Twilight sat on the couch of Star House, the replicator she got from Voyager on the table in front of her as well as sever of her tools she was never without, never knew when you may need to engineer the shit out of something. After the others explained about Rampage, the mare who got back up after being stabbed in the brain by one of Twilight’s blades, being unable to die because whenever she does she just heals. Twilight tested this theory by putting a round from her sidearm right between Rampage’s eyes. She got up and spat the bullet out so Twilight used Party Time, her Desert Eagle, to shoot her. Got up and spat the bullet out. Before anyone could stop her she took the striped mare’s head off with a close rang sniper shot. The other managed to stop the militaristic alicorn before she shot their friend with an AT rifle at point blank.

Rampage was somewhat annoyed about Twilight repeating shooting her in the head and Twilight had explained she was merely seeing if it was true. With assurances from the others as well as her own tests Twilight believe the mare could not die which could explain why Twilight’s medical readouts for the mare freaked out when she looked at her, however that was only a weak theory as the information flipped between specific injuries, none of them were the damage Twilight did, it was the same injuries and currently the readouts said the mare was healthy. It only ever freaked out when Rampage did something that did not seem to be her usual cocky and smart ass self, like when she responded to Twilight’s rank by acting like a trained soldier with a proper salute and dropping into rest when told “at ease.”

Something was going on with that mare that wasn’t just her inability to die. However Twilight would worry about that later, right now this was her free moment to go over her acquired gear.

As Twilight worked she knew that Blackjack and Lacunae were watching her, Rampage had gone off to her room while Glory was in the kitchen making lunch as apparently it was lunchtime here. P-21 had gone off to look for someone named Scotch Tape, strange name for a pony Twilight mused. Twilight was doing her best to ignore the stares but in all honestly her skin was crawling, she hated when people just stared at her, always had since after she was rescued from the labs.

Lacunae’s staring wasn’t so bad as it was more of just seeing what she was doing so was more tolerable, Blackjack on the other hand was staring intently at her and it was borderline creepy. “Need something Blackjack?” Twilight asked looking up from her work, her helmet was off and she wore a pair of tinted goggles.

Blackjack gave a start at suddenly being spoken too. “Oh…uh…no nothing, sorry.” She said waving a hoof in front of herself.

“You have been staring at me for the last hour and it is making me feel like a lab animal and I do not like to feel like a lab animal, been there done that.” Twilight said a bit harsher then she meant to.

“Sorry it’s just; you look almost exactly like the Ministry Mare Twilight.” Blackjack said.

“Except for the scars, cybernetics and the fact I am an alicorn I am assuming?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah….” Blackjack said and Twilight had a feeling that wasn’t the entire truth of the matter but chose not to press it, the mare was nice enough to lend Twilight the use of her home after all. “What happened to you?”

Twilight blinked behind her goggles and reached up and lifted them up onto her forehead. “Excuse me? You need to be more specific.”

“Sorry, I mean….how did you get so…scared up and need cybernetics, is your Equestria really that messed up?” The white unicorn asked.

“Equestria is fine; usually it’s just monster attacks or the occasional shootout with some criminals. Though we have rendered aide to several allies before.” Twilight explained. “But no I didn’t get my cybernetics or scars in Equestria; we don’t have the technology level for them yet.”

“Then how did…”

“War is hell.” Twilight said. “And when you are a librarian suddenly dragged into the middle of it and rescued by a group of people who didn’t have to, you tend to want to pay them back.” Twilight said with a shrug. “I became a soldier and through bad luck and inexperience, plus a traitor lost parts. Its’ that simple.” Twilight said. “I got home and worked on securing my homeland from threats so no one would ever have to go through what I did before I became a soldier.”

Blackjack stared at her for a long while not saying anything. “That bad huh?” She asked and Twilight had a distinct feeling something very bad had happened to the mare to result in her needing cybernetics.

Twilight nodded. “Let’s just say me and most sciences are mortal enemies and I really do not like biology labs.”

It was at that moment that Glory still wearing the cloak and hood for some reason came in with a tray of what Twilight assumed was food though it didn’t look like any food she had ever seen; maybe they were supposed to hunt it first?

“Lunchtime everypony.” She said cheerily in a very familiar voice as she placed the tray on the table.

“Dash?” Twilight asked tilting her head to the side and Glory jumped with a small exclamation of startlement.

She looked as if she was about to bolt as she spoke in a voice she was clearly faking. “Dash? Why would you call me that?”

“Because I know my oldest friends voice as it’s only been about a year since she passed away.” Twilight said and used her magic to jerk the hood down confirming her suspicions when she saw the cyan fur, rainbow mane and pink eyes. Glory started to move to bolt but twilight magic held her in place. “So seeing as there is no way Dash would be alive or looking this young in this world if the damage I’ve seen is anything to judge time by I’m guessing something else happened yes?”

Glory stood there and seemed to calm down when Twilight explained she knew she wasn’t Rainbow Dash and slowly nodded. “Yes…I had a run in with Killer Joke.”

“Killer Joke? I’m not familiar with that, it have any relation to Poison Joke?” Twilight asked scratching her chin as she thought.

“It’s a mutation of Poison Joke, caused by the radiation and Taint.” Blackjack said and none of the ponies in the room noticed the slight flicker in the purple alicorn’s eyes at the mention of Taint. “It has the same transformative abilities from what I understand but its jokes are always lethal in some way.”

Twilight looked the cyan mare up and down. “She seems fine to me.” she said looking back at Blackjack. She needed to remember to ask the mare why she didn’t have a heart beat later.

“She won’t be if the Enclave gets their hooves on her, who knows what they would do to her.” Blackjack said.

“Enclave?”

“Oh right you don’t know them.” Blackjack said and Twilight nodded. “After Cloudsdale was destroyed the pegasi retreated to their other cities and closed up the sky with clouds to protect themselves from the radiation and more missiles.”

“So they ran like cowards and left everyone else to die?” Twilight said and Glory winced and after a moment Blackjack nodded. “Disgraceful, if they were part of the EDF they would have all been shot for desertion.” Glory winced once more and Twilight looked at her. “What with you?”

“She’s Enclave.” Blackjack said and Twilight looked between her and the Pegasus mare.

“Well that’s nice.” Twilight said somewhat coldly.

“We aren’t all like that, Thunderhead has been saying we need to reconnect with the surface and already has taken steps to do so with the Civilian Corp to provide medical aide and food to surface ponies.” Glory said with a bit of fire Twilight hadn’t expected form the mare.

Twilight nodded her head. “Good maybe you lot can make up for the cowardness of your ancestors.” She said a bit less coldly, she couldn’t stand the thought of ponies running and hiding safe and secure while leaving others to die, it was beyond disgraceful.

Glory winced at Twilight tone and Blackjack stepped up beside her. “Hey, that is no way to treat Glory, she completely agrees in the Pegasi returning to help the surface and she says Thunderhead also wants to and the only reason they aren’t down here right now is because of the rest of the Enclave doesn’t want to.” She said glaring at the alicorn.

“Good for them, doesn’t change the fact of what the rest of the pegasi did in the past, it is a step towards making up for that.” Twilight said and before anyone could say anything more the door opened to admit P-21 and a dark green filly with a dark blue mane wearing some sort of jump suit on.

The filly look at Twilight sitting there with her goggles up and tools sitting on the table around the replicator. “Yeeesss?” Twilight said drawing out the word, why did everyone seem to want to stare at her today?

The P-21 nudged the filly from behind and she blinked and stepped into the house to allow him to close the door and the filly made her way over to Twilight who was watching her, noticing there was a ninety-nine on the back of the filly jumpsuit and her saddlebags had tools in it. “Are you really Twilight?” She asked when she was before Twilight.

“Uh…kinda?” Twilight answered. “Not from here mind you but I am a Twilight.”

The filly looked at the replicator and tools on the table. “What are you doing?”

“Seeing what exactly makes this tick and if I can get it to run off my magic as right now it’s on emergency backup battery which is very limited and once that’s depleted it will be just a hunk of….whatever it is made out of.” Twilight said looking back at the partly dismantles replicator.

“Can I watch?” the filly asked as P-21 watched from where he saw a little ways off, Twilight wasn’t completely sure if he was watching her or the filly.

“Sure I suppose, just don’t touch anything as this is way advanced and delicate and I have no way to get new parts for it.” Twilight explained and the filly hopped up on the couch beside her as Glory fixed her hood and got plats of the food for everyone, so they didn’t need to hunt it first, pity.

The gathered ponies all received a plate and even Rampage returned from her room eye the stuff on the table with disinterest for but a moment, Twilight noticed that all of them but Blackjack grimace at the food who wasted no time in starting to eat which made Glory rather happy. The other were a bit hesitant to eat and as Twilight looked over the replicator she absentmindedly started to levitate the food into her mouth while other parts of her magic worked.

Meal was better than the protein bars she had as well as much better than the rations she also carried. “Do you actually like that?” Rampage asked eyeing her as she ate.

Twilight shrugged. “It’s alright, not the greatest but certainly far from bad.” She said grabbing another bite. She didn’t notice the other look between Twilight and Blackjack as she was focused on her work and eating.

Once the meal was finished the plates were cleared away and Twilight tinkered a bit longer with the replicator before she decided she should actually talk to her hosts and stored it away and lifted her goggles. “So…what’s your story?” Twilight asked Blackjack as she sat across from her.

“What do you mean?” The mare asked.

“Well….tell me about yourself, I’ve told you a bit about myself so it’s only fair you tell me a bit about yourself, quid pro quo.” Twilight said and the group looked at her oddly before she facehoofed, she forgot that wasn’t a term in Equestria and only existed in her Equestria because she used in and is spread to the EDF and from the EDF to the rest of Equestria, come to think of it she was patient zero for a lot of terms that existed in Equestria. She should look into just how many terms she had introduced to the land over the years when she gets back.

“Uh…well not much to tell, I worked security for my Stable and had to leave to save it and I’ve been running all over the hoof with ponies chasing me.” Blackjack said lamely.

Twilight nodded. “Alright, mind telling me why you don’t have a heart beat?” This seemed to startle the young mare and twilight taped the side of her head next to her eyes. “Built in medical scanner, it’s also doing a passive medical scan of anything that registers as a living being and gives me basic medical info, currently you have no pulse but you are not registered as deceased.”

“Oh…um…”Blackjack said having been caught off guard. “Well, my organs have been replaced by cybernetics as well as my legs and eyes and ears.” She said.

Twilight blinked. “Organs too? Huh….all I got was legs, eyes, ears and then brain implants to allow me to run it all among other things, I’d say most of my motor cortex is implants and at least half my frontal lobe.” Twilight said. “Couldn’t get organs as they couldn’t be made to work so had to avoid injuring them.

“Your brain is partly cybernetic?” Glory asked. “How is that possible?”

“Well originally they were just implants on the brain but when I became an alicorn they went from being on my brain to part of it, it’s hard to tell were the brain matter starts and the cybernetics end in those areas, there are a few others but they are minor compared to those.” Twilight said with a shrug. “It also gave all my cybernetics upgrades too like I am now able to feel through my legs where originally I had no feeling.”

Glory started at her from deep in her hood not really trying to hide her face now that Twilight knew.

“That is amazing, I’d love to study wha—“

“Fuck no!” Twilight said and her side arm was half way out of it holster on her chest wrapped in her magic before she caught herself and took a deep breath and slipped it back in. Closing her eyes she took several deep breaths. “Do not ever mention studying anything to do with me.” She said and opened her eyes again.

Everyone but Glory, Lacunae and the filly, who Twilight assumed was Scotch Tape, had either half way drawn their weapons as well or in the case of Rampage gotten ready to pounce. “Relax, just…..things happened and I never really got over it. I’m fine just don’t mention doing any sort of research on me and things will be fine.” She explained once more and the others relaxed.

With that outburst conversation between the others and herself died and they seemed to have things the needed to do so they departed, except for Rampage who Twilight had a feeling she wanted to go into town but something was keeping her from doing so as she merely went to her room once everyone left. With nothing else to do Twilight went back to her tinkering with the replicator as she wanted to get it working before anything else as it would be the most useful.

It had been about an hour when Twilight felt she was being watched, looking up from her work she looked around the room expecting to see Rampage but she wasn’t there. After looking around once more she went back to work till the feeling returned once more and she looked around, once more no one was around but this time she got up and checked around the room as well as in the kitchen and the top of the stairs, finding no one she sat back down.

It happened again shortly alter and her head shot up as she looked around and she caught the barest glimpse of movement at one of the window and her eyes narrowed behind her goggles. Lifting her goggles up she drew her side arm and silently made her way to the window. Once she was there she grabbed the window with her magic and yanked it open and leaned out pistol at the ready. “You.” She said when she saw who it was and holstered her sidearm before reaching down and picking up the dark blue filly and hauling her inside. “What are you doing here kid?”

The filly struggled to break free but Twilight grip would not be broken as she held the filly gently in her grasp. “Let me go!”

“I will when you tell me why you are spying on me.” Twilight said simply and the filly kicked her leg, it did about as much as one would except from kicking solid steel in that it did nothing to Twilight but caused the filly to yelp in pain and hold her hoof.

Twilight could tell she was trying to hold back tears from the pain and she sighed. Walking over to the couch she sat the kid down. “Let me take a look.” She said and when she crouched down the filly pulled her leg back. “Relax I’m a medic. I know what I am doing.” She said and grabbed the leg and pulled it where she could see it. “Nothing to bad, at worst a bruise.”

The filly blinked at her. “How do you know? You didn’t even look at it for five seconds!”

Twilight taped beside her eyes. “Medical scan, tells me a lot of useful information about people I’m looking at” Twilight said simply and let the leg go as she stood up to her full height forcing the kid to crane her neck back to look at her.

“How are you doing that?” She asked wide eyed.

“Magic, special magic.” Twilight said and walked over and sat back down looking at the kid. “So mind telling me why you were spying on me?”

“Uh…well…”The filly said and then swallowed before looking at Twilight as fiercely as a filly could. “You aren’t like other alicorns and I was curious what you were doing and….um…” She said hesitating.

Twilight looked at her expectantly. “Yes?”

The filly looked off to the side and rubbed the back of her neck. “uh….thanks…for saving me from those raiders, I wasn’t awake but I know I was ambushed by them and the fact I wasn’t in a raider camp and with you I guess you must have rescued me from them…so…um….thanks for that.” She said and peeked at Twilight before her eyes darted away again.

Twilight smiled slightly. “You are most welcome kid; it’s what anyone would have done.” She said.

“Not really.” The filly said looking at Twilight. “Ponies don’t really risk their lives for others.” She said. “Unless you are the Stable Dweller or Security.”

“Who?” Twilight asked.

“You know, the Stable Dweller and Security, the heroes DJ-Pon3 is always going on about on the radio.” The filly said looking at her like she was stupid

Twilight blinked at the third name. “Dj-Pon3? You mean Vinyl is still alive?”

“Who’s Vinyl?” The filly asked now the one not recognizing the name.

“Vinyl Scratch, she is a DJ I used to know, her stage name was DJ-Pon3.” Twilight explained.

“Oh no. Dj-Pon3 is a stallion.” The filly explained. “He reports on things going on around the Wasteland, especially on the Stable Dweller and Security or any pony ‘fighting the good fight’ as he says. Has an entire network keeping tabs on everything or something, I don’t really know, all I know is he reports things really soon after they happen sometimes I hear.” She said not really sure.

Twilight blinked and pulled out her datapad and pulled up the radio. She never really used the feature as she had her own music but she was curious. Activating the radio she set it to scan for open frequencies but all she found was an emergency station playing an annoying tone at a slow rate and everything else was static.

“Oh, for some reason her hasn’t been on the radio, haven’t been able to get anything from outside of the Hoof actually for a few days, not DJ-Pon3 or any of the other stations unless they are here in the Hoof.” The filly explained.

Twilight blinked and looked at her. “Why not?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know, just one day were couldn’t get anything, was really weird.” She said and Twilight nodded looking back at her datapad contemplating trying to break through the jammer that was most likely in place. She was running through the calculations on whether the anti-jammer program in the datapad would be able to get through an unfamiliar system when she was brought back to reality by a flash of light and a yelp form the filly and she looked and saw she had her hoof in her mouth as she was looking at the replicator….which was smoking.

“What did you do?!” Twilight yelled as she grabbed the replicator and looked at the fried components.

“I was just seeing what it was when it just sparked and started smoking!” The filly yelled removing her scorched hoof from her mouth to speak.

“This was a delicate piece of highly advanced tech and you fried some of the circuits!” Twilight yelled and glared at the filly.

The Filly shrank back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to break it.” She said uncertainly.

“You shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to you, didn’t you parent teach you that?” Twilight said as she went back to looking at the replicator to see if she could salvage it.

“No…not really.” The filly said.

“Tsk, should have guess, did they teach you anything?” Twilight asked not really paying attention as she inspected the damage.

“Uh…they taught me how to read a bit.”

“Only a bit? What’s the point of only teaching a bit? If you are going to teach someone something you either do it fully or not at all.”

“I’m sure they planned to teach me more.”

“Then why didn’t they?”

“I…don’t know….they left to go scavenging for food or things we could sell and didn’t come back….”

Twilight paused and looked up from the replicator and then at the filly who was looking down at her hooves. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to break you….whatever it is….”She said not looking up.

Twilight sighed and kicked herself for being so callouses and not thinking that this was a post-MEE world so high chances a foal running around unsupervised had lost their parents or whoever was taking care of them. “Look its fine, the damage doesn’t look to bad, I should be able to fix it in theory.”

The filly looked up at her. “You sure? It looked really broken.”

Twilight nodded. “Positive, I’m an engineer so I know machines.” Twilight said with a smirk.

“I thought you were a medic.” The filly said looking up from her hooves.

“Ponies can have more than one skill set and I’m over sixty years old so I’ve had time to learn more than one skill.” Twilight with a gentle smile.

The filly looked at her. “Wow you are old.” She said bluntly and twilight smile dropped into a frown.

“I am not! I’m quiet young.” She said.

“You said you are over sixty years old, that’s not young, that’s old.” The filly said back.

“By normal pony standards, but I’m an alicorn we are very long lived. Sixty is a very young age.” Twilight said defensively.

“So….you are a baby?” The filly asked her.

“What? No! Do I look like a baby to you?” Twilight sputtered.

“No but you aren’t old and said you are very young for an alicorn so sixty must be the same as being a baby for alicons.” The filly said with conviction.

“No, that's not how it works, I am just young but I am not a baby.” Twilight said.

“I’m just following your logic is all.’ The filly said with a shrug.

Twilight eyed the filly. “What do you know about logic, you’re just a filly.”

“I know how to get past the security systems a lot of the places around the Hoof have.” The filly said. “And I can usually avoid raiders really well no matter how many there are. “She boasted.

Twilight looked at her. “I’m assuming raiders are those ponies I found you with, nice work dodging three of them with poorly maintained weapons.”

The filly looked back at her with indignation. “They got the drop on me! I had just found a safe that had a really complex lock on it so I was focused on that and didn’t hear them come up behind me till it was too late.”

“Wait you can pick the lock on a safe?” Twilight asked looking at her. “Those are rather complex usually.”

The filly nodded. “Uh-huh, my mom showed me how to do it as I was almost old enough to go with them.” The filly said and puffed out her chest as she polished a hoof on it. “I rarely find a lock I can’t pick.” She said with pride and Twilight had a sense of deva vu.

“So do you use your horn to work the picks or your hooves?” She asked.

“My horn of course, my hooves can’t move the bobby pins well enough to unlock some of the harder locks.” The filly said.

Twilight blinked and looked at the filly closely. “That’s rather impressive; most fillies your age wouldn’t have that fine of control of their magic yet.” She told her as she allowed herself to see the filly’s aura, for a small filly she had a good amount of poetical if she worked on refining her skill she could be a rather powerful magic user. “Mind showing me what you can do?”

“Huh?” The filly asked looking around. “There isn’t anything around that’s locked though.”

“I didn’t mean that, I meant with your horn.” Twilight said tapping her own horn. She then looked around and placed grabbed one of her tools and placed it before the filly. “Try lifting that up and moving it across the table.” She said knowing the tool was heavier than a bobby pin.

The filly looked between her and the tool before concentrating, her horn was wrapped in a blue aura and a moment alter so was the tool. The filly’s cheeks puffed out as the tool slowly lifted a few inches off the table and started to float across the table and Twilight could tell the filly was having some trouble as sweat started to appear on her forehead. About half way across the table the tool wobbled in the air a bit and the aura around it vanished and the tool dropped to the table with a clatter.

The filly sat back panting slightly and wiped her brow. “Darn it thought I had it.” She muttered.

Twilight picked up the tool herself and brought it back over to where it had been before the test. “That was very impressive, most foals your age wouldn’t have been able to pick it up much less move it.” Twilight said and patted her head. “Good job kid.”

The filly smiled wide. “Really?” She asked. “And my names not kid, its Broken Dawn, or just Dawn.”

“Yes really kid.” Twilight said ignoring her name. “If you get a teacher you could get rather skilled with magic.”

“Oh….um…that might be a problem as I don’t think anypony would take the time to teach a random filly magic, everyone is too focused on their own tasks.” She said a bit disappointed.

Twilight thought about it rocking her head back and forth as she weighed the options. “I suppose I could take a break from my work and teach you a little.” She finally said, she couldn’t let a unicorn with this potential not get at least some training to control her magic and avoid a possible surge, that and Twilight didn’t want to work on repairing the replicator just yet.

“Really?” The filly asked eyes lighting up as she smiled wide.

Twilight nodded. “Yes really, I said it didn’t I?” Twilight said and moved her tools and the replicator back into her pocket dimension and got a bit more comfortable before facing the filly. “Ok, so then let’s begin with simple levitation, I know you can do small things but we will work on more complex things you can do.” She said and the filly faced her with a wide smile splitting her face.

Author's Note

Maximum Level Reached

Perks:

Unlicensed Doctor: You have studied medicine of all races on Equus as well as that of the aliens known as "humans" and have acquired so you have the equivalent knowledge of a full fledged doctor, however you are unlicensed as you desire to be seen as a simple medic.

Engineer: Due to your dislike or extreme phobia of other sciences do to you the Test Subject perk there are very few sciences you have any interest in, the only one being Engineering. As such the same drive you used to thrown into multiple sciences has now been directed into this one science and it has allowed you to master it to the point that even when faced with alien systems or ones advanced beyond what you are used to you are able to figure out how it works and even modify it over time.

Psychopath: You have been confirmed to be a psychopath and extremely sadistic, you take great pleasure in causing pain to others and may have to "take care of" some things when you are causing a high level of death and mayhem. This level of insanity has also made it where you will sometimes switch voices from your normal voice into either a sing song voice or a voice filled with rage and brutality depending on what you are doing.

Reaper: the lost of the last two members of your first squad and there for some of your closest and oldest friends was to much for you to take resulting in a new being know as Reaper being born with in you, you are unaware of this creature of death's existence but should you be unable to handle what is happening around you your mind will retreat to safety and Reaper will take control and "Punish" everything around.