. I cursed as I wrapped myself in my magic and let the wind carry me, that was until my shotgun hit me in the back of my head as the air blew it into me from where it had lodged itself in the catwalk above when I slipped and fell. I grasped it with my hooves and held it tight as I recast my magic. I turned on the built in night vision of the my helmet and was greeted with, of course, more metal and not much to work off of due to, well, there wasn't much around.

Moments after my helmet’s night vision gave me sight I slammed into a solid wall of dust the wind pinned me against the horizontal surface. I put the strap for my shotgun around myself and looked around for a way out of the dust. Then I heard over the drone of the ventilation the sound of what I assumed to be large pieces of the catwalk. I stood, as strange as it felt to stand on a wall, and galloped to the 'bottom' side of the tunnel and hugged the wall. I was right to move as a bar that made up the bottom sides of the catwalk sailed past me and slammed through the wall.

        I shook my head as dust filled the air and the airflow stopped. I had apparently found where the air filtration system was, and it needed a good cleaning. I also was elated for this helmet now as I wouldn't have to worry about getting anything in my eyes or sneezing like mad due to the dust. I turned to the wall of dust and raised my powerhoof and punched right through it. For a second I thought the dust might catch fire, but, it didn't, because thankfully it wasn't dust of something combustible, like metal or coal. I continued to dig through the dust until I hit the wire mesh that I had figured was under the dust, it bent to my powerhoof’s strike. Without much trouble I managed to make a hole through the mesh and dug my way through the dust as if I was a Hellhound.

        I surfaced on the other side of the hill of dust and looked into a vast room, that I honestly couldn't understand. Honestly I never paid much attention to architectural theory beyond would it support me or not as well as unique structures so I knew interesting places to loot. With now being in ventilation I had not a clue what I was actually looking at. What I did notice was there was a rather large hole that descended further into the ground. Looking around I saw more of the ventilation tunnels leading into this room. I paused as something felt off. I looked around to see if I or my EFS could spot anything.

        Nothing, that is what my EFS told me, and honestly, I believed it. There was nothing alive down here beyond myself, I was just being paranoid. I shook my mane as I examined the poorly lit room. What I mainly had to go off of was my night vision from my helmet which helped, but, with the size of the room I had areas that just faded into darkness. I did note that there were some small lights along the walls, but, it seemed that a few of those lights have fallen prey to time.

I looked up to see a high ceiling, there was some sort of mist hanging up there. I frowned and slung a fireball up at the mist. This wasn’t likely the smartest choice I had made while down here, but, I didn't have a stick to poke the mist with.

        The fireball didn’t do much to the mist other than rollaway make the mist receded from where the ball of fire had entered the mist. The mist quickly reformed and I gleamed nothing further.  I shook my head and decided to go to the edge of the pit that I had seen. As I got closer I noticed that the pipes went down and felt cool on my right, and the same temperature as the room on my left.

I blinked as I got to the edge of the pit. The yawning darkness sat there with lights every couple of yards going deeper and deeper until I couldn't make the lights out anymore. I looked to my side and saw a piece of the catwalk that had fallen with me rested on the floor, I levitated it out into the center of the hole and dropped it. Then I quietly stood there listening for the sound of the bit of metal hitting the bottom. I didn't hear it hit anything after a minute, so I assumed either it was far deeper than I expected and thus the sound died before it got to me, or that there was something soft down there. I looked behind me at the mounds of dust that were near the various intake and outtake tunnels and decided that there was likely a rather large amount of dust down there, or soft dirt. I didn't want to think of it possibly being something else.

        Then I thought about the humidity, it was possible that there was a reservoir of water used as a heat sink for the base to keep it regulated throughout the year because deep underground it stayed warm all year.

        I let out a sigh, where I was, was probably one of the safest places in this whole facility at the moment, minus the current lack of a spot for workers to easily get down here. Which seemed strange to me, the lack of easy access to something so critical seemed flawed. I frowned and threw another weak fireball across the room.

As the fireball slowly crossed the room I saw the door where I believed it should have been by the design of the room, I smiled.

        “I knew it, they wouldn't make it that hard to get down here.” I congratulated myself.

        I then checked to see if there were actual walkways over the heat exchange pipes. To my dismay I found that there once had been a platform in the middle of the room, that from the looks of the metal mounts at my hooves by the edge of the hole, had collapsed under its own weight.

I just let out a frustrated sigh and moved a fair bit back away from the edge of the hole and got up speed to a good canter and jumped over the pipes and moved to myself around the room to the doorway.

The door in question was locked.

        I just stood there for a second confused by this as I heard a ping here and there echoing through the room, likely metal cooling or heating now that there was a fan down, or due to I had cleared a pile of dust. I looked behind me to make certain that it was still just my own wasteland paranoia getting to me before I focused on the door.

With finding nothing in my sight or EFS I turned back to opening the lock of the door as I heard more of the pinging and the sound of air moving started to fill the room once more.

        A few minutes of tinkering with the door and I had the nastily complicated lock open and I walked through. The next room was a rather decently sized chamber. A lift lay long rendered unusable due to it lay crumpled on the ground with the last bit of rail ripped away from the rest. Across the way there a door lay that reminded me of the reactor door of Stable Twenty Three. I double checked my map and saw where I was lead to a room that sat between the power production area as well as ventilation. I did note that crossing here should give me access to the back door I was after for the command center. Though, the backdoor method would only be useful if nothing blocked my path to the command center. I walked up to the door and noted on the door the universal symbol for radiological hazard. I popped open my helmet and took a Rad-X then opened the door with my hooves, twisting the central circular red handle.

        The heavy door swung slowly and silently open to reveal another door identical to it. This made sense to me, same had been true in Stable Twenty Three and I saw the rationale of doubling the doors between the outside and any place that might have radiation or any hazard. I stepped on through and closed the door behind me, then I opened the next door and closed it. The next room was clean, it seemed this area hadn't deteriorated much in the past two hundred years. With the comfort of a lack of heavy deterioration and not tasting blood in my mouth I concluded containment hadn’t failed dramatically as of yet.

I looked at my map again looking for where this quick path to command was. I, annoyingly, found that there were two ways. The first path I hunted down that didn't require me to go through the room where the reactor lay to find that the door had sealed shut with entropy, and I didn't feel like damaging anything this close to the reactor. Which left me with one option.

To go through the reactor.

        I begrudgingly let out a sigh of frustration as I broke out a radiation suit that I had the foresight to bring with me and stuffed everything I owned into the bag that came with it then pulled on the suit itself. I didn't know how radioactive the reactor would be, if at all. I stared at the door that lead to the reactor itself having already passed through the doorway into the clean room. I saw showers for decontamination as well as supplies for exposure. I took a couple of Rad-X and RadAway's.

        “Do or die as they say.” I muttered to myself inside the domed helmet the radiation suit and opened the door to the reactor, immediately yellow caution lights lit up in the room, but, no sound. I guessed that it was standard procedure.

        With the door open I heard the clicking of my Pipbuck’s geiger counter as I saw a room bathed in blue light. I looked down to see a pool of water and machinery deep below the surface that was the source of the light. There were, of course, more catwalks. However, I did note two observation rooms. The corresponding entrance room across from me still had an open door and warning lights flashing. I closed the door behind me and kept an eye on my rad count, which climbed at about five rads even with Rad-X and my radiation suit on.

I had started to feel the effects of advanced radiation sickness as I crossed the catwalk to the other side. I looked into the water hoping to spot the other pony who had ventured into this hotzone. I saw nothing with my eyes or EFS, it was a good, but, sad sign.

        The rads were leaving me with a bad case of advanced radiation sickness which left me feeling drained by the time I got through the other door. My exposure was well over four hundred rads as I closed the door behind me. The doors out were locked on on my side. I figured I had to scrub down before the doors would unlock, so I did. First in my radiation suit, then I stripped out of it after the room's air had been cycled. I groaned feeling the sensation of something moving within me which had grown with the dose of radiation I had been given. I sat under the hot water letting it run over me for a long time, it felt good over my worn body so I didn’t want to move any time soon. Hell it had been a while since I had gotten a proper bath without irradiated water, even in Colt the water we had was slightly radioactive.

My Pipbuck thankfully stayed quiet and my powerhoof didn't accidentally discharge as I relaxed and massaged my sore and battered body in this unlikely, but, welcome gift. It was rare to get a nice break like this in the middle of adventuring, I had found.

        “But, all good things must come to an end.” I bemoaned as I shut off the water and packed away my radiation suit and pulled on my normal and dirty armor, my eyes staring longingly at the shower wanting to climb back into it and do more to relax myself and wash away my worries for a short time. “But, there is adventure to be had.”

        With that I opened the now unlocked door and exited into the other side of the reactor floor. Here I saw what I expected, a clean place devoid of supplies, detritus, or really anything else. Here though the lights were at full power and not emergency lighting levels. I didn't need night vision here, for now at least.

I went to the observation room and checked the instruments. What I was seeing was beyond me, the science behind using radioactive materials for energy wasn't something I knew of, and probably was something pretty darn new when the bombs fell. From what I read from the settings this thing had been operating for just over two hundred years. However, from what I saw either everything was set to run at minimal power draw, or, the radioactive materials were pretty close to being useless with the flow of time having eaten away at the radioactive fuel.

        I shook my head, there weren't any alarms or really anything saying I needed to run the buck away from here as quickly as possible. However, there really wasn't anything I was able to make any sense out of here either.

I did see a manual and read it’s title aloud to myself. “Everything you ever wanted to know about nuclear reactors, but, were afraid to ask about.”

I facehoofed before shaking my head. I made a note to come back here and nab the book if I ever returne. Which might happen, I got the feeling the elevator to take the tank out of there might be dead with the current power available. However, I wouldn't know that until I got back to the motor pool.

        I let out a muffled sigh as I left the observation room and headed down the corridor down to command and control.

The hall looked bad, worse than other places, as if there might have been a fight, with fire, of all things, being used.

        I turned a corner to find a wall with what looked to be the outline of a pony's shadow still on the wall. The black trail of shadow upon approaching it looked to be that of an earth pony’s splayed out like they were laying on the floor. I poked at the shadow on the floor and found the shadow was etched into it, not so etched but more of the wall was bleached around the shape of the ponies that were here.

I turned and looked further down the hall and saw a few more of these shadows. I gulped. I had no idea how this happened or what could even cause it. I followed the hall, going the opposite direction of the shadows, it unsettled me enough that I almost tripped over my own hooves.

        I opened the door at the end of the hall with my keycard. Inside I saw a table with some sort of machine in the middle, damaged by the burns on top of it. There were pillows on the floor around the table itself, from my count there were five seats whose owners I had not found in the hallway. I moved across the room and saw three other doorways. One I knew to be the elevator to the research wing, one had a placard stating ‘Base Commander: Colonel Lunar Lance’ and the last door that seemed to be locked from my side of it. I raised an eyebrow at seeing the name Lunar Lance, I hadn't heard of them before, but, given the location I suspected that was their office.

        I unlocked the door to find, unfortunately or fortunately I wasn't certain, a skeleton in tattered equestrian military fatigues. The skeleton of a pegasus, a detail I only knew due to the skeletal wings that I saw. A single bullet hole in their forehead. The staircase had collapsed on them and they had been killed with a shot instead of dug out, or perhaps the staircase had collapsed later on atop of them, it was hard to tell. The main point being, some pony had killed this pegasus before they could escape and their fatigues gave me no idea as to who they had been.

        I left the room and closed it again, locking the door for the sake of safety, not out of paranoia that a skeleton could come back to life, that is just ridiculous.

Next came the elevator, which I found to be shut off and requiring a key to activate or open with the system. I sighed again, getting annoyed at the dead ends I kept bumping into. I finally went to the base commander's door and tried the handle to find it surprisingly unlocked. I felt my right eye twitch at this. Either way though I needed to see what was through this door.

        As I pushed the door open it just fell right off of it's hinges and brought up a cloud of dust. I just blinked and looked at the door frame. Well, I would have if there was much of a door frame remaining, it looked like someone had beaten on the thing for a while. I stared inside to see a plethora of good old books and everything else looking well preserved with time. I felt a smile go over my muzzle as I trotted into the room.

* Bang *

        I was knocked on my side and slid across the metal floor, as I slide and rotated across the floor I saw a red light signaling a turret. Of course the base commander's office would have turrets inside of it! SATS came up at my command and I got a nice still shot of the room. On the left side of the door facing out of the doorway I saw a smashed turret.

I then turned to look at what hit me. A dud forty millimeter grenade. Why in Tartarus would this be on a turret inside a base commander's room?! I took aim with SATS upon the turret that had fired upon me. With a blast fired from my shotgun the targeting talesman shattered and the ancient turret died.

I got up and felt the ceramic plate that had been guarding my barrel on my right side feel off. I quickly checked it to find the dud grenade had shattered the plate, and that the plate had likely saved my life from having my lungs crushed and instead merely having the wind knocked out of me.

        “Okay, that is a good reason to use dud forty millimeter grenades indoors.” I admitted to the turret dead turret before coughing, my lungs protesting their rough treatment.

        I picked myself up off of the floor and went behind the desk, to find the decapitated head of another pegasus, they had some sort of black armor on them, fancy lightweight stuff. I frowned looking at the body. I would bring the armor back with me, honestly even though I didn't have wings it looked about the right size for me. I looked around for the head and found it, under the desk. I brought the armor and head together and then pulled the dead pegasus out of it. They would remain here, if my guess was right, these two pegasi I had seen here were traitors who were abandoning pony kind to the hell of the wasteland, I felt no sympathy for them.

        I swore though when I attempted to pack Ministry of Awesome power armor away into my bags. I growled and then just tied the surprisingly lightweight power armor to my back. I was glad to have left my other scavenged goods back with my friends in the motor pool.

        I looked around again seeing a terminal built into the Colonel's desk. I looked at the still powered on screen to see a irksome message displayed upon screen.

        “Mainframe connection lost.” I read aloud before letting out a strangled curse.

        I sighed and just sat on the floor with a heavy thump of my rump hitting the metal floor where time had eaten away the carpet and the clatter of the MoA power armor on my back.

        “This place really doesn't want to give up anything.” I muttered before I turned my attention to the question of how to open the elevator so I could continue my search of the facility. “So, what do I do next? Force open the elevator and climb that? Hmm... You know what, that is the best option, I don't have such a heavy load, even this power armor is pretty lightweight.”

        I frowned as I realized it might be a good option to try putting on the MoA power armor.

 “You know what,” I said as it dawned on me I had some power armor to play with. “Yeah, lets see how tricky power armor is to use.”

        I untied the armor, not moments ago I had tied to my back, good use of time on my part. I stripped out of my current garb and stuffed it in the bags I had with me. Then I turned to work out how to open up the power armor, since I had just pulled bones out of it when I got it off of the long dead pegasus. I then also realized a body had decayed in here and felt quite uncomfortable putting it on just yet. I lifted my Pipbuck to eye level again and looked for if there was a bathroom near me and then remembered the sterilization shower next to the reactor and promptly facehoofed.

        I trotted back to the sterilization shower and washed out the power armor, scrubbing it fully. I then dried it as best as I could with a mix of towels and magic.

A few minutes of work later I returned to the control room for the reactor and laid out the power armor on a table. With everything prepared I linked my Pipbuck with the power armor and began my search for if it had a built in digital manual for how the hay to put it on.

With my Pipbuck plugged into the power armor I got a fair number of alerts about how the user's vitals were below expected values. I just rolled my eyes at the alerts and wormed my way through the systems to find how to do what was needed to open up the armor so I could get in.

        After a few minutes of having to turn off alerts I managed to get to the core functions of the power armor. Power armor more or less had a spell for opening it up to allow for somepony to get into it and then reseal it. I wondered if Steel Ranger power armor was the same way after remembering what Applejack had said when showing off the first Steel Ranger power armor in that memory orb. I instructed the armor to open and watched as the helmet rolled away, again. I grabbed the helmet and put it on feeling something wrap around my horn before hardening on the front half of my horn. I then pulled on the armor as if it was nothing except for cloth. The spell made it as simple as putting on socks and a robe. I guessed making the whole thing limp instead of rigid for a set period of time was an breakthrough design choice at least. Honestly, it really felt like I was putting on some sort of fancy dress instead of high end combat armor. A part of my mind wondered who had designed it and if they had some other interesting designs laying around.

        With the armor fully on I activated the spell to return the armor back to its normal rigidity. I blinked as my eyes were filled with the suit's EFS as it worked to integrate with my Pipbuck's EFS. The unfortunate side effect was I had double vision for a few moments before I saw two ponies shake, one an earth pony the other a pegasus in this armor.

        I tried to shake my head to get used to the armor and instead found that the armor didn't budge.

        “Oh.”  I muttered as I started trying to flick through the various bits of information within the power armor's spell matrix. “this isn't good.”

Then my vision filled with progress bars that filled of their own accord.

        “Or I needed to wait for a few minutes while this runs a first boot thing.” I giggled at my own haste and paranoia.

        So I stood there for another minute before two messages appeared in front of me.

        “Hello, Chief Warrant Officer Moonlight. Would you like a walk through of the Ministry of Awesome Pegasi “Shadowbolt” Power Armor.” I read aloud before looking at the second message. “Warning, wings not detected, see commanding officer or medical facility for help.”

        I did pause though looking at Chief Warrant Officer as my rank, I wasn't certain as to why I had a rank according to the power armor. Then it hit me, the dog tags on my collar must have been active prewar for someone with that rank or the armor was just busted. Both situations were possible, though more likely that the armor had suffered damage since it had been shot up. However, if the armor saw me as a member of the Equestrian armed forces it might give me full access to everything. Hey, maybe Foresight and myself would be seen as members who were currently alive and thus given access to multiple facilities without security trying to murder us. I dismissed the thought though, I had other things to work on right now, like how to move.

        With another glance I dismissed the second message and decided to let the power armor walk me through its functions. In short order the armor instructed the various medical, technical, and environmental aids it had as well as the built in battle saddle mounts and the blade that sat at the end of the tail, more or less a scorpian. I had to admit the armor looked like it would weigh more, but, even with the thing not wanting to move for me I felt that it was lighter than it looked. I also felt the air on the back of my horn and I even saw my mane sticking out of the helmet when I looked far to the sides. It seemed even though well armored the design allowed for ones mane to be shown. That or the armor had a crack along my mane.

        I took a deep breath once the armor had finished going through its digital manual of features and tried to move again. I started out using as little strength as possible to move and found the armor moved with me without effort only when I hit a certain threshold of strength. I began to practice gentle movements within the armor and figured that either there were limiters to protect the user or that since it detected I was a new user the armor was making certain I didn't hurt myself by trying to go to hard too fast.

        Half an hour later I had a good feel for the armor, while I wasn't getting much of a benefit from it due to lack of proper training I could use it and make use of the inherent environmental protection and armor on it. Also I still was clumsy with stabbing things with my tail, but, I was getting better with grabbing things with it which was worth the little bit of impromptu training I had just given myself at the behest of not injuring myself with my new armor.

There was one unfortunate problem with my recently acquired power armor was that I had no wings. Thankfully, the armor knew this and had the wings locked shut on my sides, giving me some extra armor. I had an idea that I might be able to use those wings with some trickery with the armors programming to give myself more time in the air instead of having to use my magic to hold myself against the full force of gravity. Mostly it was telling the armor to extend the wings and lock them in place, like a parachute or hang glider.

        I looked around still getting used to the augmented sight of the power armor, there were additional readouts in my vision coming from the various additional sensors that the power armor had integrated into it that Pipbuck’s don’t have. Distance a read out was the main thing I had noticed. There might have been more and the instructions had said some things about optional readouts and functions like some sort of augmented vision which I assumed to be either night vision or thermal vision. For now though all I needed to know how to do was move the armor at a decent pace.

As I walked back to the elevator I scrolled through the various options within the armor and found the inhibitors for motion and loosened them a bit further so in a crunch the armor wouldn't lock up on me if I tried to quickly get somewhere or strain myself opening a door with my hooves.

        Once I had returned to the command room I stared at the elevator door, I jabbed at the seam of the door with my bladed tail and wedged it in. I grabbed the doors in my magic and began with my tail and magic to pry the elevator doors open. Once the doors were open enough to get the tips of my hooves in I dug my forehooves into the crack and started to pry open the door. After a few centimeters the doors automatically released and opened cleanly for me. The sudden release also left me fighting for my balance as I heard the loud sucking sound of ventilation maintaining negative pressure in the elevator shaft. While I fought to regain my balance I looked down and could see the elevator car resting below me. Which begged the question what was lower. I got my hooves to the floor then turned and looked up to see a clear path up three stories before I saw what looked to be a closed bulkhead.

        I frowned as I walked out into the shaft and hopped down the couple of feet that to the roof of the elevator car. It took a couple of seconds, but, I found the hatch into the car. I opened the hatch with my bladed tail then stuck my head inside. What I saw I didn't quite understand. The car, for the most part, was intact, there was a bit of wear from the passage of time, but, it seemed fine. Crawling inside of it I hit the door open button on the elevator. With the doors opened I looked out at a small room with another closed bulkhead and a panel for entering in a number code. I frowned then pushed the closed the doors button, it didn’t do anything. I frowned as I pressed the button for the third floor, which if it worked, would take me right to the top of the shaft..

        The doors refused to close and the buttons I pressed didn't light up. I frowned, then poked the button for the third floor again and waited a few seconds, and again the doors remained open. I frowned and jabbed the button rapidly with my right hoof, still nothing. With one careless and frustrated jab of my powerhoof fused hoof smashed the elevator panel. I scowled and turned to the hatch on the roof of the elevator and then jumped up to it.

        After I clamored through the hatch I was back to square one with the elevator, well maybe it was more like square negative one with the elevator now being inoperable. I looked side to side and found what I had expected, a ladder, something that most ponies overlooked due to we generally aren't meant for ladders, but, with skill and not looking down they aren't hard to climb. Either way I threw myself at the ladder and began climbing, as this was my only way up and down around here with the staircase collapsed and the elevator being a pile of rubbish.

        The clang of my metal clad hooves upon the metal rungs of the ladder rang out into the confined space of the elevator shaft. Thankfully I had left a lot of my equipment back with the others, because, this climb would be terrible carrying around three hundred or so extra pounds of arms, armor, and various scrap equipment. At least now it was just a radiation suit, my old armor, far too many weapons, and medical supplies. Just, you know, the basics you have to pack for delving into derelict research facilities that may or may not hold hostile living, robotic, or undead monstrosities within it. It struck me thinking about what I left behind that it might have been a good idea to have brought with me a flamethrower, then again, with my horn I had a flamethrower, so that might have been just a bit redundant. Of course I also had the issue of magic can and often is countered or targeted down first. Though that might have been something emergent in strategy once it was everypony for themselves.

        I shook my mane and shoved the thoughts out of my head as I reached the level below where the bulkhead had closed off. There was one problem with my location, some idiot had decided it was a good idea to weld close the elevator door on this floor making it a slight bit tricky to get in, though it probably be easier than punching through the bulkhead above me. I sighed and decided now would be probably a good point to do a bit of high energy metalworking with my horn and hooked my tail around a rung of the ladder. Then I turned around and hung from my tail so I could give full focus to melting the door away by building up enough power to heat up the elevator door. Thank you to whoever had decided to put a tail blade on the end of MoA armor.

        After a few minutes of focus I unleashed a blast from my horn at the door and watched as the door turned a bright yellow and the walls around it pinged from the heat difference. Then I swung myself up at the door with my tail and smashed my powerhoof into the split of the doors. My powerhoof dented the welded shut door and I heard a klaxon sound at the same time as I heard a heavy thud below me. I looked down as I swung back from my blow against the door, my back bouncing against the ladder as I saw a new bulkhead had quickly sealed below me.

        “Well, that is either a good sign or a bad sign.” I muttered as I pulled myself up with my magic so I could loop a forehoof around one of the rungs of the ladder and stop hanging by my tail.

        I looked back at the door and listened to the distinct whistle of air blowing through the cracks that had formed within it. The ventilation here was still on, so, some other reason existed for the sealing off of this part of the facility. I positioned myself again and began to rain down blows with my powerhoof upon the door further denting it as ringing filled my ears from the deafening cacophony of metal upon metal of my blows.

        The door bent and gave way to a small enough hole for me to climb though. Through the hole I saw into what a lobby for the elevator, clean, white, pristine, and so deeply wrong to me that my stomach knotted up. I swore that I would be able to smell how clean the place was if not for the air filter system on my muzzle.

I felt the battle saddle mounted weapons unfurl and await my command to fire as I crawled through the hole in the door into the lobby. Having entered the lobby I paused as I felt as if my hooves were echoing as loud as my powerhoof upon the door had been. With caution I stood there and listened to the ringing of my ears, watching EFS for any blue or red bars, as I waited for the ringing to go away before I proceeded. Though, with my nerves frayed by the intrusive wrongness of seeing anything this pristine and clean in the wasteland and the abhorrent things that I had encountered before in such environments my tail flicked behind me and I felt the blade scratching against the floor.

        Once a few minutes had passed my hearing had cleared. My nerves had also regenerated a bit of resolve against the wrongness that was how pristine and untouched this place was from the influence of time. I took a step forward and lightly stepped forward, my hoof making less noise than my own breathing. I paused only to bring up my EFS to see what weapons were mounted on the armor. To my tremendous pleasure there was a flamethrower on my right side and twin-linked automatic shotguns on the other side. Whoever this had belonged to had come here to kill in close quarters combat. Which explained why their body had been left here, and why they hadn't been able to take out both turrets, this load out was meant for flesh.

        I looked around the lobby again and saw a small security desk. The raised high enough to make a nice bit of cover in case things came in either from the elevator or from the single double door on the other side of the room. I trotted to the security desk and found an inlaid terminal with connection, and, by my luck, still logged inl. The top memo instructed to evaluate and remove all usable as well as stable for transport materials under the orders of Operation Stardust. I frowned as I looked further into the terminal to find nothing further on Operation Stardust, just it's name. Beyond the memo I found security logs as well as schedules, and a few passwords, and one thing I enjoyed greatly, a register for adding my identification to personnel with top authorization. Security from here on out would be no problem, so long as it hadn't gone rampant in the intervening two centuries.

        I looked up from the terminal and slide the security card I was given into my Pipbuck’s slot. With one last press of a button I unlocked the double door that lead into the storage area for the research laboratory wing of the facility. Here theory became made material. Here I hoped I would find an answer or two, and, maybe something of personal value.

I frown placed itself on my muzzle as I passed the double doors and sat in another airlock. The room began to cycle as I began to worry about what horrors might be in here, but, honestly this place seemed focused on making new weapons of war, so, biological experiments I really doubted would be here, and I really hoped right about that. I was completely done dealing with weird living things. Then again, robots aren’t always the easiest things to deal with. However, with security systems on my side only machines gone haywire would be a potential robotic threat.

        The door opened after the room had finished cycling the air. I trotted forward into the next room. As soon as I crossed the threshold of the room lit up with loud clacks rows after rows of lights turning on, the walls white, the lights hummed to life, and row after row of supplies were lit in front of me.

        I stood in awe, as well as partial blindness, as the power armor dimmed the lenses to protect my eyes and let them adjust to the sudden change in lighting. I saw very few damaged containers, but, I did see a fair number of empty containers, boxes on the ground, empty beakers, canisters with their lids open, open racks where things would have been.

        I let out a whistle as I composed myself. “Damn, that is a lot of supplies, well, time to see if there is an inventory of it all.”

        I looked left and right then saw another desk which I trotted over to it and then saw a door as well. I tried the door to find it unlocked, opening it I saw what was only to be described as part office, part storage for files, and part sleeping quarters. I even saw a refrigerator. I looked over everything before choosing what I would look into first.

        I turned to the refrigerator. What was inside of it surprised me, which at this point was a bit amusing that I could get surprised by having normal things being stored where it made sense.

        I pulled out a poor abandoned bottle of scotch, it still held about two shots worth of well aged alcohol. Part of me begged me to drink it, to enjoy the warm feeling alcohol imparted as well as the relaxing effect of alcohol. I sighed and put it in my pack, I wouldn't drink it now, not while there was possible danger ahoof and I was alone. I felt a tinge of pride in doing so. Honestly it still unnerved me how quickly part of me longed for anything that would dull the various aches and pains in my body, be it the feeling of something moving below my skin from taint, or the always present pain from my powerhoof that was fused with my hoof. Then again, who would blame me for wanting some relief from constant pain, more so since I tended to be less high strung and trigger happy.

        I shook my mane and cleared my thoughts about how the bottle weighed against me in my pack.

        “Be a good girl and follow the promise you made yourself.” I muttered to myself as I turned back to desk outside of the room.

        I dug into the terminal with ease and found what I wanted, an updated inventory of the storage portion of the research wing. While it didn't give me what experiments were being run I did also include a map of the current floor which included a staircase that lead to the other floors. I downloaded the inventory to my Pipbuck in case I needed to refer to it, as well as all the material safety data sheets.

        I shut off the terminal and sat down on the cot in the office and thought for a moment as I brought up the auto-mapper in my EFS. With my understanding of the layout of this floor there were actually a few places that would have ladders and service elevators up into labs from sectioned off storage rooms. I ran over the various possible options to pursue for going up a floor and decided the best and safest way to do so would be to just take the stairs.

        I hopped off the cot and quickly trotted off towards the far back wall and quickly found the door to the stairwell. Opening the door I saw a well lit stairwell and quietly made my way up changing the load of shotgun shells to the explosive rounds that made up an interestingly large amount of the armor’s ammo supply. I also switched the fuel for my flamer for the hotter burning optimized fuel. I wanted to be ready to wreck anything that decided to mess with me. I also moved my swords to a better position on my sides and so they were held under the armor’s wings.

        I took a deep breath before I opened the door to the third floor of the laboratories. What greeted was a more worn looking hallway than storage had presented to me. I trotted forward into the hallway and kept the auto-mapper in a corner of my vision as I started looking for another reception desk. Then I remembered the layout of the elevator shaft and felt a bit foolish and walked down the hall after it. My hooves didn't echo in here and a little bit of dust lazily drifted in the air as I trotted past darkened rooms. I did take note of the few placards on the doors around here, most of it seemed to be rest rooms, cleaning supply closets, first aid rooms, as well as a decontamination shower.

        Towards the front area with the elevator I started seeing some offices, I also saw a direct walkway to the sealed portion of the facility with the elemental. I also saw some rather larger rooms with chalkboards that still had various numbers, symbols, and equations on the board. I swear that a few of the symbols and equations actually physically hurt my brain to look at.

        I shook the twinge of intellectual pain out of my mind and ignored the math and science that was far beyond my tutorage and instead focused the practical and mundane. My focus mainly was on the security desk that sat by the elevator doors.

        With my Pipbuck connected to the terminal I was granted access to what had previously been a completely locked out terminal, yay for security overrides. Within the terminal I was able to get a file that was the entire floors map, largely redundant, beyond now having the names of labs and offices.

        I sifted through the rest of the data on the terminal and found a few memos to various researchers and soldiers who were stationed here two centuries ago as well as the memo about Operation Stardust. It seemed whoever ran Operation Stardust, which unless the apocalypse had managed to get Governor-General Stardust, it was likely Stardust herself, had done a good job at keeping what it actually was very well covered up. I shook my mane as I shut off the terminal then stood as I worked out a plan for how to proceed.

        I made up my mind pretty quickly and went for where the offices of the head researchers were. I tried the door and found it locked. I worked on the door with my magic to see if I could unlock the door only find it stubbornly jammed, as if someone with great strength had tried to force the lock because they lacked the deftness to pick the lock. I sighed, turned around and hung my head.

        “I am so glad there is more than one way to deal with a locked door.” I grunted as I gave the door a solid apple buck. The door rattled behind me and I felt the jolt go up my legs.

        “Right, metal doors don’t give like wooden ones, it also would help if I had powerhooves on my hind legs.” I whimpered as I sat down and rubbed my hind hooves.

        I looked back up at the door where I saw imprints of my hooves right next to the doorknob. I stood up ignoring the dull ache now in my hind legs, just another bit of pain to ignore with the rest of the persistent pains within me. I just punched the center of the door with my powerhoof and crumpled the door inward the sound of the metal twisting as the lock pulled free from its slot in the door frame. I removed my hoof from the crumpled door and swung it open before trotting proudly in.

        The room itself still had quite a few binders of scientific information, experiments, and research on the bookshelves. I felt a tear roll down my cheek in happiness for seeing so much knowledge in one place. I pulled down a book and for a moment I worried time would have eaten away the paper pages. I opened the book to find the pages were plastic. I just blinked for a few moments as I flipped through them.

        “This... this was a smart move. This prevents the book from being damaged by spills, writing, as well as from time itself.” I muttered to myself as I flipped through pages of alchemical research stamped with the logo of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. I flipped back to the cover page. “A case for the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion.”

        I paused as my eyes went wide. “This is… IMP.” I stammered being left speechless at what I had in my hooves.

        “This is the theory, the method behind IMP.” I whispered to myself feeling curiosity and dread fall upon me, I held the knowledge that was behind the alchemical solution I had been injected with. This book held the knowledge that was invaluable, with it I could possibly make ponies immune to taint and radiation. I felt a sinister grin crawl across my muzzle, I found a great deal of power in knowledge that was mine alone.

        I shook my head pushing out the thoughts of how I could use this knowledge which was borderline abusing the knowledge and put the book away in my bag. I turned back to examine the rest of the room once more. Behind the desk sat a chalkboard with various chemical and alchemical names, structures, and combinations for desired reactions. The desk itself held a still functional terminal.

        The terminal wasn't hard to get into, more of, with my security rating I just overrode the request for a password.

        I swear I didn't faint from the sheer volume of knowledge that the terminal contained, and available for transfer all of the knowledge to my Pipbuck for later consumption. I pulled myself back up from the floor and began the transfer of all the valuable and, hopefully, useful knowledge. I flipped through various memos, logs, research findings, and requests for additional resources for projects. It seemed that this researcher, Aurum, as they were called in the notes was a lifelong student of alchemy. Judging from a few logs, Aurum disliked being just an Earth Pony, he knew of the augmentations the Zebras were doing and wished to do the same for himself.

        Then there was a rather interesting letter to Aurum, mainly due to who it was from, Twilight Sparkle, the ministry mare of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences.

Dear Aurum,

Your findings in alchemy and attempting to unravel how our Zebra foes alchemical augmentations have been brought to my attention by a mutual friend of ours. Recently, as now you know, I have begun to develop a potion for the creation of Alicorns out of anypony who takes the potion. I have called the potion in question the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion. We have managed to boil down the alchemic formula for permanent augmentations without serious health repercussions. However, we have a issue of uncertainty with regards to provoking the desired augmentations to express themselves within the test subject. As we have no idea of exactly what augmentation will present itself upon consumption of the IMP we have not performed any tests on anything living. We are at a loss here as to what to do and I am writing you to ask for some possible insight on how to proceed. I would prefer if you came to Maripony so we could discuss possible solutions and prevent possible information leaks.

Thank you for your time,

Twilight Sparkle

Minister of Arcane Sciences

        I frowned after finishing reading the letter. I looked for further memos and letters from around the date Twilight Sparkle’s letter had been dated. As a progress bar slowly filled in the upper left corner of my vision for the file transfer, I found a few memos around the desired date. Apparently Aurum's direct contact with Twilight Sparkle set off some alarms within the community of scientists here at the base, and the military as well. Apparently the letter even resulted in having a personal meeting with Stardust. About a day later I saw that arrangements had been made for a trip to Maripony for Aurum and a few of his assistants.

        I frowned wondering if possibly he was the one who had started using IMP to create other potions for enhancing abilities of ponies, like the one I had been given by Aegis. It was possible that early development of desirable augmentations and enhancements, it made sense, trying to get some of the first basic enhancements that Alicorns showed today, increased magical power, stature, wings and horns obviously. Plus it meshed with what I had been told about the potion I was given.

I resumed reading and there was a note of one of the storage rooms was to house some IMP that was given to Aurum by Twilight Sparkle in return for the breakthrough of making each of the desirable traits express themselves. However, there was still apparently an issue with making all the desired traits to show up at once. IMP was also noted as still not being safe for pony testing according to Twilight Sparkle. It also seemed there was an issue with safely storing IMP over long periods of time, but, Aurum apparently had managed to convince Twilight that he could find a way to safely store it as well as figure out the last few problems with IMP.

        Further logs from that point on were frantic bits about finding better storage solutions, often having to put old containers into new containers, and that the IMP seemed to be making more of itself as time went by and ate away at containers. I also noticed something odd as time went by, more accidents seemed to be mentioned and new safety measures put in place for all other projects.

        I frowned reading one memo about how some pony managed to get caught by the machine form changelings that were being developed here. According to everything they were just fine, except there were two of them when security finally found the poor stallion.

My Pipbuck chirped as the files finished transferring so I disconnected the wires from the terminal to the Pipbuck and stood. I looked at the rest of the files on my Pipbuck later when I had sometime to spare again. I also felt I had killed enough time with looking through memos and personal journal entries. Now was the time for me to go digging through some labs to see if I could find some half baked projects I could rescue from this derelict facility and give some love.

        I trotted out of the office and made my way towards the labs on this floor. The doors to the labs were not locked, and in fact it seemed that every lab had two or three rooms before you could actually go into the lab itself, sterilization rooms, locker rooms, and rooms with chalkboards for meetings of the mind. Mostly though I found an annoying lack of anything in the labs, their ready rooms. It seemed that the researchers here were good at putting away projects and supplies when they were done working on them. Which seemed to follow the whole notion that somepony in the military knew that the end was coming and that Seamane didn't get hit immediately like the rest of Equestria.

         I had gone up another floor to labs that were supposedly focused on material studies and testing, unlike the floor I started on which seemed to be theoretical testing of concepts. A few labs had some instruments laying out, and a fresh lab coat which I grabbed for patches for my own lab coat. I walked back to the airlock and pressed the switch to cycle the system so I could move on to the last few labs on this floor. I grew frustrated after two minutes of the system cycling the air and not stopping.

        I sat down and waited as a decontamination shower continued to cycle. A quote drifted into my mind from the memos on Aurum's terminal rang through my mind, the last one from Twilight Sparkle, days before the end had come. “The only variable is dosage.”

        I shuddered at the thought of becoming one of the Goddess' children, no, puppets was the right term. “One of many fates that could possibly be mine. Thank Celestia that my destiny is of my own making.”

        The door soon opened and I went back to my searching of laboratories.

        With that I checked the last couple of laboratories on this floor to find a few healing potions that had been over looked, some bandages and other first aid equipment as well. I packed them away to restock some of what I had used on Rose. With that I hit the stairwell again and went to the top and final floor of the research laboratories of Research Station Twenty Three. Maybe an hour more and I would be done searching this place and maybe an hour after that we would be outside again. Honestly I was surprised with how quick we were moving through this place, even with having to rest for injuries we had gained shortly upon entering the facility, it had been less than a day that we had been down here.

        Last floor was a bit of a mess, a lot of equipment here had been abandoned and gave an unsettling feeling to the place. It also seemed as though the blast from the Steel Rangers had managed to actually damage this portion of the facility. There were burn marks along the ceiling as well as a number of broken light fixtures, some partially hanging and others laying on the ground. Flickering lights and emergency lighting made up a broken pattern of lighting for the floor. I let out a sigh as I went to the security desk once more to check if there was any listings of what equipment or projects were on this floor.

        Luck was not with me this time around as the terminal was done for. At first I had taken it as the monitor of the terminal had cracked from the heat, but, upon closer examination I found that the electronics within had been cooked as well leaving it nothing but a brick of metal and useless circuitry.

        With a sigh and shake of my mane I turned towards the hallways and began combing through the halls for any lab that had anything left within it. The first few had a few tools that looked like they had been used in a rush to dismount some heavy equipment for removal. Which made sense with what I had been told about and seen in the research station. For the most part though there was yet again not much that was of use to me.

        Though, with how my luck is, or maybe it was more of somepony else's luck being poor. The last lab was rather large and locked. The fact it was locked told me there had to be something of value here. As my mood lightened after the down mood bumping into the origin of the Goddess’ children had left me in I successfully unlocked the door, it wasn't that hard of a lock, that or I had gotten far better at lockpicking than I realized. No matter the case I was in to see what treasure I had found.

        Upon entry to the observation room I saw a design for some sort of armor specifically for unicorns. I moved to the window and flipped a switch for illuminating the floor of the work room as well as opening the shutters. Inside sat a suit of power armor that was meant for a rather large unicorn, in fact the size of it made me think of Rose in a heartbeat. I turned back to the board and started to look over what was listed on it and paused as I read what was integrated into the suit.

        “Miniaturized Megaspell casting suite, magical energy capacitors, redundant spell matrix, and external mounting system for battle saddles.” I read aloud as I sat on the cold floor in awe.

        I eventually managed to pull myself to my hooves again and entered the airlock that separated the workroom from the rest of the lab. The cycle went quickly as one would expect, but, it was still a clean room setting. As I neared the power armor I paused seeing a skeleton whose bones were charred black. I immediately worried for the worse and skirted around the perimeter of the room, keeping my eyes on my EFS, as I made my way to a terminal. The terminal was was linked with the power armor via a number of large and small cables along the floor and ceiling.

        I powered on the terminal to find it unguarded by password or security key. So with nothing stopping me I dove right into the data available within the unprotected terminal. Quickly I found that the Power Armor had been left charged, which meant it needed discharging, the only problem was, and it was noted within a file on the terminal, that approaching the armor could cause it to discharge into whatever drew near with chaotic and unstable magics, apparently an issue they were working on, something to do with the magical capacitors. I looked at the armor seeing a faint aura around it and felt a pulse of static and magic emit from the armor.

        I checked the design specifications of the armor and found that the capacitors for the magic reserves could be externally charged by unicorns or magical energy cells of any type, which explained the cables leading into the armor. I also, to my dismay, found that they had managed to figure out a way to store the magical energy in those capacitors with a decay from maximum charge expected to be around a millennium after they were fully charged. Apparently this was a side effect of the degree of protection and containment that they had managed to develop. The release system for the magical energies was solely designed to feed into the mini-megaspell casting array built into the armor. I also was interested in exactly how the internal mechanics worked for switching what spell the armor could cast from the megaspell array. Then I remembered the fact that megaspells were just a framework of ritual casting, and realized exactly how powerful this armor could be in the right or wrong hooves.

        I continued to go through the information and options within the terminal as I felt my mane start to stand on end and the magic within the room began to build. The magic built to the point I tasted the magic in the air. Which was strange as the magic tasted of odd flavor of cotton candy, chocolate, and milk. I also found to my dismay that there was no emergency discharge option for the armor.

        I looked up feeling panic setting in as I realized that there was a good chance of not being able to leave the room and as I was the only thing here that was conductive and not part of the system connected to the suit, I was a lightning rod in the middle of a thunderstorm. I gave the command to the terminal to cut of feeding any power to the power armor and in fact to cut all connections to it. I hoped this would give more targets for the armor to discharge into that wasn’t me. I heard a hiss and looked up to see cables falling and some being propelled by pressurized air away from the armor. For a moment the building charge seemed to die down.

        Unfortunately for me my luck was my luck and the magic contained within the armor being unruly meant that the magic began to arc off of the power armor. First it struck the skeleton in the room, then with a deafening crack as a blinding light filled the room and pain poured out of my face as a bolt of pure arcane energy struck my armored face.

        With everything ringing and the armor I was wearing feeling rather warm I came to. There were a great deal of orange and yellow streaks as well as spots on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. The disconnected cables were flayed, burnt, and smoking as I began to move to get up to be met with a horrifying realization. My power armor was dead, I was left trapped in the eye of the storm in nothing more than a glorified coffin. My vision was clear of any EFS and I saw more bolts of magic arcing off of the power armor. I saw even a small fire had started in the observation room from where an arcane blast had shattered the window.

        I groaned as I wrapped my magic around me, if I couldn't move my armor with my body I would simply move myself with my magic. While dragging my paralyzed body around was not the quickest or easiest way to get around it was my only option. Plus there was a perfectly good hole in the observation window to toss myself through. The only problem was the power armor between me and said hole.

        With the armor making a veritable storm of chaotic and deadly energy within the room, moving physically wasn’t really an option this time around. Instead I focused my magic to my seldom used and unrefined ability to teleport. I closed my eyes and focused on the hallway outside of the lab I was in.

For a brief moment I felt heat wash over me and then I dropped a few centimeters to the cool floor of the hallway. I opened my eyes in time to see the metal door of the lab start to glow orange before I heard something loud and heavy slam down behind it. I guessed some sort of failsafe kicked in once I had gotten out. Rather humane to have the failsafe activate only once all things all living were out of the room before going off.

I shook myself as I stood up to have a bit of soot come off of me from the abrupt and crude teleportation spell.

“Well, I lived through another case of bad luck. Though knowing what all has happened to me before I would have absorbed some of that magic for a short while.” I said before shaking my mane softly. “But, whatever, I need to get to the mainframe and download it’s contents.”

Without delay I made my way back down and to the storage section of the laboratory wing of the the facility. I looked up on the security terminal and found exactly what I needed, the room housing the mainframe. Though I did notice a few things that set of warning lights in my mind. The main thing was it looked like there was some sort of security net that was ominously labeled as connection lost. The next thing was it looked like readouts for the temperature inside the room surrounding the mainframe, referred to as maneframe, which annoyed me for some reason, had a readout for temperature that was also labeled as connection lost. My worry came from the fact that there was security in there as well as a reason for the temperature to be monitored. For all I knew I was going to be walking into a room that was as hot as the sun and full of hostile robots armed with flamethrowers. Of course the room could also be bitter cold and have robots armed with weapons meant to cool or freeze. I felt the latter was more likely due to what I knew about electronics was that they worked better when they were cooler and failed if they got too hot.

“Okay, we are armed and armored to the teeth, so there isn’t a need to worry about this.” I muttered to myself before I took a breath in and drew in my right forehoof to my chest then extended my right forehoof out as I exhaled. “See, just relax, deal with whatever lies ahead of you, one challenge at a time.”

With that I set out to navigating through the storage rooms following the map I had of the place on my pipbuck. Though there was one issue, I had turned a corner to find the entire hallway covered in a very familiar liquid, taint, or, as I now knew, I.M.P.

“Well… buck me.” I muttered, as I examined the hallway to see a small space on the other side big enough for myself. “Well, almost, thank Celestia I am not an Earth pony or Zebra.”

I took my time and teleported myself cleanly and safely past the I.M.P.

“Well it looks like that bit of information about I.M.P. eating through whatever contains it is true.” I remarked before I examined my pipbuck again for which way I needed to go.

Unfortunately I forgot the other part of the memo that mentioned I.M.P.s habit of eating its way though what was containing it, it brought bad luck to what was around it. In this case the bad luck was the door that I needed was surrounded by the taint on the floor, which upon my examination was of an unknown depth and had eaten fairly well into the metal floor. I felt my left eye twitch in frustration.

        “Well, time to see if taint is flammable!” I cursed not wanting to have to figure out a better solution.

I poured energy into my horn and braced myself as I pointed my horn at the pool of taint. Then something unexpected happened, everything went purple, including my sense of taste and hearing. I wobbled as I tried to keep myself upright as my sense of balance left me.

        “What in Tartarus is going on?” I begged the hallway as my magic evaporated and my legs went out from under me. “Some sort of security system? Is the taint sentient and trying to protect itself?”

        Then I felt the maddening itch and sense of wrongness within me intensify. I went wide eyed as I looked at where I lay to find I was actually laying in a very thin puddle of I.M.P. Which was getting in through my powerhoof.

        “Oh fuck.” I cried as I did my best to push myself away from the tainted alchemic solution. My efforts landed me square on my back and out of the pool of taint. I rasped for breath as I mentally prayed to Celestia and Luna so I wouldn’t die or mutate in a way that would leave me wishing for death. However, the pain lessened, the itching died down, and the sense of wrongness within me settled down again.

I opened my eyes to see the world back to the proper colors, the pool of taint still on the floor. I removed my armor and examined myself for any visible mutations, thankfully, I found nothing of the sort. I blinked as even my mane was back to normal. I moved to examine my armor to catch my reflection in the orange mirrored bug eyes of the Ministry of Awesome power armor. My horn was back to normal, a regular unicorn’s spiraled horn. I blinked and felt uncertain how to feel about being returned closer to my old self. I had not a clue as to why the taint would do that.

Then it struck me, Aurum had been working to help Twilight figure out the proper mix to create alicorns. Which meant of course it would make my horn normal again , it also should, if the final mix, have turned me into a winged unicorn. I paused and examined my sides again to see nothing abnormal. I frowned and turned my examination spell to myself and went over myself checking every minute detail to find nothing out of place.

        I was kind of stunned at having no visible changes or changes under the hood so to speak.

        “Luck was kind this time around, but, regardless, I need to keep away from any more taint, who knows what it might do to me next time.” I said as I got to my hooves again and donned the MoA power armor again.

        I frowned at the wall next to me before regarding my pipbuck’s map. The walls in the facility, more so in storage for sound reasons, were too thick for me to punch through, and I doubted I had enough explosives to blast my way through. Then it hit me, I remembered once reading an article about a chemical reaction that would do exactly what I needed, something by the name of thermite. I smiled as I pulled up my copy of the inventory of the storage facility and found what I needed, powdered aluminium and powdered oxidized iron, though I did frown for a moment at the lack of pure magnesium strips, I would have to set the reaction off with my magic.

I teleported back across the pool of taint and made my way to the storage room that held the chemicals I sought after. It didn’t take long to find thanks to the very neatly organized and labeled nature of the storage room as well as my copy of the inventory making it quite manageable. I packed away a number of tin can’s filled with the mixture I needed for my thermite bombs, while not much of a grenade they would make for quite nice placed tools of demolition.

I returned to the wall and pulled out two tin cans of thermite which I then emptied and telekinetically pushed against the wall to form an area about my size. I then triggered the flamer in my armor to fire which set off the blindingly bright and blistering hot reaction of thermite. I kept my eyes closed and used my telekinesis to throw off gravity for the thermite and make it instead travel horizontally instead of sink to the floor where it would do me no good.

After a few minutes I opened my eyes to see my field of magic still shimmering where the wall had once been, now it was gone and the thermite had fallen to the ground and eaten its way beyond my sight. Hopefully I wasn’t directly over anything important that thermite eating its way into would damage and pose a hazard to myself and others. No matter the case though, power was still on and I had my way into the mainframe and it’s surrounding room.

I carefully passed through the still cooling hole and into the security room that sat was the second layer of protection for the mainframe. Within it I saw nothing really of note, a security pad, a couple of lockers, and some funny looking suits that didn’t look like they would offer much protection. The odd suits made me think that they might have been thin radiation suits. I went to the keypad and then stared at the door. I didn’t have the code for the door, but, the door for some odd reason was hexagonal and split in the middle, the frame of it metal and the rest glass.

“Seriously, glass?” I asked aloud before I reared up on my hind legs and put all my might into a blow with my powerhoof against the glass.

Upon contact with the glass I was sent against the door that led out to the hallway and pool of taint, my body twitching from the sudden surge of electricity that had gone through me.

“How the fuck do you electrify GLASS?!” I shouted as my armor rebooted from the minor spell matrix disruption the jolt of electricity had given it.

I wiped away the warning about my lack of wings and just growled at the door which had a small crack in the glass.

“Fuck this, I am doing some thermal shock on you.” I spat as I drew my Black Blade and the Icy Blade of Antiquity.

I glared as I held my swords in my magic and first jabbed it with my Black Blade and watched as its enchantment worked its magic on the door heating it up making the metal start to creak I then smashed my icy blade into the heart of the door. Ice snaked across the glass and I heard more creaking and popping. I drew back my blade again and then looked at my right forehoof. I let my anger, frustration, and hate flow through me. The rage making my blood boil as I poured my magic into my powerhoof fused hoof. Fire began to wrap around, the metal turning a dull orange and quickly turned white.

I reared up on my hind legs again and wheeled back my right forehoof.

“Take this! My pain! My frustration! and all of my HATE!” I shouted at the top of my lungs feeling my emotion help fuel my magical strike.

As I came down on the door with my forehoof the air tasted burnt. My hoof made contact with the door and I watched as the bit of thermal shock before coupled with this blow shattered the door, metal and glass. I held my hoof in front of me as it cooled and the air calmed around me.

“There, lets get moving again.” I said before giving a flourish with my hoof as I sheathed my swords.

And then my moment of trying to be cool and awesome was cut short as I got a shotgun to the chest that knocked me off my hooves. I opened my eyes to see a singular robotic pony, that had a dome on it’s head that housed a brain. I grimaced and felt nauseous as I recognized this model of robot. It wasn’t common knowledge, I think, but these robots were run by the brain of usually a convict of or some other unfortunate soul who happened to be handed off to the company who made these things. They also possessed rather disturbing appendages with claws at the end and some sort of emitter that reminded me of the crab pony things I fought on the shores of Manehattan.

“You really shouldn’t be here.” The feminine and far too happy voice of the cybernetic monstrosity said.

“And you shouldn’t exist!” I retorted as I rolled out of the way of another shotgun blast from the torso of the robobrain pony.

“Running causes accidents.” The cybernetic horror replied as I darted out the hole I entered, praying that the robot would go for the normal door and drive itself into the pool of taint.

“Well come and stop me!” I shouted back at it as I readied the built in shotgun of my armor.

On cue the door opened up and the Robobrain started to drive out. “This safety breach will not be tolerated.”

“The only breach here is the one in your cranium!” I shouted back and activated S.A.T.S. and selected to unleash a full auto burst into the brain of the robot. As I fired the robot ignored the pool of taint existence and drove into it, my explosive rounds only cracking the glass of it’s braincase.

Time resumed its normal pace as my armor began to reload and the robot fell head first into the pool of taint causing it’s light on my E.F.S. winking out of existence. “Well, that should take care of that.”

I returned through the hole I made in the wall and then went through the blown out door. As I did I noticed a mist rolling on the ground and cold air pouring out of the destroyed door. Inside there was a layer of fog on the ground and I could see my breath in the air from where it came out of the helmet. I also saw bank after bank of what I assumed to be computers, storage space for the mainframe itself, extra computing power, this was the brain of this facility.

I silently trotted in, my hooves deftly avoided the shards of glass on the floor as I went into the large and cold room. I heard the tweets and bleeps of computers, the sounds of memory tapes winding back and forth, I even saw the lights on the towers of computer hardware blinking with it all. I also saw that my E.F.S. was nice and clear of any marks, blue or red.

I continued into the heavily chilled server room towards the central pillar of the room. I was almost to the mainframe when I heard something hiss in the distance and I paused as I strained my ears to hear anything further. However, nothing further came so I took another few steps forward as I lowered myself to the floor to help reduce my profile, I even pulled my white labcoat over the power armor for the slight bit of extra camouflage it would grant me.

I reached the door to see a panel with the shape of a hoof on it. I gently put my left hoof into it and waited for a moment before a soft beep, a quiet click, and slow hiss came from the doorway letting me into the mainframe room. I smiled, glad I had been able to give myself access via that terminal earlier.

The mainframe room was a mass of wires, falling mist, blinking lights, and one central terminal with a keyboard. I paused and examined the room closer for possible sites of popup turrets. Though I didn’t see any, the mist could have hidden them on the floor, or worse some how they were invisible for the time being and sitting where the mist wouldn’t hit and wrap around them.

I silently trotted my way to the terminal, pulled out the transfer cables for my pipbuck and plugged them into the ports under the keyboard of the terminal. In a moment the terminal’s screen flickered to life and welcomed me by name to the mainframe and listed a number of options. Most of them were general diagnostics, one of them was what I was after, complete information transfer for backup purposes. I clicked the option and watched as my pipbuck’s screen as well as the terminal’s screen flashed on a transfer completion bar, and so did my E.F.S. As if I didn’t have enough things telling me how much of the transfer was done.

I heard a hiss behind me again and whirled around using my left forehoof as my pivot point. I saw the door I had come through finish opening with nothing in the doorway. I ground my teeth in frustration at the ghosts of this place. Then I noticed it a faint shimmer in the mist on the floor.

“Identify yourself!” I bellowed as my suit’s built in flamer and shotgun popped out and clicked ready, the faint hiss of the pilot light of the flamer audible over the quiet sounds of the computer systems and cooling systems.

The answer was unexpected. The shimmering field faded and I saw the stallion that had abducted me back in Hoofington standing before me in some sort of cloak. The cloak I assumed was the invisibilty cloak of Zebra infiltrators, a very rare and highly prized item in the wastes.

        “You have good eyes, kid.” He said before he took out a cigarette and lit it.

        “It is easy to spot optical camo when you have mist or something like that at your hooves.” I said.

        “True. Listen, why are you here? Who gave you the card to access this place?” He asked and I blinked in confusion, which he couldn’t see thanks to my helmet.

        “Well, you did, in hoofington.” I answered. “Though there you were in just fatigues and not a sneaking suit and Zebra invisibility cloak.”

        “Hmm.” Was all he answered with in his gruff voice.

        “As for why I am here, a friend of mine wanted me to pick up something here to help him with a personal issue It just so happens that these security cards work quite well on it seems any high security military facilities.” I continued my eyes focused on trying to read this stallions thoughts.

        “Well that explains a few things. Where were you directed to go to by your friend after this?” The stallion asked as he sat down.

        “The Steel Ranger Citadel north of Seamane.” I answered. “He wasn’t the one who gave me the keycard, he is a member of that branch of Steel Rangers and is at this point in time the acting Elder and Star Paladin of the Seamane Chapter of Steel Rangers.”

        “The other me, where did he tell you to take the card?” He asked as he furrowed his brow and chewed on his cigarette, the tails of his headband dangling through his brown mane.

        “To the fort in Seamane.” I said.

        The stallion seemed to grumble and fuss with something next to his ear. I just kept an eye on the progress bar in the corner of my vision and keeping my pipbuck’s screen turned away from the stallion.

        “How did you get in here?” I asked as I switched the loadout of my shotgun to some flechette rounds I had on me, if I was going to fight a fleshy target it was overkill to use explosive rounds. Even more so since I was in the computerized brain of this facility and didn’t want to damage the valuable technology here.

        “There is an exposed doorway to this wing of the station in the blown out office section. Same trick you used to get into the mainframe, thermite.” He answered before he went back to listening to something on what must have had to be a subdermal earbloom.

        I nodded as I started to flick through radio frequencies on my pipbuck to see if I could find what he was listening to. “So you didn’t have to deal with the elemental in the habitation segment of the facility.”

        He stared at me confused by the words I said. I saw the gears in his mind working trying to figure out what exactly I meant. “No, I didn’t. What do you mean by an elemental?”

        His story was true about how he got in at least. “Well, there is something in there able to manipulate light weight objects, is completely invisible, and can cut with creating micro vacuums.”

        He chewed his cigarette some more as I found the signal he was on, somehow he was talking to someone while to me all he was doing was moving his cigarette around in his mouth.

        “Looks like it is a good idea to go back out the same way you came in.” Said a somewhat masculine voice that was not the stallion who sat before me.

        “Yeah, and it sounds like we finally got a lead on who to watch, get a few ponies to keep an eye on this mare and her friends. She may not be in on whatever they are up to, but, someone in her group might be or someone might be following them.” The stallion before me said over the radio.

        “Alright, I have a few contacts in the area who owe us a favor or two, and keeping an eye on four ponies isn’t too tall of an order for them.” Replied the less masculine one.

        “Once she leaves I am going to copy this database, it might give us a clue as well. Though it doesn’t sound like this was an intended location to visit for them.” The stallion in front of me said.

        “Right, I’ll prep a place in Seamane for you to bring it to so I can do some analysis on what all is in that mainframe.” The less masculine one replied. “I’ll keep an eye out for anything of note while you keep working the research station.”

        “Mmhmm.” The stallion before me said before the signal cut.

        “Enough stalling, what do you want?” I asked trying my best to play off the idea of I hadn’t been privy to that conversation.

        “To look around, there might be something of use for me that you didn’t have a use for.” He replied.

        My pipbuck lightly beeped as the transfer was complete. “Alright, just don’t go into the motor pool, my friends are liable to shoot you with our tank.”

        “Tank? Well that takes me back a bit, interesting.” Was all he said trailing off before he moved out of the way of the doorway.

        “Yes, a tank, now then, be careful there is a suit of power armor on the top floor that is shunting out wild arcane power and melting everything around it.” I warned the mysterious stallion.

        “Thanks, and don’t worry about the elemental.” He replied as I walked past him the two of us giving each other a look trying to read one another.

        I nodded quietly and moved to the doorway. I looked back over my shoulder to see the stallion vanish from sight again and even my E.F.S. couldn’t detect him anymore.

        “Of course somepony would have tech like that out here.” I muttered to myself. “Just needed more fuel for my paranoia didn’t I?”

        I shook my mane as I exited the destroyed door and then saw something that made my stomach squirm. The robobrain that had fallen into the taint had been altered by the taint, showing the power of the alchemic substance. The taint itself and part of the hallway now had the texture of that of a brain. The case around the brain had altered to look like some sort of fusion of metal, flesh, and glass in the shape of an earth pony. I shuddered, then I noticed something worse, there was a large red blur that accompanied the mutated monstrosity of my own making.

        “How do I keep causing shit like this?” I muttered as I changed the load of the shotgun again to dragon breath rounds and gave a small blast of fire with my flamethrower. “Well, lets clean this up before it can get any worse.”

        The worst part of cleaning up the mutated flesh and robot was the sound. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about the smell due to my armor. The sound was a mix of squelching, popping, and a quiet cry of pain in the corner of my mind. I even heard Doubt in my mind asking for me to just leave it be. I stomped it all down and out of my mind, instead I flipped on a recording of some heavy and loud music that was for some reason within the mainframe’s databanks.

        When I was done I headed back out the way that I suspected my unexpected guest had come from and found a thermite cut hole back out to the crater that marked the remains of the office portion of the research station. I released the seal on my helmet and pulled it off to get a smell of fresh air. I also got a good read of the weather here at the surface, a light snow.

        “Well, lets make tracks.” I whispered to myself before putting my helmet back on and headed to the top of the facility.

The snow was now thicker as it seemed another winter storm had pushed through while we had been inside the facility. I crossed the surface to where the elevators down to the motor pool lay and found them rusted shut or not responding to my attempts to activate them. I checked my automap and found a spiralling pathway that led down to the motor pool that must have been out of my line of sight when I was in the motor pool earlier.

        I walked through the cold air and stared out at the expanse of snow that surrounded me. We were in the middle of nowhere and I felt the true meaning of the Unbound. It wasn’t just nature that was unbound here, it was everything and everyone. With nopony really out here it was even more lawless than the rest of the wasteland. Anypony could carve out a base out here, hide it away and nopony would spot it. Who knew all that lay below my hooves out here, hell even Research Station Twenty Three gave credence to this idea of there being a great deal more out here than I knew of. The mansion did as well, small scattered independent research laboratories could be anywhere with unknown horrors. But, they would be isolated and everyone else would be safe from them due to their location.

        I looked south towards where I could see the faint mountainous crest that marked Dune City. There would be more horrors physical and psychological that lay ahead of me the closer to home I got. But, I had friends, I had family, I had resources at my disposal to aid in dealing with what was ahead. The mystery of what the other players around Seamane were up to weighed heavy on my mind.

        I heard a faint rush of air above me and snapped my head upward to see a shadow dart over me, then four more. I grabbed the snow on the ground around me as my power armor mounted weapons flipped open. I cursed as I realized the fact a flamethrower and shotgun were not the ideal weapons for fighting flying foes. I caught the dark figures in the air again and found five identical red tags in my E.F.S.

        Over the faint breeze I heard one of the shades speak. “We got a positive read on her tag, that is her.”

        My blood boiled as adrenaline hit my system like fire in my veins. My horn shone like a beacon in the storm of snow I had woven around myself in my magic. I hoped the shield of snow would force the griffons to have to move in closer so I could make full use of my armor’s weapons.

        A grenade shot through the snow and exploded in a blue burst of electronic static crashing my pipbuck and armor. I swore as I drew my swords and DMR. I teleported out of the power armor directly up into the air. The griffons were diving down at what they thought to be a disabled me as I fell from above. I pulled out my knife from it’s sheath in my pack and sent it up at the closest griffon to my abandoned power armor. The bird was fast and dodged my blade, the others crashed down onto my armor and knocked it over landing blows on it to knock out the pony they believed to be in there.

        “Shit, she isn’t in this thing!” The familiar voice of Astra, one of Helgrim’s personal crew. “Damn it, out intel is bad, she must be able to teleport, keep your eyes open for the mare!”

        Astra looked up and saw me falling from the sky, powerhoof first. With a flap of her powerful wings she moved out of the way and I landed like a ton of bricks backed by a telekinetic field blasting away the snow where I punched the ground.

        “It’s been a while, do you still have my rifle, thief?” I barked at Astra as I stood as I summoned my swords to me from their sheaths on my armor to on my fore legs. I reared up onto my hind legs mimicking one of the more exotic fighting styles I had read about as I pointed my swords at Astra and another griffon.

        Astra fired my repeater rifle she had stolen from me back at Oakmare in response. My lack of stability aided me in not getting a bullet to my face, but, I did feel the heat from the round passing through my mane and left my right ear ringing. I rolled and brought my swords to hover at my sides instead of mock holding them at the ends of my hooves.

        “So, what are you here for, Astra?” I asked as I kept an eye on her and the other griffons who were attempting to encircle me. Unfortunately for them they ignored my power armor which I wrapped a bit of my magic around on the triggers for the weapons mounted in it.

        “You, Helgrim wants your pretty hide to seal a deal.” Astra replied as she continued to stand still holding my rifle in her talons.

        “Ah, always a currency I am. A chip for bargains, eh?” I mocked Astra as I fired off the flamethrower from my power armor catching the wing of a griffon who had gotten to close to it.

        “You fools, just grab her, there are five of us and one of her. So what if she has two swords, three of us will manage to get in unhurt at least!” Astra bellowed as she charged me, throwing my rifle at my face.

        That was her mistake as I wrapped the rifle as well as all the snow around me in my magic and threw it up and outward. I charged in the direction she had been and met her head on.

        Astra and I collided and I punched my powerhoof into her throat as she returned the favor with slashing at my throat with her talons. I felt the warm wetness of blood go down my neck as Astra balked back trying to breath. In the short moment of feeling pride for having hurt the griffon I felt two sets of talons go around my hind legs and dig into them. I attempted to let out a scream of frustration as I sent my swords spinning backwards at the arms that held my legs. I noticed the lack of sound from my cry of frustration and that my throat was clawed open.

As I turned my head to better direct my spinning blades into my foolish foes I saw the two of them back off as a third fired a shotgun at me. I felt as if my whole body was alight as I rolled in the snow that had fallen back down. I could feel as I put myself out the radiation fueling my regeneration as my throat and skin healed.

The bastards had used dragonbreath rounds on me. As I flailed I hit something a few times with my power hoof before I felt the cool press of my former repeater rifle against the base of my horn.

        “Stop this, we want you alive. Take solace in that you will likely be able to escape at some point after we make our deal.” Astra spat.

        Then I heard two very loud cannons fire and at least one griffon met their doom at the hooves of two one hundred twenty millimeter cannons. The cool press of the gun to my head vanished and the soft crunch of snow as Astra moved herself behind me and dropped my rifle. I felt an arm go around my throat as two fingers of a talon sat atop of my eyelids.

        “Fire again and I will kill her!” Astra screamed as I heard what I assumed to be my tank and friends coming to my rescue.

        I knew my friends wouldn’t fire, which was bad, but, I did know one thing, I could teleport up without worry of reappearing part way through something that would kill me. I just had to hope that Anabel could catch me in time, though, I did have a tendency to bounce.

        “FIRE!” I cried out as, my voice gravelly like a ghouls, I teleported hopefully a few hundred feet into the air.

        The sound of cannon fire was an amazing thing. I opened my eyes to see myself far higher than planned as friends made the small skirmish into a scene of the apocalypse with the tank. The mounted machine guns and gouts of fire from the hull mounted flamethrower drove off the remaining three griffons flew off, two of them carrying the one who I had burned the wing of.

        “Help!” I screamed as I felt gravity start to grab ahold of me with all of its tenacity. I began to wrap my magic around myself to slow my fall but I was exhausted from two teleports. I was also tired from having held myself aloft for a few seconds right after a teleport to do much other than slow myself for the first few seconds of the fall.

        The hatch of the tank opened up and Anabel flew up and caught me, thankfully making certain to not fly straight up and catch me as that would have likely meant both of us getting hurt if not dead.

        “Thanks for the rescue.” I said to Anabel as she did slow circles back down to the tank.

        “No problem. Rose saw on one of the surface cameras those griffons swoop in and start attacking you so Foresight decided to bring the tank up.” Anabel said and gave a smile. “Thing is a damn toy with all that firepower.”

        “I think we are a more than just a fireteam now.” I laughed.

        “By Yggdrasil we are.” Anabel laughed with me.

        I laughed a bit more before frowning. “What is Yggdrasil?”

        Anabel just giggled as we landed on the tank. Rose climbed out of the tank and began collecting equipment as Anabel pointed to the reactor doors. “Go heal up, we will manage things out here. We will probably go back down and repack before we head out.”

        “Sounds like a good plan, it will also lessen amount of medical supplies we have to use to put me back together.” I said as pulled open the reactor compartment and climbed inside. I closed the doors and then curled up as I felt the warmth of the reactor warm me up as my body began to mend itself. The unpleasant wrongness from my exposure to I.M.P. still bore on though, it seemed no matter how much healing I had, that would never go away.

Footnote: Level up! (Finally!) Welcome to Level Twenty!

New Perk Added! Tail Trick: Allows you to use your tail as prehensile limb, capable of handling or throwing small items (much like a hand).

No, you messing around in power armor did not give you training in how to use it, get Foresight to instruct you, you silly pony.