Fallout Equestria: Operation Star Drop

by Meep the Changeling

Rating: teen
Tags: Profanity, Adventure, Violence, Crossover, DJ P0N-3, Fallout, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Death, Alternate Universe, Narcotics, Original Character, Science Fiction
Length: 477899

Fourteen years have passed since Pip’s journey ended. A young mare from a northern land is sent to make contact with the Wasteland's new nations, and walks directly into an ancient MoA Operation...

When the Gardens of Equestria were activated, many ponies believed the trying times were over and Equestria would become the paradise it had once been within a few short years.

As if the wasteland would give up that easily.

Monsters still roam the wasteland. Apex predators left unchanged from before the war. Mutant horrors born of balefire. Sadistic people whose hearts went black long ago... The Gardens did not kill. They did not reform. The Gardens did the one thing they were designed to do.

The Gardens cleaned up toxic waste everywhere their light could reach. No more, no less.

With radiation all but gone in most of the wasteland, taint entirely eliminated from Equestria's heartland, and much of the old farmland fertile once more, ponies everywhere banded together to take advantage of the world Pip healed... By forming large yet isolated settlements which over time joined one of two nations: The New Canterlot Republic, or the Herd.

These two ideologically opposed nations have clashed for over a decade. Border skirmishes are frequent. Black ops have been preformed by both sides. All out war has nearly broken out several times.

You can take the waste out of the wasteland. It's much harder to take it out of the wastelanders.

It is into this politically charged world that a newcomer arrives. A zebra from a remote northern kingdom, separated from Equestria for these many years by a megaspell induced winter that is at last dying down. A pity she arrives just as the other newcomers are enacting their bid for power.

This story is based on the story Fallout Equestria written by Kkat. It has been written with permission.

Featured on: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 at 7:18 AM UTC :yay:

Published 2019-01-16 00:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2021-04-07 07:27:58 UTC

2 - The Woods of Woe

I’d flown before, but there’s always something magical about watching the ground rush by like water from a tap. Sometimes I wished I was mom’s biological child. There would have been an excellent chance of inheriting her wings even though dad was an earth pony. It would be wonderful to fly under my own power.

Flying in the RAT rig was still pretty fun, even though it was cramped with three ponies onboard. Thanks to the cabin being chock full of radio equipment, I got the only window seat. I’d spent the last six hours watching the forests and snowfields as we zipped across them. I’d miss them.

I remembered a little about the Heartlands. Everything was gray, or brown, or brownish gray. The bombardment had sterilized the land, carbonized trees, and twisted what remained. The Crystal Empire had been hit with far fewer megaspells. Its holdings still had trees.

That little fact had bothered me for years. I had no idea how we could grow spruce, pine, and fir trees almost anywhere, but not edible plants. If only I’d read more on botany and agriculture. In my defense, there had always been something more important for me to learn in the past. Was it something special about evergreen trees in general, or that particular taxa of tree?

I leaned to my left to get a better view of the storm below us. A chaotic whirling nebula of white snow filled with glowing blue masses which danced at the edge of sight within the storm. The entire assembly moved as it wished, ignoring the winds. Windigos.

The Windigos had moved a bit further south than last I’d heard. I wasn’t worried about fighting them, or sneaking past them. We weren’t landing in the old Empire, and the Balefire had permanently bound them to the radioactive ice and snow of the north.

An entire species of Spirits of Hatred, forever bound within the confines of a particular biome, thanks to extreme magical radiation. What had the creators of Balefire been thinking? They had to have known what their weapons would do to the spirit realm. How any zebra could imagine weaponizing balefire and not be horrified was beyon—

Oh. Yes. That’s right.

True Shamans had lost control of their art long before the End. Those Who Feared the Stars took their place. Fear can make the wisest pony act the fool.

Their replacement stripped the religious aspects from public Shamanism years before the war. The scriptures passed down from Shaman to Apprentice may not have told you how to tame a spirit, or ward an area from them. Instead, those parables were meant to guide you in how to use the more practical aspects of their faith. One half showed you what you could do, the other showed you what you should do. Big important difference.

Those old scriptures and parables were just a little important. Especially the ones pertaining to necromancy.

In a word: Don’t.

In a sentence: Just because you can alter the nature of a soul or a spirit, doesn't mean you should.

It’s not a hard rule. A few safe applications of necromancy do exist, but any major necromantic spell will contaminate not just the mortal plane, but the spiritual realm as well. You could permanently alter the way local thaumaturgy worked in several ways. You could even kill magic itself in a significant area.

The roiling sea of clouds surged upwards, as if reaching towards the rig. They knew we were up here. They knew they couldn’t reach us. I shivered, feeling a tingle of fear run along my spine even though I knew they knew they couldn’t really reach us up here. They were playing with us.

The Comms Officer, a tall, neon green and matte pink earth pony stallion, set a hoof on my shoulder. “Relax. They can’t fly this high.”

I nodded, and offered him an apologetic smile. “I know.”

He laughed. “Besides, I hear they can’t see you. So even if they could come up here—”

I shook my head, cutting him off with the gesture. “No, they can see me. They just don’t think I’m food.”

He frowned in thought and raised an eyebrow. “Really? Wouldn’t they want to freeze you just for the hay of it?”

I ran a hoof through my mane and smiled. “Well, let’s say if they try it one day, it might be an even match. They may be manifestations of bitter hatred, but they know what death is. They know that if one of them does try to take me on, death is a possible outcome for both of us, and they don’t like their odds.”

He nodded slowly. “I see… Any chance you could teach me how to do that?”

I shook my head. Ponies always asked.

He sighed and looked out the window with me. “Let me guess, you need that gift you zebras have.”

I nodded. “If you can’t see more than its physical form, you can’t do much to a Windigo.”

We kept looking out the window for a few minutes, watching the Windigos chase us. They raced along, rolling and undulating as the storm’s members tried to jump high enough to reach us. You’d think they would know they couldn't leap a kilometer above their flight ceiling. You’d think that maybe they’d eventually try working together, but they always took their leap at us alone.

Celestia… Please don’t let them think to try that.

The view of storms below stopped abruptly, as if it hit some invisible wall. I frowned, unable to see any reason why they would have stopped, until I noticed a subtle change in the snow.

The snow in Lith was always tinted ever so slightly green, and speckled with gray ash. The snow under us now was white, blue, and pure. What the hay? How?

I pointed at the snow below us, just in case the stallion whose name I totally hadn’t forgotten hadn’t noticed the change. “Look! It’s clean!”

“What?” The officer leaned forwards, squinting for a moment until his eyes widened in surprise. “I’ll be damned, it is! What in the world could have done that?”

He turned towards the cockpit and took two steps forward, as far as he could go without bumping into the back of the pilot’s chair. “Hey! Aileron. Did we just cross the Equestrian border?”

Our pilot pointed to a mountain range a few dozen kilometers ahead. “Nope. It’s on top of that mountain range. I plan on setting down on top of the tallest peak. That should give us a clear transmission line to the nearest permanent relay… Why do you ask?”

“Look down, the snow’s clean here. No rads, no ash.”

“What? Not it’s n— Oh!” I saw the pilots head turn to look around his controls and through the crystal bottom of the cockpit. “How the buck— We need to report this! The soil down there might be recoverable, Officer!”

Officer? What? Did he forget his name too?

…

Oh. My. Celestia!

I groaned and slumped in my seat, feeling like I should smack myself on the nose. That’s why I couldn’t remember his name! His name and his rank were the same thing. What were his parents thinking?

“Yeah, I’ll be calling this in as soon as the RAT is online,” Officer said as he turned around and took his seat again.

I looked away from him and pretended to examine my LAERs, so he wouldn’t see that I was embarrassed.

It was exciting to have weapons mounted to my battle saddle, especially since unlike most ponies, I got to directly control them via my link module. No need for sights and triggers for this mare!

It was just like being back on the Imperterritus, only with lightning guns instead of cannons! If only my memories of serving aboard her were more intact… But no mare would ever forget what it was like to fire those guns. Mmmnh, forty six centimeter naval cannons. Six of them. Yessss!

Officer cleared his throat, making me realize that during my musings I had accidentally stared directly into his eyes. “Uh, Gears? W— Were you… Coming onto me?”

My cheeks burned red immediately. “No!” I squeaked. “J-just remembering the times I got to fire two tri-linked 46 cm naval turrets.”

“Thank Cadance!” Officer sighed, slumping more comfortably into his seat as the held breath escaped his lungs.

My ears fell, and the color drained from my cheeks. The relief that oozed from every fiber of Officer’s being was heartbreaking.

He frowned. “S— Sorry… I should have been more polite, it’s just that there’s the… Well, I’m sure you know.”

“I do,” I sighed. “I really do get it. It would be nice if someone wasn't so turned off by… That.”

Officer squirmed in his seat, his eyes flicking around the cabin, desperately looking for any way out of the awkward position he’d dragged us into. “Uh, so… About the whole seeing spirits thing,” he rambled.

“What about it?” I asked eagerly, my ears perking at the chance to not have to talk about my inconceivably long dry spell of ‘since forever’.

“I uh…” He paused for a moment, searching for anything to ask. “Oh! How did your mom give you the ability to do it?”

“She didn’t,” I said with a polite smile. “I’ve always had that.”

Officer blinked and looked me up and down then shook his head. “Look, I don’t really have any background in Shaman stuff. Can you tell me what that means in plain Equish?”

“It means that even before mom thought about me, I had the gift. It’s fate. Those who have it, have it, will have it, and always had it.”

Officer tilted his head. “What, like, are you talking about reincarnation?”

I shrugged. “Kind of? It’s more just… Fate.”

“Hey, guys?” Aileron called from the cockpit.

The two of us immediately turned towards him. It’s never a good idea to ignore the pilot of a cloudless aircraft. If something goes wrong, you need to be ready to bail before it’s time to bail.

“I’m picking up some local radio chatter,” Aileron continued, pausing for a moment, presumably to listen to his headset. “It sounds like there’s a squad of soldiers scouting the mountainside.”

Officer stood up and walked towards the cockpit. “Let me hear.”

I watched as Aileron handed Officer his headset. Officer jammed one cup over his ear and listened for several seconds then handed it back. “That’s military, for sure.”

“Is it the Enclave?” I asked curiously. “It would make sense if their original base was close to us.”

“No… I’m not sure who they were, but they mentioned freezing their teats off. That means no nice heated power armor, so they aren’t Enclave, or even pegasi for that matter,” Officer concluded with a soft humm.

I glanced at the external thermometer embedded in the window frame. It was a pleasant ten below, and they were cold? What wimps!

Aileron shook his head slowly. “Guys, we’re approaching in what will look to them like a huge house fly in power armor. I don’t want to keep heading in their direction in case they happen to have a RPG. We’re over a good landing site, and the terrain ahead looks like it would be suicide to try and set down on even if it wasn’t crawling with troops. Unless you want to try parachuting out today, Gears, you’ll have to climb down the mountain. Is that going to be acceptable?”

I nodded. “Land here. I’m going to be walking a whole bunch anyways.”

☢★★◯★★☢

I’d made it just ten steps from the rig’s gangplank when I realized my traveling clothes were overkill for this weather. I had my fur cloak, a full oilskin jumpsuit, and winter boots, as well as my new scarf. I was boiling!

Minus ten… What was this, midsummer?! It’s almost harvest time. Stupid weather.

I looked over my shoulder at the landed rig, debating returning to drop off my cloak. The airship really did look like a giant house fly in power armor. I never thought about it before, but changeling airships would all look like huge bugs to people who hadn’t seen them before.

I guess Queen Chrysalis really had valued the intimidation factor and apt symbolism for her technology.

I turned back away from the rig. The warm weather had to be a freak heatwave. I’d need my cloak again soon enough.

I looked down the mountain at Equestria. This was the first time I’d left the north since I’d arrived. In the distance I could see brown earth, untouched by snow, and a thin winding river which worked its way down the mountain into the distance.

The rolling hills and running water were alien to me. Even though I’d traveled through them once before, the memories of those days were so distant and muddy that it might as well have been the first time I’d really seen Equestria.

It looked…sick. Not dead, and not even dying. Just...ill. That’s not how I remembered it. I remembered it dead.

I also remembered there being total cloud cover, which made the sun seem like a dim lamp across the room rather than, well, a sun. Those clouds were nowhere to be seen. I guess after all these years the clouds those long dead pegasi used to seal off the sky had finally dissipated.

They do that right? Dissipate over time?

You’d think I’d know that, since I had a pegasus mom. A momasus. She wasn’t big on clouds, though. Or flying. Sometimes I wondered why she even bothered replacing her wings.

I shifted slightly, making sure my saddle, and more importantly the bags, were secure. They rustled slightly, but didn’t shift any more than expected. I was ready.

I took my first step down the mountain into the Heartlands, and immediately plunged a full two meters down into the deep fluffy snow as the hard crust atop the snowbank gave way under my hoof.

Right… Well… That happened.

“This doesn't count as the first step!” I called into the snow, hoping this didn’t qualify as an ill omen.

It was time to employ the strider.

Being a cybersurgeon’s only filly has its perks. Also some massive drawbacks. But mostly perks!

I tethered my link module to my strider with a thought, the second the sparklewave transceivers’ signal reached the strider, I could feel the robotic contraption as if it were a part of my own body.

I extended the small device’s slender legs, and a moment later they telescoped outwards with a smooth hiss of well-oiled metal and the slightest mechanical hum. Each of the four spike-tipped legs sank into the snow with an effortless crunch, and slowly hoisted me upwards out of the surprisingly warm snowbank.

My strider fully deployed without a problem, lifting me three meters upwards. This turned out to be about half a meter above the snow.

I frowned. Snowshoes might be the better call here… But a glance down the mountainside showed that the deep snows gave way to rocks and dirt only a few hundred meters down the slope. I’d much rather have the wider stance and longer reach of the strider’s legs right now.

“This is the first step, okay?” I said to the fates as I began to scuttle down the mountainside.

”The hay it is,” fate said in my imagination.

“Quiet, you…”

☢★★◯★★☢

Climbing down that mountain took me hours. Many agonizing hours. True, my body wasn’t doing much of the work, but remote controlling a robot with your mind for long periods can cause brain strain headaches. It’s even worse when your mom loves machines so much she ensured your link module converts basic telemetry into physical sensations so you know if you’ve hurt the machine you’re using.

You know, because that way you’ll feel it every time you do.

I had to switch from my strider back to my own four legs once I felt its main bearings start to get a little warmer than I liked. It felt way too much like getting ropeburn to tolerate moving for more than a minute at a time.

Fortunately, I’d made it into the foothills at the mountain’s base before I had to fold her up again.

At the base of the mountain was a leafless forest full of dense underbrush. Underbrush so dense that I’d mistaken the brown tangles of bare tree limbs for patches of dirt when up on the mountaintop. The sheer density of the trees and brush astonished me. I remembered Equestria being filled with dead or dying trees, big ones, ones that had the density to not be blown over or shredded by the balefire bombs.

This forest was flooded with underbrush. Little clusters of bushes, some ferns, and even a weird vine I’d never seen before. The creeper’s main body was black, and lined with red thorns. Every so often a small bile yellow bulb grew out of the vine. What impressed me was that the vines, ferns, and bushes were all obviously alive!

Some of them even had berries on them!

Unfortunately, the brush meant that my progress through the woods was slow. Each step required pushing through the dense barrier of foliage. The thorns caught my cloak so often that I was forced to fold it up and put it in my right hoof bag, and even after removing it they still bit into my fur and clothing like they were trying to keep me out of Equestria.

Thank Celestia I had my sun goggles! They were great at keeping the stupid thorns out of my eyes.

A short ways into the woods the terrain itself decided to make my life even more difficult. The ground became uneven shale, as if I were walking on the crumbling scales of an enormous beast. One which was made entirely of hills and staircases.

I decided that until I learned what the locals call these woods, I would refer to them as ‘the Forest of Aggravation’.

At least there weren't any animals or monsters to be seen, or heard. Though I could swear I smelled something... Whatever had allowed these plants to thrive here clearly didn’t extend to animal life. It had to be rare here.

By the time the sun began to set I was fairly certain that I was halfway through the Forest of Aggravation. My reasoning was that I had been moving generally upwards while crossing the the oddly stair-like hills for a very long time and now I was moving down again.

Amazingly, going down the hills was slightly more terrible than moving up them. I felt like each and every hoofstep was going to be the one where I finally slipped and fell rump over snoot into a briar patch.

The dim light didn’t help finding a feeling of balance, either. The trees cast shadows at more angles than it felt like they should. I hadn’t noticed this aspect of the Forest of Aggravation at first because the sun had been nearly overhead. The sun was still setting, somehow, but it was much darker than nightfall in a forest had any right to be.

The Forest of Aggravation had to be magical. A unicorn wizard had found these hills, gotten frustrated or something, and decided everypony to ever walk among them thereafter would have to be just as frustrated as she had been.

None of my other theories made much sense.

I paused for a moment to check my compass. The dense brush made seeing its face nearly impossible, and made seeing anything other than trees actually impossible. My compass was the only way to make sure I was on course, because I’d stopped trusting the shadows at sunset. I mean, the first sunset.

I couldn’t even tell if the sun was still setting, or had set then come back up to set again… I hate these stupid woods.

As I reached into my bag to take my compass out, my ears perked towards a faint sound. The first sound aside from myself I’d ever heard in the Forest of Aggravation. It must be a trap!

I facehooved and groaned. Just because this was the worst woods I’d ever been in didn’t mean that the animals in it were dangerous to me. Besides, I had no idea what I’d heard. It could have been a tree falling in the forest, and I’d never know.

I closed my eyes and swiveled my ears, searching for the source of the noise. It was to my left and slightly ahead of me, and it wasn't a falling tree, it was a voice.

“— ot joking! Patrollin’ these woods really do make me wish someone would drop balefire on ‘em.”

I smiled. That was a stallion’s voice, and he was talking to somepony else. Ponies! Ponies who shared my almost-hatred of these stupid woods. I should go ask for directions, or at least get a closer look to make sure they weren't bandits.

I turned and began to walk through the brush towards them, doing my best to be as quiet as possible, just in case they were hostile. After a few more meters I could hear their conversation pretty clearly. It sounded like there were at least five ponies, and they were patrolling the woods not for some boss, but for a major.

That solidified it. They were soldiers! It would be safe for any courier to ask them for directions to the nearest town.

I pushed my way through the brush and emerged in a large clearing where six ponies had set up camp. They had a small cooking fire, two tents which looked large enough for two ponies to awkwardly sleep together, and were clustered around their fire for warmth.

The ponies themselves were an earth-tone mix of earth ponies and unicorns. It looked like each of these ponies had been chosen to be soldiers strictly due to their fur and manes being natural camouflage. Was career marked by color in the Heartlands? What would my stripes make me?

They had matching vests which might be a form of body armor as they appeared thick and sturdy enough to hide a metal plate inside. The cloth was olive green, and each vest’s design had a distinct ‘uniform armor’ vibe. They weren’t machine produced, but they looked a lot like wartime flack vests.

They also had a ranged weapon and a melee tool each. One shotgunner, one arbalest, four pistoleers. Not exactly good weapons, but they all had the same small bags on the back of their vests marked with a red cross. Bandits don't universally carry medical kits.

That said, bandits often have brands, and as I quietly circled around them in the dark I noted that each of the six had a series of stripes, curved like a rainbow, branded into the flesh of their right shoulder. That brand gave me pause, until I saw a matching symbol on the back of their vest above the medical pack, as well as their second brand.

Each of them had a letter and a symbol, or two letters, branded over their left eye. It took me a moment to understand they had branded their blood types onto their faces. While extreme, that would be useful for a medic. Perhaps Heartland ponies had… Interesting new military traditions.

These six didn’t seem to have heard me approach, a small miracle given the brush. I cleared my throat to draw their attention.

Six pairs of ears instantly swiveled in my direction. By the time they were mid-jump, smoothly drawing their weapons while turning in my direction in one fluid motion, I realized that this had been a terrible idea.

My eyes widened in terror. Their mouths and magic closed around their weapons. I managed to get my forehooves up before they fired. “Friendly! Friendly!”

Thankfully, the six paused. Five of them turned towards a short but very muscular unicorn who wielded a 10mm pistol in his gray-green arcane grip.

“Uh, Sarge?” The unicorn with a shotgun asked. “We got any zebras?”

Their Sergeant, who I hoped wasn't named Sarge, shook his head. “Nope. They don’t hire stripes. Who are you? What are you doing here? And keep your saddle’s trigger folded away!”

I frowned, not sure why they were so inclined to think I was host—

Oh. Yes. I was pointing a pair of magical energy weapons in their direction. Time for diplomacy.

I slowly lowered my hooves to stand normally on the ground. “I’m sorry, gentleman—”

“I’m a mare!” One of the shoulders growled around her weapon’s mouth grip.

“— and lady,” I added as swiftly as I could.

She did not look like a mare. The poor girl had the opposite of my problem. I looked like a pinup artist’s stylized depiction of a mare. It turned stallions off more often than not. Actually, every time.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” I continued, noting how all six of them were keeping me in their view while scanning the woods for anypony else. “I’m traveling through the area and heard your conversation. I was hoping you could direct me to the nearest settlement.”

Something told me it wouldn’t be a good idea to say I was traveling alone.

Sarge took a step towards me, his mud brown mane fell across his eyes as he moved, but didn’t seem to hinder him in the slightest. “If you’re really here just to talk, you’ll take that saddle off and slide it over here, along with your pistol.”

I raised an eyebrow. I understood them wanting me to disarm. I was carrying a lot of firepower. But I didn’t want to.

“I don’t have my trigger deployed,” I reminded, well lied. Mine didn’t have one. “You could also easily kill me while I drew my pistol. Surely that’s enough for us to have a civilized conversation?”

The sargent pointed to my chest with one hoof. “I’m going to count to three. If you don’t start taking that saddle off, we’ll fill you so full of holes your corpse will look like it should be spread over bread.”

Well, buck. My ears and tail drooped in defeat. Just as they could shoot me before I had my pistol out, they could shoot me before I could get back in the treeline. Fortunately for me, their pistols didn’t pose a threat to me. Unfortunately, that shotgun might. It depended what kind of shells were loaded in its twin barrels.

I took a second to weigh my options. I could either kill six ponies with an energy weapon that was very distinctive and thus easily traceable back to me, or I could disarm for a moment and talk things out.

“One,” the sergeant said.

They did look like soldiers. They were acting like soldiers. Bandits would have just fired, and probably not checked the trees for other ponies…

“Two…”

“I’ll disarm. Give me a moment,” I turned away from the six and reached down with my hoof to unbuckle my saddle’s clasps, hoping that turning away from them would prove I wasn’t hostile.

I undid the first clasp, then the second. The moment my saddle started to slide off my back I felt it get yanked upwards. One of the unicorns had levitated it, along with my pistol, up and out of my reach. Before I could fully process this turn of events two of the earth ponies tackled me to the ground.

A rather old looking fibery rope came out of one of their vests and began to loop around my legs.

I had made a grave mistake. Heartland bandits were absurdly well organized and equipped!

I thrashed, twisted, and turned, but a zebra is no match for a pair of earth ponies. My legs were hogtied in just a few moments. I couldn’t help but feel that if the orange stallion astride my belly had chosen to invest his time in being a rancher he’d have the world record for radhog tying in the bag.

“She’s secure, sir!” The orange stallion announced as he stepped off me, allowing the sergeant to step forward and loom over me, his head framed by the dull orange of the still setting sun.

Okay, Gears. How will you get out of this one?

I began to twist and pull at the rope binding my legs together. It wasn’t very strong. If I had a few moments I could probably snap it by pulling on it long enough with all four of my legs. The problem was, well, I didn’t have one moment.

The sergeant stared me in the eyes for a long moment then asked. “That saddle have any safety features? Aura lock? Trigger keyed to your bite? That thing on the back some kind of bomb?”

“It doesn't have a trigger. It’s useless to you,” I said as calmly as I could.

It was also out of my link range… I needed a better antenna.

Any advice, imaginary dad? I thought I was supposed to know what to do when things needed to be done.

”Well, for starters, don’t hand over your kit to strangers.”

Gee thanks, imaginary dad… I wish you knew things I didn’t.

“She’s right, sir,” one of the bandits called from out of my field of view. “The saddle’s got no control arm.”

The sergeant's eyes narrowed angrily. “Zebras… You all think you’re so special. Smarter, more dangerous, stronger, faster, all of that rot. But you still do stupid shit like try to bluff your way past ponies with useless weapons. Let me guess, the pistol’s dead too, isn’t it?”

Now there was something to make them think. My own guns were definitely dangerous to me. I nodded and sighed. “You got me… None of my weapons actually work… I don’t have anything of value other than those pieces of scrap. Why don’t you let me go?”

I subtly strained at the ropes binding my legs. I could hear the old fibers creak as they started to pull apart… But I needed more time.

If I could get away into the woods for a few moments, I could retrieve my guns under the cover of darkness.

The Sergeant shook his head and aimed his 10mm squarely at my temple. I saw his eyes dilate as he looked down its sights to make sure it was aimed properly. “Or, I could rid this good world of a zebra. I haven't done my good deed for the day yet, and the sun should set any minute now, so…”

He smirked and concentrated his aura around the trigger, wanting me to know he was pulling it before he fired.

I shifted my head slightly, adjusting the angle between it, his gun, and one of his friends. Hopefully, I had the math right...

“You should switch with your friend and use the shotgun,” I warned as I put even more pressure on the ropes.

“Please,” the sergeant snorted and rolled his eyes. “I know what a 10mm does to a zebra’s skull. Same thing it does to everything else.”

He pulled the trigger. The pistol fired. The muzzle flash blinded me, even with my goggles on. I felt the bullet hit my head, rip through my skin, and bounce off my subdermal armor. It felt like a horse kicked me in the face. Even with armor, getting shot is not fun. But I was alive.

Having a cybersurgeon for a mom is mostly perks!

The ricochet sped off into the night and struck one of the bandits in the shoulder. I heard him scream in pain. I wanted to join him, but my pain was too intense to scream out loud. What the hay had he loaded his gun with?!

The Sergeant stared down at me in stunned disbelief. If the pain from the shot hadn’t been so bad, I might have had a snappy quip to hit him back with. Instead, ignoring my aching head, I snapped the ropes binding my legs and rolled to my left just in time to dodge the volley of gunfire which peppered the patch of ground I’d been laying on the moment before.

I rolled up onto my hooves and realized three things. First, I needed a gun. Second, the dirt spray told me the shotgun was loaded with slugs, so it was deadly to me. Third, my only remaining weapon could only be used once a minute.

I literally had one shot at surviving this.

Fortunately, I was good shot. Unfortunately, my right eye was still speckled with white dots from getting shot in the head, the ripped skin itched where my implants were busily growing new tissue to seal the gap, and coolant oozing from the wound was leaking into both of my eyes, making them burn... Also, my left eye was about to be blind for a little bit.

Steeling myself, I aimed at the sergeant's forehead, and fired.

A fresh spike of pain lanced through my head as my ocular laser burned away the fleshy covering of the left eye. Shards of hot crystal sprayed back into my face as my goggles lens exploded as the laser shattered them, adding that much more to the pain cocktail.

The sergeant's forehead smouldered. I’d hit him! He toppled forward as his troops fired. I dove forwards, half to dodge the bullets, half to grab the 10mm as it fell from his dead grasp.

I hit the dirt, skid a short distance, and fell short of the 10mm by a quarter meter. Something solid slammed against my left leg with a loud thud, stopping at my armor rather than bouncing off. The pain was excruciating. I screamed.

That was buckshot. Please be out of slugs.

Bullets peppered the earth around me as I crawled towards the dead bandit’s gun, praying none of the unicorns would realize I was going for it and yank it away.

My half-working eye was fixed on the dropped gun. My left eye was still offline, cutting my field of view in half. I reached the dead bandit’s 10mm and wrapped my mouth around the grip and trigger. A pair of bullets struck me in the side, but compared to the throbbing pain in my leg they were nothing.

My left eye came back online. The laser was still recharging, but I could see again. I could see… That the bandits had scattered to cover behind logs and rocks.

Wonderful...

I rolled to the side, trying to get some distance between myself and the bandits before I sprang to my hooves, the 10mm pointed in the direction of the enemy. The mare poked her head out from behind a log to take a shot at me. She happened to move right into my sights. I fired.

Her head split open like a wet dumpling full of chunky salsa being crushed under hoof. I felt the recoil push me back nearly a centimeter.

What kind of ammo was this thing loaded with?! No wonder my eye was only just starting to clear up.

“Buck this!” Someone cried.

I turned, spotting movement out of the corner of my eye. One of the bandits was standing up. He had something in his hoof. What was he biting? Wait—

Oh! He had a grenade.

Not good! I’m only rated for small caliber pistols, not bombs!

The pin glittered in the stubborn sunset light as he ripped it from the grenade. I moved as if to run to my right. He threw the grenade my way. I pivoted on my front legs and shot off to my left, taking three long steps before diving for the ground.

The grenade exploded, throwing me a meter or so across the ground, where a large rock ripped the gun from my mouth as I slid past it. My underside stung more than hurt as shrapnel peppered it, none of which pierced my armor.

Thank Celestia! If I had been a hoof’s reach closer…

“Good idea!” Somepony yelled over my ringing ears’ protests.

I looked up. Another of the bandits had produced a grenade from… Wherever they had been keeping their kits. The medical bags served as general purpose bags. I should have realized they’d looted old army gear, or something.

I started to climb to my hooves to dodge the grenade, but the bandit was already pulling the pin. I had no time.

”Charge him. He won't throw it at his own hooves!” Dad’s imaginary voice screamed at me.

I charged. Or at least, I started too. I stood up to charge, and he pulled the pin free from the grenade.

Well… There’d been a lot of good runs. All of this, and I die because I did something stupid. Seems about right.

I felt nothing but bitter irony and raw terror as the bandit shifted to throw his grenade. “Please! I don't want to go!” I begged.

For whatever reason, he decided to stop and taunt me. “Too bucking bad, stripes!”

His taunt didn’t buy me the time to dodge. It didn’t buy me the time to charge, or pick up the gun I’d dropped.

It did buy enough time for someone to put a bright blue laser bolt through his upheld grenade.

The bandit’s head and shoulders vanished in a fireball and a dull thud as the grenade exploded at less than full strength, some of its powder having been vaporized by the shot. His hindquarters simply fell over, spilling his entrails across the ground.

Before I could blink, another blue bolt zipped out from the treeline. It streaked through the air with a crackling sound that reminded me of a hawk's cry, and slammed into the side of another bandit. The bandit screamed, immediately dropping his revolver as he began to have a seizure. Bloody foam suddenly filled his muzzle as he gurgled and convulsed on the ground.

I felt my whole frame constrict in sympathy as I watched that dying bandit vomit up blood and keep twitching.

Celestia’s. Bucking. Teats. What. Was. That. Gun!?

“OH, BUCK, THE HAY NO!” One of the remaining bandits shrieked as he fired randomly into the woods where the bolts had come from.

“LEG IT!” The other screamed.

The two broke cover and began to run into the trees. Six more blue bolts of seizure-death streaked into the trees after them. I had no idea if they hit or not. I was too busy waving my legs in the air and shrieking, “Friendly! Friendly! Friendly! Friendly! Friendly! Friendly!”

If that gun did that to an organic pony, I didn’t want to even think about what it would do to me.

I saw somepony start walking out of the trees, and moved to cover my left eye before realizing the false eye and skin had regrown. My savior wouldn’t immediately see that I’m a cyberpony.

Being what I am has kept me from getting a special somepony for two hundred years, even though I look normal on the outside. It would definitely be reason for a less tolerant pony to shoot me on sight.

With a spasm gun, in this case.

A unicorn mare trotted out of the woods, her face lit by the bold blue glow of her horn, as she held a surprisingly slender, elegant, and sinister black laser pistol in her magical grip. I thanked Celestia the weapon was pointed down at the ground and not at me.

Nearly all of her body was covered in a patchwork cloth jumpsuit held together by ropes lashed around her legs, and shoulders. There wasn't any kind of rhyme or reason to the particular patchwork making up her jumpsuit, hinting that she probably had just repaired one outfit with whatever came to hoof so many times you couldn't tell what the original fabric was anymore.

Her outfit left only her eyes, forehead, and the top of her nose exposed, thanks to the combination of jumpsuit, scarf, and a hooded cloak made from leather and festooned with yet more cloth patches.

I liked her scarf. It was clearly very old, but was well maintained and had been recently washed. I couldn't be sure, but I thought the scarf was made from silk. Its black, gray, and pink bands seemed to glisten slightly in the dim light, and perfectly obscured most of her face.

In spite of the scarf, I could tell she was grinning thanks to her cheeks. “Calm down, zeeb,” she said in an oddly melodic, thought slightly rough, voice. “I know you’re friendly. Only someone who was too friendly would disarm in front of bandits… Thanks for distracting them for me. I’ve been following them all day.”

The sun finally finished setting. Right when she said all day. She knew how time worked in this terrifying magical forest!

Oh thank goodness, I thought, she’s a ranger or something.

I cleared my throat and stepped forward. “You’re welcome… My name is Whirling Gears, you can call me Gears. I’m a courier for…”

I trailed off as she got closer and I could see her face and strands of her mane in better light. Her coat looked white, but more due to pallor. Her mane was blue, but like her fur, it was also very pale. Her red eyes also seemed to be a little bloodshot and sunken into her head, while her cheek bones were extra prominent. Almost as if she were ill, or—

I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, but are you a normal unicorn or a ghoul?”

“Ghoul,” she answered casually, though her red eyes remained fixed on the woods where the bandits had run into. “Yeah, I know. I’m the best preserved ghoul you’ve ever seen. I’m lucky. How old am I really. What’s my secret? Blah, blah, blah... How about you pick up your guns in case they come back?”

“Oh! Yes… Sorry,” I turned and looked for my weapons.

My saddle lay on its side, and my pistol was a short distance away, dropped by the unicorn when they fled or died. I wasn’t sure which. The entire fight was something of a blur to me at the moment.

I ran over and quickly wiggled into my saddle, linking to it before I even fastened the second buckle. By the time my pistol was back in its holster, my savior had advanced to the treeline where the two bandits had run, and stood nodding in satisfaction.

“Yep. That scared them off. Good, they won’t be a problem for me tomorrow if I don’t make it up the mountain,” she said to herself as she began to look each of the bandits corpses with her magic.

I bit my lip nervously. I didn’t want to think very much about what her gun did to that poor bandit, but I had to know what it was in case there were more of them in the wasteland.

“Hey, uh, what is that gun?”

The ghoul turned around and flourished her pistol before holstering it, making me flinch. “Oh this? I found it in an MoA hub years ago. Officially it’s called a NeuroDisruptor, but I call it the Bad Trip. It’s a proto of a stun gun that’s a bit too powerful. What about those two shiny things? I’ve never seen a rifle with vacuum tubes on it before.”

Okay! She had a gun that was actually called ‘Thing that bucks your nervous system to tartarus and back’. At least it was a prototype. This means I need to immediately become her friend and never make her angry, ever.

“They shoot lightning, using a matrix which mimics pegasis magic,” I explained as I did my best to find my nerves so I could be polite. “I didn’t catch your name. What is it?”

The ghoul mare paused for a moment then smiled. “Most ponies call me The Wanderer. Or Wander. Take your pick.”

I nodded, deciding to go with the version that didn’t make me say 'er' twice in a row. “Well, Miss Wander, thank you for saving my life. I’m glad your settlement has rangers like you patrolling the wilderness.”

Wander snorted and smirked. “Ranger? I’m no ranger! Silly, zeeb. I’m a bard!” She announced as she pulled a stringed instrument of some kind from under her cloak in a dramatic flourish.

A flourish which was too quick for me to see exactly what she was carrying… Clever. I imagine she was worried I’d rob her if it looked too shiny.

I blinked. “A what? I’ve never heard that term. Oh! Do you play something called a bard? Like how a cellist plays a cello?”

Wander winced at the word ‘cellist’, making me think she wasn't a fan of that particular instrument.

“No. It means traveling musician and storyteller,” she said. “You must have brewed up a luck potion, because there’s nopony but me for several days… Other than a bandit camp, I guess. Scratch that, a former bandit camp. I was out here trying to find a way to cross the mountains into the Crystal Empire. What about you? Where did you come from?”

She was trying to go to the Empire? Why? Was she following the Enclave?

I gave her a mildly suspicious look. “Why do you want to visit the Empire?”

“Curiosity,” Wander said with no deception I could pick up on. “I’ve been everywhere else in the wasteland… I wanted to visit it before the war, but never got the chance. I was already up north to pick up some Aqua Cura and decided, what they hay? Why not just go where the rads still are? Beat the rush, maybe.”

I nodded slowly. It made sense that a ghoul would want to go where rads a— What?

The stunned look on my face as I realized there must be next to no radiation in the Heartlands was more than enough for Wander to come to a conclusion. “You’re from the Empire, aren't you?”

I nodded. “What’s left of it. I’m from Lith. I’m supposed to deliver a diplomatic package from our queen to… Whomever is in charge here.”

Wander hummed. “Well… I’ve never seen guns like those before, and I remember somepony mentioning that the Crystal City is where we developed all of our really fancy weapons. It also makes no sense for a zeeb to be way up—”

I gave Wander my best annoyed glare. “Sooo, that sounds like a slur. Is that a slur?”

“What? Zeeb?” Wander asked, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Yes.”

She shook her head with an incredulous look in her eyes. “No! No more than Peg, or Uni, or Earth, or Griff are.”

“You mean it's just a contraction?” I asked, the hostility that had been starting to build in my heart melting away.

“Yeah! Nopony will get mad at you for doing that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I like Zebras. Always have, always will.” Wander assured with an embarrassed frown. “Um, stripes is a slur. There’s a few more. I don’t hear them enough to have them all on the tip of my tongue.”

“I picked up on that one when the bandit called me it,” I muttered, glancing over at his corpse.

I felt just a little glad he was dead. Which made me feel a little ashamed of myself. Then again, he seemed to be into hunting zebras for sport…

I decided not to feel bad about killing him.

“Anyway,” Wander said slowly. “You don’t know the slurs from the nicknames, have exotic weapons, and are in the middle of nowhere. I think I’ll trust you at your word. How about you tell me how to get to the Empire from here, and I’ll tell you how to get to Two Bits. It’s the closest town.”

Oh! Well that was lucky. For me. Not for her.

I frowned apologetically. “Sorry, but, you’ll never make it on hoof.”

“You did,” Wander counter, gesturing to me with a foreleg.

I shook my head. “No, I was flown out here in an airship. I only climbed down the mountain and into the Forest of Aggravation.”

Wander snorted. “Close! This is the Woods of Woe. The name’s pretty on the—” she raised an eyebrow. “Airship? If you have an airship why aren't you flying closer to civilization?”

I shrugged. “Lots of reasons. The pilot was afraid of RPGs, there wasn’t a good landing site, and he needs to be on the mountaintop to get a radio signal home.”

Wander nodded. “Gotcha… Now, why wont I make it on hoof?”

“Well, for starters, do you think you can walk through a storm of windigos?” I said nodding towards the mountains. “There’s a really angry one right on the other side of the mountain right now. You’d also have to cross a bloodice field to get to our closest town from here.”

Wander winced and shook her head slowly. “Okay… So, do you mean windigo as in the monsters from the Hearth Warming story, or some crazy wasteland monster you just named after them?”

“They are actual spirits of rage with elemental powers of cold, just like the story,” I said with an apologetic frown. “I’m sorry, but walking to anywhere in the Empire is almost suicide. We train our Couriers for years before letting them go solo, and we still have a high casualty rate.”

Suddenly, an idea occurred to me. I smiled and walked over to Wander, searching for the best words to propose my idea with. “But I do think I can help you!”

“How so?” Wander asked. “Can you get me a ride? I can pay.”

I nodded confidently. “I can get you a ride, and I can even help you get to any township in Lith you like, completely safely. I even have a place you can stay for a while in my hometown.”

Wander pursed her lips and sighed. “I think I see what you’re getting at. If I become your guide for the Wasteland, when you’re done with your mission, you’ll be my guide in the Empire. Is that what you were thinking?”

I nodded and smiled. “Yes! I think it's a fair bargain. I know nothing of Equestria, you know nothing of Lith… And, as a ghoul, you’ll want to go to Lith.”

“Well, yes,” Wander deadpanned. “You have free radiation still. Right?”

Think, Gears! What can I offer a ghoul that would be amazing payment, preferably unique to Lith, and—

Of course! A bloodice amulet.

I nodded, giving her a smile as I now felt confident I could offer her sufficient motivation to help me out over the long term. “Sure do! But, we also are a mostly ghoul kingdom, and we have bloodice,” I took a quick breath as I prepared to explain that nasty stuff to somepony who had never heard of it before. “Imagine a bright red ice that doesn’t melt in sunlight and looks like fresh blood. If you touch it, you slowly die as whatever bit of the ice that stuck to you converts your body into more bloodice. It takes hours of painful suffering to die, and there’s no cure except to cut off the affected tissue.

“But, it’s useful. It does several weird magic things. For instance, if you use some of it to make the core for an amulet with a simple charm that would keep your fur clean, that spell is warped into something else. In this case, it happens to create a healing magic that keeps ghouls from going feral. Her Majesty gives one of these amulets to every ghoul, free of charge.”

Wander froze in place. “Y— You can guarantee I won't go feral?”

I nodded. “Yes! Well, Her Majesty can. Uh, and only for as long as you wear the amulet. If it comes off, you’re at risk again. I know you’ve made it a very long time already, but I imagine it would be—”

“A tremendous weight off my mind?!” Wander shouted eagerly. “You have no idea how much the idea of turning into a mindless zombie eats at my brain. Or any ghoul’s brain, for that matter. You want a guide, Sword Mare? You got one!”

I opened my mouth to say thank you, but Wander suddenly pushed her face directly into mine to stare into my eyes. “But, if I find out you’re lying to me about those amulets, you’ve seen what Bad Trip does to a pony.”

I whinnied nervously and took a step back. “Okay, two things. First, I won't lie about what my kingdom can offer Equestria. I’ve been sent here to try and strike up a trade deal with somepony. I’m supposed to represent our industry and technology. Honestly, too. I promise, I can and will get you one of those amulets in exchange for being my guide.”

Wander nodded and stepped back as well, though her face remained serious. “See that you do. I have to be sane for… Well, a good while longer.”

Thank Celestia I wasn’t making the amulets up… If only I thought it bring some! No, wait, then you’d have no leverage to negotiate.

“You’ll get it,” I promised again. “Second, why did you call me Sword Mare?”

Wander snickered. “Oh. That. You see…”

Wander trotted forward and picked up two rocks with her magic. She floated them so they touched my flanks and pulled them back so I could see the distance between them. Admittedly, it shouldn’t be possible for a mare to have flanks like mine if her waist is as skinny as mine is.

“This is how curvy you are,” Wander informed with a smirk “You look like the titular character from the Sword Mare comic. Only she’s an Earth Pony, not a zebra. No offense intended. I just find it funny somepony actually looks like that.”

Ah. That.

My cheeks flushed brightly as I decided to not explain that I’d had my mom give me some extra curvature in the hopes of attracting a special somepony, since at the time it had been about a hundred years and still nopony liked me. Nor would I tell her that mom was so clueless about what stallions liked that she used her old comic books as the template for the ‘upgrade’.

Or that we couldn’t undo it, because anything affixed to my chassis properly, like an upgrade, would well.. Well removing it would hurt really bad. I wasn’t exactly able to use painkillers or anesthetics.

In my defense, I hadn’t known that the extra curves wouldn’t work at the time either. The problem wasn't me not looking hot enough. The problem was stallions want mares who don’t have so much in common with their toasters. Even if she has effectively infinite endurance.

“I uh… Yeah. I know,” I murmured, kicking the ground with a hoof.

I needed to change the subject, fast. “So um… How about you take me to Two Bits? Also, could you explain how the Heartlands aren't an irradiated hellhole? That’s been… Really confusing.”

Confusing being the least appropriate word for it. I should have gone with beyond baffling.

Wander nodded once. “Sure can! Follow me. We don't want to camp anywhere near those bandits.”

She began to trot south east in the dark. I followed her, keeping an eye out for any sign of vested bandits. Their small arms wouldn’t do any real damage to me, but Wander wasn’t packing a few millimeters of magically tempered plate under her skin.

“Sooo, are you going to tell me about the radiation vanishing?” I promoted after a few long quiet minutes of walking through the Forest of Aggravation.

Or Woods of Woe. I liked hers better. It had alliteration.

Wander sighed the sigh of a retail pony who had been asked for the millionth time why the price was so high. I instantly felt like a jerk for asking the question and flattened my ears and tucked my tail instinctively.

"There’s a very long and complicated story behind how and why Equestria is clean again. If you're lucky, you'll get to hear the full full version on a radio in town,” Wander said coldly. “I'm pretty sure DJ-Pon3 is going to broadcast the story again this week.”

“Well, I’d still like to hear it. It seems like it would be a little important.”

Wander groaned. “I said, ‘it’s a very long and complicated story’. If I tell you part of it, you’ll ask so many questions I may as well tell you the whole thing. Especially since the same events also led to the founding of both of the major nations in the Wasteland.”

I was quiet for a few minutes before asking timidly. “W— Well, can you tell me a short version? Like, the minimum possible?”

Wander moaned quietly. “Sorry… it’s not you. It’s just that some foal will ask me to tell the story in every single town. I’ve told it at least nine hundred times in the last fourteen years… Which is how long the story’s been around.”

I moaned for a moment, knowing I was about to be a jerk, but also had a point. “I’m sorry but…”

“I know. You’ve never heard it…” Wander sighed. “Okay. Pay attention. The story of the Herd and the NCR begins with a mare named Littlepip who did more for the wasteland in a couple months then everypony before her had in two hundred bucking years."

Wander stopped walking, and I nearly bumped into her, then turned her head to the sky and glared as if looking for someone before shouting, "Way to make us all look bad, Pip!”

I blinked at her in confusion. “Uh… C— Can she hear you?”

Please don’t let her be insane…

Wander shrugged. “Maybe? If the SPP can see out this far past the towers and she’s paying attention to the border, she might have seen that little firefight. I prefer to think she sees all of my random yells into the sky.”

Something told me this was indeed a very complicated story.

Wander cleared her throat and resumed the story. “So, this real badflank hero type came out of her vault one day and slowly began to inspire all the right people into all the right actions... Uh, you know what? The ballad is better and shorter. Let me just..."

Wander reached under her cloak and produced an electric guitar from under her definitely magical cloak. Anything that can hide a full size guitar that well has to have some concealment magic on it.

Her guitar was gorgeous, and in nearly perfect condition, though still visibly old. The face was ivory white with a mother of pearl inlay and featured a small engraving of two eighth notes as a decoration under the strings.

She moved her guitar into position near her barrel with her magic, then reached into her scarf and pulled out a small stone tooth on a small chain, which she proceeded to use as a guitar pick.

Wander took a deep breath and struck a chord, her guitar magicly adjusting the sound as if the instrument was hooked into an amp, making me jump even though the noise was fairly quiet.

It’s just that I had not expected a ballad to be accompanied by a guitar riff appropriate for a glam metal song. Or for a ghoul’s voice to loose its raspy quality when she sang and become something... wonderful.

"From Stable Two Pip emerged alone,
an answer to the prophecy carved in stone:
"When you need heroes to save the day,
A spark will reveal the way.”

I had a feeling that while the song was shorter, it wasn’t going to answer my questions. At least Wander’s singing was really, really good.

3 - Two Bit Town

There’s a very short list of ponies who make better pathfinders than a Lithin courier. The north never lets you take the same route twice, so if you can't figure out a way around whatever it’s throwing your way today, you’ve run your last route. If I’d had any grasp of where places were in the Heartlands, I’d have no problem getting anywhere I pleased.

More importantly, I could tell that Wander could do the same. In fact, it seemed she could do even better than I could. Her routes seemed to be meandering and slow for the first few hours of our journey. She would move up a steep hill when the valley between it and its neighbor looked perfectly traversable, push through foliage she could could go around, and even scale small cliffs for seemingly for no reason.

That is, until you followed her. Her routes were always paths of least resistance. Sure, she might lead you up a steep hill instead of around it, but the other side of the valley there would turn out to be a mudflat, or something else harder to cross than simply a steep hill. It was like Wander had a perfect map in her head, somehow always up to date on changes to the world around her.

If I didn’t know for a fact that she never looked down at her legs while traveling, I’d swear to Celestia that she was using a Pipbuck.

Thanks to Wander’s miraculous pathfinding we made excellent time through the foothills and into the mountains to the south. Even a recent avalanche we had to walk across didn’t slow us down. A mere day and a half after we set out together, I laid eyes on Two Bits.

It looked to me like Two Bits had built itself up in a pre-war prison, taking advantage of its mostly intact walls. The settlement proper took up the large central complex where a dozen buildings were built in the middle of the prison yards. Surrounding it was a plane of nothing but gravel and coarse dirt for a full kilometer in every direction.

I liked the wall. It wasn’t square like most Equestrian forts. Instead, its walls formed a hexagon enclosing at least five square kilometers, which had certainly once been filled with fenced off yards and buildings. Now it contained a sprawling shanty town.

The walls had a tower at each corner, and another for the middle of each segment. The old guard towers were mostly ruins, but two still stood tall, and I could see that they even had a flag flying from the top of one of them. Based on the fact that I could make out the general color and shapes on the flag from all the way over here, it had to be positively enormous!

Wander and I were atop a hill just over two kilometers or so north of the town. I couldn't be entirely sure, but the massive flag appeared to have a white field with a red stripe along the bottom, a red sun in its canton, and a device in the shape of a mountain, or maybe a city’s skyline. It also had what was probably a line of text running along the bottom just above the red stripe.

Why do ponies think text is a good idea on their flags? Flags flutter or hang. They’re also generally located high up on things like poles or towers. Reading text on a flag is not something a pony can just do at a glance. The entire point of a flag is to identify whose flag it is at a glance.

The flag I saw flying over Two Bits didn’t match any Equestrian heraldry I knew of. I wasn’t into vexillology, but I had read most of mom’s library. I knew most of the old world flags.

This one was new. It had been made post-war. The Heartlands could make fabric. This means they could grow enough plants to feed everyone and had enough farmland left over for textiles.

Jackpot!

Bad flag design and ostentatious wealth aside, Two Bits seemed like it could be a nice place. You know, nice for a town built in an old maximum security prison. The homes inside the walls were constructed out of scrap material. Old pieces of aluminum siding and plywood. Plumbing pipes, old railroad ties, chicken wire, tattered tarps. It was like the ponies living here had found a junkyard and arranged it into houses in an artful manner.

Not that Two Bits would form a picture from above, or anything, but you could tell that the ponies who built it had cared about the aesthetics of their homes. When I’d imagined a Heartland town, I’d imagined holes in all of the walls, leaks in every roof, and windows which were really just holes big enough that they hadn’t even tried to cover them up.

Two Bits was nothing like that.

The salvaged supplies were all used in ways which took full advantage of whatever workable material they had. Tarps were pulled taut on wooden frames to form roofs and corners for rough walls. It was clear to see that each building had a proper framework, as well. They were all nearly square, and the walls and roofs were neither warped or slanted. Some of the buildings even had more than one story.

Either Two Bits was a wealthy town with easy access to choice scrap materials, or I had really underestimate what towns in the Heartlands would be like.

Wander looked in my direction, waiting for me to speak.

I swished my tail awkwardly as the seconds ticked by, and eventually cleared my throat. “What?”

“I’m just wondering why you’re staring at the place so intently,” Wander said with a slight grin. “It’s like you’ve never seen a town before.”

“Not one made from junk,” I said as I continued to look over the intricately developed little town.

Wander’s ears folded back, I could tell by how her hood lowered against her head slightly.

Ponyfeathers! I didn’t mean to upset her! Quick, elaborate.

“I like how it’s obvious even from this far that everypony used what they could find as best they could. The town looks like a big patchwork quilt. I like it!” I said with a smile.

“Oh… So, what are towns in your kingdom like?” Wander asked as she started to trot downhill.

“Each of the seven townships is different,” I said as I fell into step behind her. “But we mostly build from crystal and timber. Plenty of evergreens to log, plenty of crystal ponies to farm crystal.”

Wander retched slightly. “Ugh! Reflective crystal everywhere… Every sunny day must turn into a maze of lens flares!”

I giggled. “No. The crystals they grow aren't reflective enough to do that. Which is good. The sun is, uh, seasonal.”

Wander was silent for a few minutes before she nodded to herself. “Right! You must have summers where the sun doesn't even set all the way and winters where it doesn't rise all the way that far north. With the sun and moon out of control, I didn’t think those rules would still apply… But I guess they do mostly stay on the same paths. It’s their timing that’s bucked.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean to tell me that the tales of the Royal Sisters controlling the sun and moon weren’t just old mare’s tales or propaganda? They actually did that?”

I felt my lips purse as I frowned slightly. Maybe they really had been goddesses!

I was just pretending they were because they had run a world that didn’t suck for thousand of years. It seemed like the right respect to give their memories.

Wander nodded. “Mhm. Sure did. I saw her do it myself almost every year. There was a national solstice holiday called the Summer Sun Festival. Celestia would raise the sun on the solstice in public for all to see. She’d make it clear she was doing it too, she’d stop it behind her for several long moments, and use the sun as a spotlight while making a speech. Then, the Princess would let it continue about its merry way. Well, after giving it a little push to make up the lost time.

“It might be hard for someone your age to believe, but we used to get a perfect twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night every day. None of this totally random spread we have now. I swear I watched the moon going backwards once, but nopony believes me.”

I bit my lip. I was tempted to tell her I’d been alive before the war too, but with how faded my memories were of that time I might as well have not been around. My first clear memory was standing up for the first time in mom’s lab. The megaspells had fallen only a few days before…

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t ever seen the sun under Celestia’s command.

I decided to smile softly. “I’m a little older than I look.”

Wander hummed and turned her head to look at me out of the corner of her hood. “I figured you were… You’re a strange zebra.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“For starters, I know that zebras being able to kill you with a glance is horseapples,” Wander said with a casual swish of her tail. “But I saw you do exactly that.”

Oh. Right. She’d been watching the entire time.

Well, there’s no use hiding the fact that I’m a cyberpony from someone who had seen it.

“I have an ocular laser implant installed in my left eye. It was originally a utility laser for cutting organic materials and plastics. I upgraded it to work as a sort of derringer,” I said, hoping that would be enough for her to stop prying.

We had been getting along pretty well over the last day and a half. I didn’t want her to know just how extensive my cybernetics were. Few ponies remained friendly after learning just how much metal I had in me.

“Sure,” Wander agreed with a calm nod. “But that’s not all I’ve seen. You took a few bullets like a champ, even a shotgun to a leg. You’re walking without a limp. Hay, you got a belly full of shrapnel on top of all that… And I don't see a drop of blood on your clothes.”

Horseapples… Maybe I could convince her I just had the armor and my laser?

“My mom’s a cybersurgeon,” I said with a straight face that hid most but not all of my worry. “She gave me class two subdermal armor a long time ago. It’s not all that good. That buckshot almost punched through… And I was too limping, for your information. Everything popped back into place after a few hours.”

Wander nodded twice. “Mhm. Mhm. That would explain that. But you know what it doesn’t explain?”

Oh no… What else had I given away?

“I’m a ghoul,” Wander continued. “I don’t have to eat. When we made camp, and I didn’t eat, that’s okay and normal. You, on the other hoof, you should have had something to eat. But you didn’t.”

“Oh. That,” I chuckled nervously. “As a Royal Courier, it’s not uncommon for me to go for extended periods without eating while remaining active. Ponies don’t have to eat everyday to survive.”

Wander nodded in agreement. “Sure, they don’t,” she agreed as she came to a stop on the firm gravel and turned around to look me in the eyes. “But you know what they do need to do every day? Drink.”

I froze for a heartbeat. Wander smiled. Me locking up was all she needed to see, but I still felt the need to continue trying to look normal. I was happy, making a new friend…

I nodded slowly. “Y— yes! Hydration is important for ponies, but—”

Wander chuckled, cutting me off.

“Yeah, you might be in peak physical condition, have great genes, and gotten training from a ghoul who used to be a Dune Runner in Saddle Arabia,” Wandersaid with a smug grin and hoof gesture I didn’t understand. “But even they need to have a drink every day.

“I watched you check our bags for damage last night. You don’t have any food or water on you. Not even a flask. I need to know what I’m traveling with before I take you all over the wasteland. If you’re a mutant and have special needs, I need to know. So, how are you alive? Are you a pretty ghoul with some fancy hardware, or what?”

I groaned and closed my eyes tightly. I never packed food or drink. I always inventoried my equipment after a fight. Of course she’d watched me going through everything.

I sighed. “Okay… Okay. I’m... I’m a proper cyberpony. I’ve got more than a few systems. You probably won't ever see me eat or drink. I don’t need to do that very often.”

I looked into Wanders eyes for a moment then looked away, my tail drooping. “Just… Keep that to yourself, please. Most ponies get a little scared of me once they know what I am.”

Well, this was nice while it lasted. Back to being a pariah.

Wander pursed her lips for a moment then nodded. A odd look in her eyes made my fur stand on end. “I thought you might be. See, there’s another thing I noticed that I didn’t mention. I don’t need very much sleep. Less than most ghouls I know. You didn’t seem to sleep at all. I’d wake up and you’d be keeping the fire smouldering, fortifying our camp, more than enough to fill five hours.”

I stamped my hoof in frustration. “Ugh! Why am I so stupid?”

I turned around and sat down to hold my head in my hooves. “If a place as tolerant as Pomare shuns me, ponies here in the Heartland would probably shoot me on sight if they knew what I was! I should have been fake sleeping and eating, and… Everything!”

Wander trotted up to my left and sat down next to me. “Heh. It’s okay. We all make mistakes, and I understand the kind of fear that comes with being a little too different. I’m not even normal for a ghoul.”

“Because you still have fur?” I asked, hoping to move things away from me for a bit.

Wander shook her head. “Nah. I’m not the only ghoul with a full coat.”

I frowned and turned to look at Wander. This was the closest I’d been to her since we met. This close, you could easily tell she was a ghoul, rather than a sickly mare. Her skin was tight, and her fur thin. Thin enough for me to see that her hide was an unnatural shade of pink rather than the same as her fur, like it would be on a normal pony.

That, or she was blushing.

I squinted at her cheek. “What’s up with your skin?”

Wander turned towards me and looked me in the eyes while tipping her head down so I could see her mouth and the serious expression on her face. “Do you have any Canterlot Ghouls up north?”

I snorted and waved my hoof dismissively. “Pff! There’s no way you’re really a Canterlot Ghoul. You don't have bits of junk or parts of other ponies stuck all over you, and there’s no way your fur would have survived the cloud.”

Wander’s eyes widened. She hadn’t been expecting me to know about that. Ha!

“Okay, I didn’t figure anyone like me would have made it up there. Especially not if you think I’d die if I tried to hoof it.”

I paused for a moment, then slowly shook my head. “We have two. One of them is our Queen, Her Majesty Katydid. The other is Sassy Saddles, a unicorn tailor from Canterlot.”

Wander’s head snapped back in shock. “Woah! What? You’re ruled by a Canterlot Ghoul?! And she’s your queen? Not Princess, but Queen?”

I couldn’t help but find her shocked expression adorable. “Yes. Our changeling population refuses to call our leader anything else, so she decided to adopt it as her official title.”

Wander held up a hoof to indicate she needed a minute, stood up, paced back and forth for a minute and a half, then sat back down in front of me. “You… You have changelings?!”

I nodded, my lips turning down at the shock and hostility in her voice. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

“But— But they kill ponies! They suck out your love, and that kills you!” Wander protested. Her ears swiveled in alarm while her tail flicked upwards beneath her cloak. “I was there! I was at Princess Cadence’s wedding! I watched three ponies die from that!”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. I guess that the common pony hadn’t known about the alliance back then, but I knew the story well. Her Majesty liked to tell it at formal events when things got slow as a way to ensure everypony kept living in harmony with each other. Or when she’d been drinking.

Zebra spies and assassins with their invisible cloaks forced Equestria to harden its internal security basically every week. Meanwhile, ministry crackdowns on any pony showing ‘unusual behavior’ turned any pony simply forgetting to attend a business meeting into a possible spy, or a victim of wartime distress disorder, which was almost worse.

Queen Chrysalis couldn’t feed her changelings because they simply couldn’t reliably infiltrate wartime Equestrian society. The Changeling Empire would need to choose a side, or die.

Chrysalis chose Equestria over Zebrica, mostly to avoid having to shift her hive’s infrastructure across a continent. She approached the Lunar Throne one night in disguise to offer an alliance, and Princess Luna placed Princess Cadence in charge of the diplomatic negotiations.

Cadence didn’t like it, but over the course of a few months, she and Chrysalis came to terms with their personal grudges and hammered out the terms of an official military alliance.

A shame the Changeling Embassy was opening to the public the day the megaspells hit.

I’d heard about the Canterlot Invasion in more detail a few times from the older bugs who rarely left the Meganeuropsis, but they didn’t like to talk about Chrysalis’ rule. Our peoples were friends now. Dwelling on old wounds is what keeps them raw. Remember the cut, but let it heal. Don’t pick at it.

“Changelings don’t have to hurt you when they feed,” I explained as carefully as I could to be sure Wander understood. “They can take love by force, or take what you give them willingly. The first one hurts you, the second one feels nice and can help you live a little longer. Think of it like... A drug. Overdosing is dangerous, but in moderation it can be helpful.”

“It’s safe? Wait, it’s safe if they want it to be safe?” Wander asked skeptically. She pursed her lips for a moment then shook her head slowly. “I guess Chrysalis didn’t kill Prince Shining while feeding off of him for weeks. Okay, sure, I’ll believe you.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yes. We even have pony-ling couples, and couples that have brought a changeling in to form a trio. Nopony ever died prematurely from passive feeding… Um, but we have had a few murderers who killed a pony through forced love extraction, but every tribe has evil people in it.”

Wander slowly nodded and stared off into space for a few long moments. “I… I thought I was a good pony because I never held anything against the Zebras, just Caesar. Buck… I’m no better than anypony I looked down on, am I?”

I paused for a moment then shook my head. “No? I mean, if you didn’t know changelings don’t have to hurt you to survive then you weren't exactly being racist, you were being justifiably afraid. Besides, you seem like you’ve accepted the truth.”

Wander slowly shook her head. “Accepted… No. Trying to accept, yes. It will take a while to adjust. An ice cube populated by ghouls and friendly changelings lead by a Canterlot Ghoul with cyberpony mail mares… I thought I’d already been to the wildest places in the Wasteland already. I guess I know where Ponyville’s weirdness magnet ended up after the war!”

I raised an eyebrow at her turn of phrase. “Weirdness what now?”

Wander waved a hoof. “Skip it. What’s your queen like? Is she nice?”

I nodded eagerly. “Very nice! She can be a little scary, but she’s a nice pony at heart… Um, I mean hearts. Her Majesty wants nothing more than for everypony to live in the same safety and comfort we did before the war.”

Wander slowly shook her head and smiled a little. “I’m looking forward to seeing your kingdom… Who is the other ghoul again?”

“Our best unicorn tailor, Sassy Saddles,” I repeated with a smile of my own.

I was glad Wander was at least going to make an effort to change her mind about changelings. All of my best friends had been changelings. When their Queen isn’t a warmongering psychopath, they are really affectionate little bugs.

“And she is why I know you’re not a Canterlot Ghoul. Our Queen can shapeshift, and she is actually two mares stuck together—”

Wander winced. “OW! I’ve seen a few poor ponies like that. It always looks so painful.”

I shivered in agreement. “Totally. In her natural form, it looks like somepony was forced into a changeling costume too small for them. So you can still see parts of the pony under the costume.”

Wander blinked once, then twice, then her cheeks turned a bright pink. “Uuuuhhh, so… The only way I can think for them to have ended up layered like that, and not more like conjoined twins, is um… Really inappropriate.”

My cheeks flushed as I realized what she was implying. The funny thing was it was plausible, since they were a couple prior to their fusion.

Wander tapped her hooves together. “I don’t want to be rude, but, I really need to know how that happened. It’s one of those things that will keep me up at night. Like, more than I already am.”

I giggled. A lot of ponies thought Her Majesty's halves had been up to a little bedroom fun when the cloud changed them, mostly because that was what she told ponies who asked as a joke.

“No, they weren't having a romantic evening—”

Wander nodded. “Right. Because it was the morning.”

I gave her a little glare for that remark and continued. “One of them is a changeling. She thought she could shapechange into a hazard suit to save them both. They tried. It kind of worked. They lived,” I explained.

Wander shivered. “Ow… I’m so glad I wasn’t with anypony when I was wandering Canterlot… What about the other pony? What’s she stuck to that has you convinced that every one of us have to be a walking horror show?”

“Well,” I began rocking back on my haunches slightly. “She hasn’t ever told anyone how she made it to Pomare, and seeing as how she’s fuzed to a chaise lounge and a fold out sewing desk....”

Wander slowly stood up, only to pace back and forth for a moment then turn back to face me. “She’s… She’s stuck to one of those dumb fainting couches?!”

I put on my best serious face and nodded. “Yes. And a desk.”

“Can she move at all?” Wander asked while her eyes moved back and forth as her brain tried to search for a way Sassy could have gotten, well, anywhere at all.

I nodded. “Mhm. She can lift herself with her telekinesis and float short distances, but not enough to scale the mountains at the border.”

Wander sighed and turned to look back north the way we’d just walked. “This is going to bother the hay out of me… I’m going to have to go ask her how she did it or I’m going to go mad.”

“She’s pretty tight lipped about the first few years post-war. I doubt she’d tell you even if you were one of her uh, family,” I said as I stood back up.

Wander turned her head to look at me over her shoulder. “I wasn’t lying. I am a Canterlot Ghoul. I wasn’t turned on the Last Day, though. I… I had family in Canterlot. I wanted to know if they survived. I was turned a few months after the war.

“The cloud wasn’t quite bad enough to melt me, but I stayed in it for too long. I do have something fuzed to me. Fortunately I can hide it under my clothes. For the record, having clothes stuck to you forever is one of the more common things you’ll see on ghouls like me.”

“Oh,” I hadn’t thought about her clothing possibly being a part of her body. “What’s stuck on you, then?”

Wander took a short breath. “My Pipbuck.”

I grinned triumphantly. “HA! I knew your navigation was too good to not have one! How did you manage to check it every time I wasn’t looking?”

Wander snorted and waved a hoof at me. “Please! Like I still need to look at maps after centuries of traveling. I haven't used the navigation spell on this thing in… In…” She trailed off and pursed her lips in thought. “In a really long time. I can’t remember the last time I used my Pipbuck as anything other than a tape player. Or radio, I guess. Or to watch porn.”

“Can I see it?” I asked in as polite a tone I could.

“The porn?” Wander asked, raising an eyebrow.

Yes! “No!” I said. “The Pipbuck.”

Wander nodded slowly. Her horn lit up as she took off her right front boot and rolled up her jumpsuit’s sleeve just enough to show me a slightly battered, but clean, gray, black, and pink painted pipbuck which was most definitely melted into the flesh her foreleg in a way that left it as solidly attached to her as any of my integrated systems were to me.

I frowned and trotted up to Wander and dipped my head down in a half-bow. “I apologize for doubting you.”

“Nah,” Wander shook her head and rolled her sleeve back down to put her boot back on. “Ponies think I’m a balefire ghoul all the time. Or that it’s only my face that’s still this pretty.”

I cocked my head to the left. “Wait, you mean you have all of your fur? I know you’ve said so a few times, but I sort of didn’t believe you. It’s not as if I can see more than your eyes and some bangs.”

Wander nodded and flashed me a quick smile over her scarf. “I’m not the only ghoul with a full coat of fur, there’s a few others out there. From what I can tell, it’s a rad thing. We need them to live, but too much can still hurt us. As for the balefire itself… Well, from what we’ve figured out, the degree of how bucked up you got is directly proportional to how close you were to the bomb. Too close, dead. Close enough to be doused with all the rads? Skin falls off. Right where the rads start to dip? You get to look like a fresh corpse instead of a five week old one. Any further out than that, and you just got radiation sickness and died puking your organs out.”

My stomach churned at that lovely image. “Ew…”

Wander turned and pointed at my left eye and then the leg which has gotten shot earlier. “Speaking of looking good, how come you don't have holes where you got shot? If you have a stash of stimpacks I missed, I’d appreciate one if I ever take a plasma hit. It takes forever to get back up from plasma without some help.”

“I’ll remember that,” I promised, electing to not tell her my pelt was maintained by a modified healing talisman. “Anyways, to answer your earlier question, if we ever encounter somepony with anti-matrix grenades, please shoot them very quickly. That’s all you need to worry about regarding my cybernetics.”

Wander nodded and reached back to pat Bad Trip’s holster. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a very firm policy of killing anyone with explosives first.”

She turned around and looked across the plain to Two Bits. “We should get mov— Humm, it looks like there’s a caravan getting ready to go north,” Wander noted.

I turned around and squinted to try and see what she was talking about. The northern facing wall had a gate in it. The gate was closed earlier, but was opening now. I could see a few small colorful dots pushing five large carts out through the gate. Some of the carts were filled with stacks of baskets, others were loaded with barrels.

“What are they after? There’s nothing out here for days in any direction, right?” I said as I tried to think if we’d seen so much as an old cabin over the last day and a half of travel.

Nope. Nothing.

Wander pointed with her left hoof. “See all the barrels? They’re going to collect radioactive snow, rocks, ice, anything that still glows. Two Bits sells the rads they harvest to us ghouls further south. It’s how they can afford the nicer junk for building, and stay fed without tending any proper farms.”

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor ghouls who had to live in a rad free world. In a way they had been given a gift, the ability to survive the hell we’d brought upon ourselves. Then, six random ponies with some special mojo or something had turned it into a curse.

Not that cleaning up a part of the wasteland was a bad thing over all. Just from that one perspective.

“Is that why you drank that bottle of water last night?” I said as I glanced sidelong at Wander.

Wander nodded and began to trot downhill with a determined stride. “Not water. Aqua Cura. These ponies make it. That bottle should keep me going for a week. Come on, we need to meet up with them and warn them that bandits are loose in the Wood of Woes.”

☢★★◯★★☢

The barrens surrounding Two Bits proved unsurprisingly easy to cross. The gravel crunching underhoof made me feel at home for the few short minutes we spent walking for the gate.

I expected to be challenged by the watch, like what would happen back home, but nopony did. We were able to go from the hill right down to the town’s wall. Strange, assuming the Enclave wasn’t lying to the Queen about the bandit problem.

Doubly strange, since the first ponies I’d run into here had been bandits.

I found myself admiring the wagons as we drew near them. They were all slightly different, but clearly built to the same plan. A sure sign they had been built by hoof, and by ponies who knew what they were doing. The wagons were not made from wood like I had thought at first. Their frames and wheels were only partially wooden, with most of the wagon being salvaged auto-wagon’s frame and axles, with parts of a chopped down shipping container used to make the bed and walls.

The auto-wagon frames were the most consistent things about them, seemingly all the same model. Somepony must have found an old factory and looted its production line to make some surprisingly robust caravan wagons.

The convoy circled up outside the gate to finalize their preparations. I thought they would have done that inside the town’s walls. There must not be enough room on the other side of the gate.

As we were approaching them I could tell by the very careful way the caravaners inspected their wagons that these were seasoned professionals. Each rope, chain, and cable used to hold barrels or baskets in place was carefully fixed to the wagon to avoid the loads shifting or banging around. A few ponies busily scrubbed hoofulls of sand against patches of rust to clean them up. Others inspected the wheels with some tools while winding chains around them for more traction on poor terrain.

Amateurs would have just hitched up the wagons and galloped away without any thought for their equipment. It felt good to know that Heartland ponies valued what they had. It would make for better trading partners.

It also meant that a lot of what the Enclave had been telling us had been lies. Maybe all of it. I’d have to report back about that as soon as I could.

I did my best to take careful note of the caravaners themselves. They were mostly earth ponies, with a pair of unicorns and a griffon, at least as far as I could see as we approached. I knew there had to be at least three more, because I could see cables being tightened by hooves on the opposite side of the wagons.

As we got close, I finally noticed that the majority of the caravaners were ghouls. At first I didn’t think twice about that, but then I remembered that Equestria was clean now. Of course most of the caravaners were ghouls. This town made money by selling life to ghouls, of course as many would flock here as possible.

Equestria was unintentionally pushing its ghoul citizens to the very edges of the nation. Literally marginalizing them. It was almost funny, in a dark way.

Each individual had their own unique set of gear. Nothing formal, everything hodgepodge. A light tan mare dressed in a simple rough-spun coat wearing a cowboy hat with saddlebags bulging to the point of overflowing with survival gear stood next to a bright pink unicorn stallion who wore a old motorcycle jacket with armor plates riveted to it. They were both inspecting the same wheel, and arguing over whether or not it needed more grease.

The entire debate hinged on how squeaky the squeaky wheel needed to be to get grease. Apparently they took old sayings a bit too seriously.

Every other member of the caravan had their own outfit as well. Each well worn, with an obvious story to tell. Especially the large mare with the cloak which had the distinct crackle-edged burn mark of a plasma strike splashed across her back.

Had she popped her cloak up on a stick to draw enemy fire? Had she been hit and survived? Either way, she was probably a proper badflank.

I liked seeing everypony dressed differently. In spite of how cold it can get in Pomare, most ponies go naked inside the shield. It’s nice to see colors aside from pastel when you look at a group of ponies.

What interested me more than the caravans’ resident badflank was the simple fact that everypony in the team was armed with a ballistic weapon, generally a shotgun or rifle. Where were they getting their ammunition? While it’s not difficult to make bullets, you do need a few different ingredients. Most importantly, you needed a functional lead mine.

They couldn't be using pre-war bullets. At least, not many. Bullets have a shelf life, and even packed away in dry conditions they wouldn’t last forever.

There’s no way enough solder-sealed spam cans of ammo had been left in climate controlled storage houses on old military bases to supply the whole Heartland for two centuries.

I made a mental note to add their ability to manufacture ammunition to my report.

Wander looked around almost as much as I did, hemming and hawing as if searching for something. I followed her gaze and realized she was looking at ponies for a brief moment before looking away. Maybe she knew the caravan? As a traveling performer it would make sense for her to have stayed in town for a while before moving north, and she would have talked to any caravan parked in town too.

Wander lead me around to the other side of the wagon and looked to her right, checking for whoever she was looking for. I decided to turn left to get a better look at Two Bits’ gates and immediately gasped.

I was staring at the barrel of a dark blue alicorn! She was tall, at least as tall as Queen Katydid. I could tell her mane and tail were the same dark blue as her coat, but she’d either dyed or painted them a shimmering silver. It was probably paint, seeing as the simple metal breastplate she wore as armor was the same silver, but I wasn't about to question a goddess’ fashion sense!

Doing my best to make a fool of myself as shock coursed through every last fiber and bolt of my being I hastily scrambled backwards and bowed as low as I could.

“My apologies for nearly running into you, your highness,” I said as sincerely as I could.

I expected a polite dismissal of my concern, or a mild chastising for not watching where I was going. I didn’t expect her to say. “Huh… So that’s what reverence feels like. Hey, guys, get a load of this weirdo! How sincere is this? Scale of one to ten.”

A few ponies apparently looked and decided to chime in.

“Uh… A six?”

“I’d say seven.”

I heard Wander groan and facehoof before I looked up to see the alicorn looking down at me with a goofy expression stamped on her face.

“I can’t believe I forgot to warn you about alicorns,” Wander sighed.

I slowly stood up and tipped my head forwards slightly to try and hide my burning cheeks. “Uh, s— so… I take it you’re not the Pri— Um, in charge?”

She shook her head, a flattered smile forming on her muzzle. “Nope. I’m the second big gun they bring along.” She turned to look at Wander with a bemused expression. “Where’s this zeeb from that you need to explain alicorns to her?”

Wander answered with a dramatic flourish of her cloak as she gestured to the north. “The Crystal Empire!”

The alicorn turned to look at me, her eyes widening. “I’ve heard about the Empire! In a book, I think. How much radiation is left up there? Do you know the average levels?”

I nodded, my cheeks still burning. Why wouldn’t the alicorn be in charge of the caravan? Was there a large family of them? So big they were the entire nobility? Was it decided by size? Was there an even larger alicorn in charge of the caravan itself, with a bigger one ruling over the town?

“Lith’s average level is around sixteen nanosieverts,” I said awkwardly as I flashed Wander a desperate look.

Hopefully she would understand that I would like to be taken away from the awkward situation as soon as possible.

“Lith being... Your town?” the alicorn asked with a curious head tilt.

“No, Ma’am, it’s our kingdom,” I said as I gave Wander a more obvious look. “C— Could you please explain her not being a noble to me?” I asked in a strained whisper.

Wander nodded and cleared her throat. “Well, for starters, the New Canterlot Republic, which you’re in right now, is a representative democracy. It doesn't have a nobility. More importantly, alicorns are just another tribe here. There’s a few thousand of them.”

A. Few. Thousand?

If they are a tribe, then they must have a tribal leader. … It's the tallest one isn’t it? Celestia, this mare is tall!

I felt myself lock up for a moment as I tried to process the fact that there were thousands of alicorns running around in the Heartland.

“I— But— How—” I stammered awkwardly, taking a step back since I didn’t know what to do.

The alicorn bent her neck down to look me in the eyes. “She really can’t be from around here, can she? Short version, a long time ago, Twilight Sparkle was working on a way to make artificial alicorns to win the war. She was testing her potion at a place called Mariponi on The Last Day. A… Creature called the Goddess discovered that if a pony was dipped into the vats of potion they would mutate into, well, us.

“The potion is all gone now, but we’re not. We’ve even got a few hundred foals, and counting.”

She turned to look at Wander and fluttered her wings slightly. “You made it sound like there's more of us than there really are. Last I heard we reached two thousand last year.”

I shook my head before anypony could say anything more. “No!” I exclaimed in shock. “That’s not what I meant! If there’s two thousand of you, how come nopony is controlling the sun?”

The alicorn blinked. “Because we’re nowhere near as powerful as natural alicorns. Also, that was—”

“Their special talents, I know,” I said with a nod. Even though I just learned the stories were true five minutes ago. “But talents are not completely unique! I know dozens of ponies with a talent for carpentry. With thousands of you, somepony should be able to control the sun or moon.”

The blue alicorn turned to the left slightly so I could see her left flank. Her cutiemark took the shape of a double barreled shotgun with two smoking barrels. Nothing fancy, nothing elaborate. A normal pony’s mark.

“We don’t get those kinds of talents,” she said politely, though I could hear some hurt and annoyance in her voice. “We may have been named alicorns by the Goddess, but it’s better to think of us as tall winged unicorns. I wouldn’t approach a true alicorn unless I had a big pool of rads to bathe in for a long while.”

“Oh,” I said, my lips pulling into a sharp frown. “Sorry… I— You do look like an alicorn, and… Yeah.”

She nodded. “Yes. That’s why very few of us object to the name,” she looked over at Wander. “I take it you ran into her and decided to lead her here before heading north?”

Wander nodded. “Yeah. Don’t worry, I’ll fill her in better. Where’s your boss? Actually, forget it. I’ll just tell you. The two of us ran into some of those uniformed bandits. You’ll want to watch out if you’re headed as far as the Woods of Woe.”

The alicorn nodded. “Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out. Good luck going north,” she said to Wander before turning back to me with a smile. “You should probably give her a smack or two for not warning you about us. Thanks for the bow, though. That made my day.”

I flashed her the third most embarrassed grin of my life. “Heh.. heh… Glad you liked it.”

Wander nodded towards the gates. “Come on, the mayor’s office isn’t far. You said you have to deliver as many of those letters as possible, right? Might as well drop one of them off here.”

I nodded and began to walk towards the gates to put distance between myself and my embarrassment. “Yes. That’s a good plan.”

Wander quickly made her way to my side and cleared her throat quietly. “Sorry. I’m so used to them I didn’t even think to tell you. Why did you bow? Did you think she was Princess Luna? Their coats would have been similar.”

I blushed again and shook my head. “Queen Katydid’s inside half is an alicorn. I’m used to them being in charge.”

Wander nodded and took a few steps towards the town’s large rusty iron gates. “That makes se—”

The ghoul froze mid step, as if somepony had paused her.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I stepped forward to try and see if she’d somehow hurt herself.

Wander wheeled around, making her cloak billow. She took my shoulders in her hooves and pulled me right into her face. “Your queen’s pre-war. A ghoul, and one of her two parts is an alicorn mare?!”

I nodded. “Yes… Please let go.”

Wander’s grip tightened. “No! You don’t get it. The only alicorns aside from the Goddess’ children were the Royal Sisters, and Cadence! Who's apparently alive! Do you have any idea how pissed off I am?! She’s been sitting up there when she could have flown down here and solved thousands of major problems in a matter of days!”

Oh. I see. Yes, that would certainly seem to be the case.

I shook my head. “Her Majesty isn’t Cadence.”

Wander’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t see who else she could be.”

“Flurry Heart,” I answered with a deadpan stare into Wander’s red eyes.

“Who?” Wander asked frowning for a moment before her eye lit up and the color drained from her face, which somehow left her more pink instead of less.

She let go of my shoulders and stepped back. “That’s right, she had a foal… How come Celestia and Luna never had kids? That’s— That’s just weird now that I think about—”

She wheeled back around to face me. “Wait a damn minute, that doesn’t make it LESS bad that she isn’t here helping us!”

True. But she did have a very good reason for staying under Pomare’s Climate Shield.

“Her Majesty is a really bright beacon for spirits, thanks to her control over storms. The Windigos want her dead,” I said as calmly as I could with an angry regenerating ghoul in my face. “If she left Pomare’s shield, she would draw every windigo in the whole of Lith to her, and they would win that battle. She’s almost died trying to escape several times. Her Majesty is… Besieged.”

Wander took a deep breath, grit her teeth, turned around and punched a stone in the ground hard enough to split both it and her hoof.

Wander growled through her clenched teeth against the pain, then ignored her hoof as it slowly knit itself back together. “There’s a natural alicorn, but she’s stuck in a hole too far from anything to help. Buck the wasteland! ARRRGH!”

I decided it was best not to mention that she could have left any time in the last thirty years. That’s how long we’d had airships capable of flying above the windigo’s flight ceiling for. It’s just that Her Majesty hadn’t known there was anywhere to go where windigos were not present until the Enclave had shown up at her door. After all, if she went to visit any of her townships in person, she’d be swarmed the minute the airship started to land.

Or that the changeling half of Her Majesty was a changeling Princess. Technically speaking, Queen Katydid had the power of two alicorns. At least, if her changeling half had a good meal first, and Her Majesty had her “us” time.

The fact that she couldn’t fight a storm of Windigo without almost certain death made me incredibly happy they didn’t bother me. I could take one. Just one. They always traveled in packs.

“Well, she’s trying to help you now,” I reminded as I gently set my hoof on Wander’s shoulder. “That’s why I’m here.”

Wander nodded and took a moment to stand in place and breathe. “I— I’m sorry… It’s just… I’ve— There’s so much crap that’s happened and— Ugh… Buck me.”

She sighed and kept heading through the gate without another word. Worried I’d upset her, I decided it was best to follow in silence.

Wander led me through the slightly crooked gates into Two Bits. As I expected, the other side of the gate had a security guard’s checkpoint, and then the town started right after that. The old prison yard was packed entirely full of homes, shops, narrow alleyways, and streets lined with market stalls.

The caravaners had been lucky to get their wagons into the town at all.

The shantytown inside the prison yard reminded me a little of Pomare. Every house was a little different, but each had a yard, were solidly built, and there were ponies busily walking through the streets or hanging out in their yards.

I also liked how their yards were dirt instead of gravel. Dirt wasn’t precious here. They would definitely have food to trade!

It wasn't till we were nearly in the middle of Town that I realized what was missing. Foals. I hadn’t seen a single colt or filly for the entire walk, and we’d been at it for nearly five minutes.

I started to try and specifically spot signs of them, but we’d left the residential area behind and were now in the middle of a market. I didn’t think that a market would be a no-foals zone until I saw a few open kiosks selling guns, ammo, and other weapons. A few carts were selling what smelled like alcoholic beverages, as well as a rather large scrap-wood building with a sign calling it “The Last Watering Hole”, filled out the market square.

Perhaps this was the adult area of the town.

That being said, I swore I should have seen a trio of adventurous fillies ninjaing off with a bottle of booze while the shopkeeper was busy. And yet…

I cleared my throat to try and get Wander’s attention. “Why aren't there any foals here?”

Wander didn’t answer for a few seconds. “There aren’t many, it’s a little dangerous to have a family this far out in the wilderness… Also, it’s a school day.”

She still sounded upset. I wasn’t going to press the issue, though I was happy to hear that they had compulsory formal schooling here.

Wander stopped walking and pointed to one of the few semi-intact pre-war buildings. The large sign above its doors must have once read ‘warden’s office’, but the letters had been removed, leaving only the less weathered patch of concrete behind to reveal the original sign. The words ‘Two Bit Town Hall’ had been painted where the old lettering had been in bright yellow letters.

I couldn’t help but notice the sign maker misspelled the town’s name… Possibly as a joke, given how shabby the pre-war building was compared to the care given to the town’s newer structures.

Most of the town hall’s windows were boarded up. The outer layers of concrete were crumbling, to the point where whatever architectural flourishes had been added to the building before the war were long gone. A few flecks of paint showed it had once been bright green, now it was depressed-pony-gray.

All that remained was a squat, ugly, dilapidated concrete box with a door and a few cracked windows which almost seemed to plead for the mercy of demolition charges.

My heart went out to the poor building. It needed a lot of hard work, or a lot of hard wrecking.

“That’s where the mayor will be,” Wander said dispassionately. “I heard he’s a pain-in-the-plot. I’ll be playing in the main yard. Get a few caps for our journey while you drop off your package.”

I nodded and then paused. This was the first formal contact between our nations. I had been traveling for days. I was definitely a little dirty. A bath would not be amiss.

I turned to Wander as she started to trot back towards the market. “Wait. Is there somewhere I could take a bath first? I’d like to look nice.”

Wander snorted and shook her head. “What does this look like? A Stable?”

“So, no?” I asked, my tail drooping as I worried about looking like a grungy hobo who nopony could take seriously in front of the mayor

“Nope. Good luck,” Wander wished before vanishing into the crowd.

I took a deep breath to try and push away the feelings of anxiety that were creeping up on me.

Well… I guess the only thing to do is hope my formal courior’s uniform is enough to appear professional.

I opened my saddle bags and took out my uniform. I never wore it while traveling because of how hard it was to scrub silt and ash out of linen. Technically a Royal Courier was supposed to always wear the robe while on duty, but nopony ever walked my routes with me, so I only put it on when finishing the delivery.

I put the robe on, and immediately felt three times less comfortable. The thick red and gold linen robe was warm enough in the northern wasteland. Here, in this freakishly hot place, it was almost suffocating. Pushing the temptation to just skip wearing the robe for this delivery away, I tucked the uniform in under my saddlebags and buttoned the front up.

I was going to look as nice as I could, and clothes do make the mare. After running my hoof through my mane to try and will it into being as straight as possible, I walked up to the town hall and pushed open the heavy wood and sheet metal door.

The first thing I noticed was that the inside wasn’t as badly deteriorated as the outside. The lobby I found myself in was furnished, the walls were whitewashed, and some rather fancy looking wall sconces held brightly glowing orbs of magic which shed a soft white light across everything in the room.

The second thing I noticed was the receptionist’s desk at the center of the far wall, right across from the doors, and the alicorn mare sitting behind it.

She had green fur, and her mane was dyed red, with a blueish stripe running through it in a way which made me wonder if she was trying to copy a natural mane’s style and color.

Who would use something as rare as dye for that? She might as well have stuck with her original mane colors.

A quick look around the lobby revealed nopony else waiting on the benches which lined the walls, so I trotted up to the desk just in time for the alicorn to greet me with a polite nod and smile.

“Good afternoon, I’m the mayor’s secretary, Life Beat. How may I help you?” She asked in a voice which was eerily pleasant to listen too. Almost hypnotic.

That had to be magic of some kind. I took a moment to try and see if any strange urges or feelings were poking at my mind. It wouldn’t be the first time a government official had their secretary enchanted to try and influence their visitors.

I didn’t feel like I couldn’t attack anypony, or like I should be extra extra nice to the next pony I met… I guess Life Beat just had an odd voice.

I returned her smile. “Good afternoon. I’m an official courier from Lith, a kingdom to the north. I am here to deliver a package on the behalf of her majesty, Queen Katydid.”

Life’s polite smile slowly turned into a frown while her eyes seemed to glare at me. “Mhm… Miss, town halls are not the place for pranks. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

I frowned back and shook my head. “I’m not joking, miss. Her Majesty only recently learned the lands south of the Crystal Empire are still inhabited, and sent me to deliver letters to your towns so our nations can make formal contact.”

I reached into my courier's bag and retrieved one of the letters, turning it so the wax seal pressed into the envelope faced Life Beat. “This sealed letter is for the mayor, and I have a package for him as well.”

Life’s disapproving frown vanished, replaced by curiosity and caution. “I’ll need to inspect the package before you can deliver it. May I have it?”

I nodded slowly. I understood security checks well enough, and it should be okay to let her inspect it as long as I kept an eye on her and made sure she didn’t break anything. “Of course,” I said as I opened the hardcase inside my bag and took one of the radios out.

As soon as I set the radio on Life’s desk, her wings flared open.

The legends were true! My eyes widened with joy I had to swiftly tamp down. Pegasi really did do that when they got excited! Or at least, alicorns did. So adorable!

Life Beat picked the radio up in her magic and carefully turned it this way and that, inspecting the hoofset, the speaker, and the dials. After a moment she set it down on her desk and looked up at me. She had a somewhat excited look in her eyes, though it was tempered by a still somewhat weary frown.

“This is a very nice looking radio… Is the letter instructions on how to use it?” She asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Her Majesty wishes to speak directly to everypony she can. The distance between our nations would make written correspondence quite difficult.”

I hated using formal speech… I also hated having to make up words to put in Her Majesty's mouth, but I was authorized to speak for her as a part of this mission, and if she had thought letters would be a viable means of communicating she wouldn’t have sent me with a box of radios.

I wasn’t really lying for her. I was just saying what she would have probably said If I had asked ‘why radios?’.

Life picked up the radio one more time and squinted through the cooling vents on the side, trying to see what was inside. I was tempted to offer to open it for her, since I knew her magic’s aura would make seeing through the slits hard while she was floating it, but before I could she held it all the way on the other side of the room like she was expecting it to explode, then switched it on.

The gentle hiss of radio static filled the air. Life nodded to herself, seemingly in satisfied with the lack of boom, then tuned the dial.

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “Excuse me, do you have a local radio station? I didn’t notice a tower.”

“Yes, we do,” LIfe said as she continued to twist the dial.

Then, suddenly, the radio crackled and a stallion’s voice came from the speaker, it was faint and interspersed with static, we were definitely at the very edge of the transmission’s range, but it was coming through.

“— ith the wasteland classic, Lonesome Road. Don’t worry if you missed part of it, children! We’ll play her again tomorrow at four. But now, the news… Those rainbow branded thugs in old infantry gear have started to pop up on the Herd’s side of the river, and they're up to the same old tricks over there too. Looks like everypony who bet on them being mercs for the Herd have to pay up. Well, that or they decided to not pay their muscle.

“Either way, watch yourself if you’re traveling down any of the old highways. Brands aren't everywhere, but as the last few months have proven, they can be anywhere.

“In happier news, Stable 88 finally decided to start talking over its intercom. Yep! That’s right. There’s ponies alive in there. From the sound of things they have problems trusting outsiders. Can’t say I blame them for that, seeing as the last time they opened their door was when raiders came calling.

“On the off chance somepony down there has a radio turned to DJ Pon3, that’s yours truly, President Regina Grimfeathers would like me to let the good ponies of 88 know that none of our diplomats are armed. They are there to say hello, make sure you’re all okay, let you know that we’re rebuilding Equestria now, and maybe trade a few things. If you want us to leave, just say so and—”

Life turned off the radio and gave me a satisfied smile. “Well, I don’t think anypony would carry around a working radio for the sake of a joke. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Please have a seat while I see if the mayor can see you.”

I picked the radio up and placed it back in my courier's bag along with the letter. “Thank you very much.”

“I’ll be right back,” Life promised as she stood up.

I gasped quietly as she stood. She was a little taller than the other alicorn! My hypothesis just might be correct.

Life trotted to a door on the left side of the room and vanished into the depths of the old building, ducking her horn under the doorway.

I took a seat on one of the benches and waited.

I had a surprisingly long time to wait. I was sitting for at least ten minutes before Life Beat came back through the door. Her ears were flicked slightly back, a sign of irritation in anypony, and her braid was no longer resting on her shoulder, but hanging freely from the back of her head.

Life ignored me for a moment, took a seat at her desk, removed a small flask from a drawer, and dumped nearly four shots of a dark, potent smelling drink straight down her throat. Then, as if she hadn’t just tossed back enough booze for the average pony to get decently salted, she slammed the flask down on her desk and groaned.

“I need a liter of Wild Pegasus back on the weekly budget… I go through too much of it to keep paying for it myself,” she mumbled.

I stared in awe at her display of sheer drinking prowess, not sure what I should do. After a moment the poor mare looked up at me with weary eyes and said. “He’s… In a mood. He’ll see you now. Take the door on the left, then the third on the right…. Please don’t tell him I’m drinking on the job… Trust me, after you’re done you’ll wish I didn’t just run out.”

I winced. Their lord mayor couldn’t be that bad, could he? His job was diplomacy and negotiation. Right?

After a moment to quickly steel myself, I walked through the door into the hallway, and without looking around I walked up to the third door on the right and knocked on the remarkably intact hoof carved dark oak as gently as I could.

“If my door has a ding on it I’ll have you shot!” An old, wheezing, nasally stallions’ voice screamed from the other side of the door.

Celestia help me… Alcohol doesn't affect me and I already feel a mighty need to down a bottle of tequila.

Author's Note

End of Tutorial...
Party Statistics

Whirling Gears
Level 6
Cyberpony - You're more Machine now, than mare. Fortunately, twisted and evil is entirely optional. NOTE: There are more drawbacks then perks...
Artic Nomad - You're adapted for long journeys outside in the cold. Too bad Equestria is in a temperate zone.
Good Natured - You're a kind soul, a hard worker, and assume the best of everypony. How the hay are you alive in the wasteland?
Spiritually Awakened - You can see and interact with the spirit realm. Hopefully a Shaman taught you what not to do.
Arctic Mail Mare - If it's on a map, you can get to it. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, and monsters be damned! NOTE: remaining alive for long after arriving is not likely.

Wander
Level 12
Canterlot Ghoul - You have quite a lot in common with the Highlander. Unfortunately, you don't have the accent or badflank sword.
Wasteland Guru - You know everything there is to know about surviving in the Wasteland. Shame others rarely listen to you.
Wild Wasteland - If it's crazy, strange, or bizarre, you've seen it, done, it, or had it happen to you.
Sniperpony - Penalties for called ranged shots are halved.
Future Soldier - Pew pew pew! Gotcha... All Energy Weapons are much more effective in your hooves.
Permanent Psychosis - Nopony can know your name. Not a single one. Not ever. You must prevent them from finding out at all costs! If they learn who you are they'll like you. You don't deserve friends!You don't deserve fame!You abandoned us to die! Monster! You're a monster...

4 - What's a diplomacy?

My hoof rested against the door as I tried to process what I’d just been told. I, a Courier on official business, had just been told I would be executed if I had damaged the door of the room I was making a delivery too. By knocking on it. At a normal and polite volume. With three soft raps of my hoof.

I took a deep breath, reminded myself that nothing could be worse than the Lords Mayoral on the weekends, and turned the door handle and stepped inside the Mayor’s office.

The pungent smell of mildew assaulted my nose the moment the door creaked open. The room before me looked more like a pre-war antique shop than an office space. I would know. Somehow, antique stores were some of the last to be looted.

There was wall to wall carpet, made from a dozen old carpets, most of which were stained with damp and perhaps just a little mold. The walls were covered with sections of wooden panels from at least a hundred different old cabinets, no two of which matched in either color or style. The room’s decor came together like a jigsaw puzzle an angry foal had finished by slamming the pieces into place with a sledgehammer.

And the furniture. Oh, Celestia! The furniture!

The rotting old junk crammed into terraced layers in this office could have furnished a whole wing of the Canterlot palace. His office was an abattoir of cracked timber, peeling paint, chipped varnish, and traces of gold leaf worn off by time and use. Bookshelves, dining chairs, coat racks, lamps, barstools, desks, a free standing kitchen sink…

Junk, honest to Celestia junk occupied every available space save a path from the door to the massive desk in the center of the room. Not around it to the seat. Just to the front of the desk. There wasn’t even a guest chair there.

The enormous desk was vaguely horseshoe shaped, with rusting steel skirting, and boasted a battered but polished walnut top. Of all surfaces in the room, the desk was the only thing without junk piled atop it. I could see that it had a pair of built in terminals which jutted up from the desk at a forty five degree angle. It reminded me of the Overmare’s desk in a stable, only without Stable-Tec’s logo on it.

Behind the desk was a massive leather recliner chair. If Life Beat sat in this chair she would look short. It might even look a little big for Celestia herself, had she ever sat in it before the war. As a direct consequence, the venerable mayor sitting in the brown crack-strewn Lay-z-Colt recliner looked like a withered old doll and not a living stallion.

Specifically, a tiny old-pony doll some filly had discarded because, by Celestia, just one look told you that this doll was going to wait until you’d gone to sleep, and then murder you with its own tiny doll hooves.

Open hostility oozed from every single pore in the dull mauve hide of Two Bits' mayor. He had a thinning mane of a color I could only describe as vomited gold, tortured into a style I’m certain he thought imposing and virile. It failed to be anything close.

As if to ensure he looked as terrible as possible with colors that would have passed as regal on anypony else, the mayor had found a pea green and beige plaid suit even smaller than his decrepit frame, and squeezed himself into it in all the wrong ways.

These features were all secondary to what drew most of my attention. His eyes. What stood out over every horrible bit of the rest of him and his vile office were his narrow, beady, hate filled, golden eyes. I’d seen eyes with hate like that before. I’d seen them on a Windigo.

I shook myself from the stupor his eyes plunged me into, gave the mayor a polite bow, and began my usual delivery speech. “Good afternoon, Lord Mayor. I am a cou—”

The Mayor’s eyes narrowed even further. I felt as if that should have closed them entirely, yet somehow it did not.

"Cut the act, stripes!” He snarled, spraying an astonishingly large amount of saliva across his decaying desk.

That explained some of the rust. Gross...

I took a step back as my eyes shot wide. “E— Excuse me?”

“You're from a shithole just like this one,” he growled. “I don't care if your leader calls herself a queen. I could call myself the President of Space and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. She’s the bitch in charge of a junk pile barely clinging to life. Just like me.

“And you? You’re just a mouthpiece no one will remember a week after you die! Cut the shit, tell me what you're begging for, then get out of my office!"

My eyebrow arching and ear swivel reached maximum incredulity.

Celestia’s. Bucking. Mane!

What in the world had crawled up the ass and died in whatever crawled up his ass and died?!

I took a moment to compose myself, covering up the gap with a polite cough into my left hoof.

Life Beat, I’m so sorry you work with this—

The mayor jabbed his wrinkled mauve hoof at me from across his desk threateningly. “I SAID, SPIT IT OUT!”

I took a short breath, called on every year of my experience as Royal Courier, and decided to do my best to remain civil.

"Sir,” I began in my best calm professional voice while my left eye refused to stop twitching. “Our kingdom may be small, and we may have resource shortages in some areas, but her majesty is the rightful heir to—"

“To another smouldering pile of ash populated by rotting corpses pretending to be ponies!” The mayor growled. “You’re a mailmare, zebra! Unless you're here to deliver a speech drop the package on my desk and get the buck out of my bucking office, you tarted-up harlot!”

“Ah,” I said, nodding in depressed realization.

The way he’d said ‘zebra’ explained everything. He said it in the same way a pony might say ‘plague ridden radroaches’, ‘putrefied feral ghouls’, or ‘Flim-Flam Co Mac’n’Cheese’.

So, that was going to be an issue here in the Heartlands. Well, nothing to be done but to get this over with as fast as possible.

I cleared my throat and retrieved one of the letters from my saddlebag. I had a feeling I was about to waste a letter and a radio, but Her Majesty's orders were clear.

Every settlement.

Even the ones run by stallions whom I am certain both halves of Her Majesty would want to vaporize for different and equally valid reasons.

With my best fake smile on my face, I trotted up to the edge of the mayor’s desk.

"I am here to attempt to start diplomatic relations between your charming village and the Kingdom of Lith and her towns, plural,” I informed, getting right to the point as I trotted over and placed the letter on his desk, seal up. “This letter, bearing the royal seal, contains instructions on how to make contact with Her Majesty's court via radio so you—"

The Mayor took a deep breath so hostile, and yet so haggard by age, I thought he might manage to die from sheer rage. Then, he levered himself out of his seat, his bones creaking and groaning as loudly as the joints of his decomposed chair as he stood up and glared down into my very soul. "Stop wasting my time with your turd polishing, stripe! I don’t care about the lipstick you’re putting on for whatever the whore you work for calls herself! What do you want to get out of my town?"

I grit my teeth and did my best to fight off the growing urge to show this jerk exactly how easily an elderly pony’s skull can be shattered. I felt my robes twitch at my sides as my link module automatically aligned my LAERs with his hideous waistcoat.

It was one thing to insult me. It was one thing to insult me and my home kingdom. It was another thing entirely to insult the pony who had never seen me as anything other than a friend. If my saddle had been active when I walked into his office, I’d have just burned this racist old wine stain off of equinity’s hide.

I took a deep breath to keep myself from sending my saddle the firing command. I wasn’t able to tell if that was the right thing or not.

Dad’s angry voice drifted into my mind from the depths of my imagination. I wonder if the Heartlands allows duels over matters of honor?

Not wanting to waste any more of the gentelcolt’s time, I didn’t bother composing myself and continued in spite of the barely contained rage leaking through the twitch in my eye and strained smile.

“The it to be spat out here is simple, sir, is that my Queen is looking to forge trade deals. We have plenty of technology on offer, and can offer assistance with civil engineering projects."

The ancient pile of filth in the shape of a stallion sighed and shook his head slowly at me.

I frowned slightly, assuming he didn’t understand what I meant. I cleared my throat and gestured towards… Whatever was outside and to my left. "For example, I noticed your community’s industry is the bottling and selling of Aqua Cura. If you could supply us with food stuffs or textiles, we could manufacture float talismans for your wagons so—"

"Get out!" The Mayor snapped, his teeth bared as his yellowing hoof pointed, trembling, at the door.

"Excuse me?" I asked as my jaw dropped in shock.

The Mayor grit his teeth and slammed his hooves down on his desk, nearly climbing on top of it. "I don't take kindly to zebras promising the stars so they can get stuff out of me then skip out on their side of the deal! I want you gone by sun down, or I'll have you jailed for the night and shot at sunrise. Is that clear?"

The unrepentant hatred in his voice made it clear he wasn’t exaggerating. He would have me shot, and he fully believed the guards would obey the order.

The mask cracked and I smiled with all of my hate behind it. “Crystal clear, sir.”

The mayor spat on the unopened letter and threw it at me. “And take this with you!”

I snatched the letter from the floor, spun on my hooves, and marched out of the pony shaped puss pile’s office.

Holy. Bucking. Horseapples! I would rather get the gunk from a yeast infection in my eyes than talk to that so called ‘leader’ ever-a-bucking-gain! Nothing makes me happier than the simple fact I hadn’t even learned his acursed name!

In fact, how the hay had he even been elected?!

I was going to find out.

Tucking the letter back into my saddlebags, I turned around and stormed out of the hallway. I opened the hall door with my shoulder, using the solid titanium-cobalt joint to make the loudest possible angry bang as I slammed into the door.

Poor Life Beat eeped and jumped in fright as the door slammed into the wall. I saw a book fall as her concentration shattered and her telekinesis cut out. The book hit the desk, slightly denting the spine.

I squeaked in terror, expecting my mom to appear from the aether with a rage that eclipsed even the Windigos.

Her Majesty once told me she never believed anypony could ever be more upset over a damaged book than Twilight Sparkle. Now we both knew that Black Swan was far worse in that regard. This discovery was made when a young colt ripped up a copy of a technical manual for toilet tissue, and mom literally blew her aggression inhibitor when he returned it.

We actually heard it go pop. It took both of us to keep her off the poor stupid colt.

I ran to Life’s desk and scooped the book up in my hooves. “Nonononono, it’s okay, let me just take care of the—” I gently rubbed the leather with my hoof tip, making sure the spine wasn’t broken.

It wasn’t. The leather was old and worn, but the dent rubbed out with a few careful pokes and prods.

”— Oh thank Celestia!” I sighed in relief and carefully set the book down on the desk.

Life Beat stared down at me, her wings flared and eyes wide. “Uhhh… Not that I don’t appreciate it when people care for a book, but… Please get out of my personal space.”

I realized I was hunched over the mare’s forelegs and leaning on her right flank. In my terror, I hadn’t realized I’d draped myself over her to catch the book.

My cheeks flushed bright red as I pulled away from her and stood up before trotting a few paces away. “Uh… Sorry,” I said, my tail swishing awkwardly behind me.

“It’s okay. Everypony has their quirks,” Life giggled as she returned the book to a drawer in her desk.

I nodded. She sighed and looked me in the eye. “I… Suppose you want to know how Mister Persimmons is our Mayor when he’s, well, him.”

“Dark Magic?” I asked without any trace of irony.

Life paused and tapped a hoof to her chin then shrugged her wings.

I almost ran for the door, but her smirk told me she was joking at the last minute. “No… It’s well, you know how angry he made you feel?”

I gave her a grade-A deadpan stare. “What are you talking about? We’re going out to dinner later and—” I gagged at the thought of saying I’d let him rut me. “-- And, I can’t finish that sarcastic remark because, EW!”

Life shivered, clearly knowing what I had been about to say. “Eeeewww! Bad Zeeb! Don’t make poor alicorns picture rutting… That! Ew… To move the buck on from that abortion of a joke, he can make other ponies feel as angry at you as you were at him. We all know he’s scum, but the stallion can make anypony who runs against him a social pariah… And there’s a rumor that he has a bomb in a suit pocket that will go off when he dies, so nopony is very keen to try to… Well, hasten his retirement.”

That did sound like something the racist jerk would do.

I nodded slowly and turned to leave in defeat when a thought occurred to me. The mayor was very old. This was good. It meant he would drop dead soon. Maybe even right now!

My left ear swiveled, seeking the sound of an ancient heart failing.

Nothing. At least, not that I heard.

With a sigh I opened my bag again and removed the letter I had already taken out and a single radio from the hard case. I set them down on Life’s desk and cleared my throat. “Here… I have to deliver them to somepony, and as the tallest alicorn I’ve seen, you’re obviously better suited to be in charge than that guy.”

Life giggled and raised an eyebrow. “Tallest?”

I decided to not admit to having briefly thought alicorns arranged their social hierarchy based on their height.

Quickly clearing my throat and nodding towards the now delivered radio and letter, I said “Either keep them, or give them to anypony who uh, is likely to be in charge once His Horribleness finally drops dead.”

I turned around and began to walk towards the door. “And maybe write me to let me know I should celebrate,” I muttered under my breath. “Racist buck…”

My ears swiveled back around as Life cleared her throat. “I um, I listened in,” Life called after me. “He is… Intolerant of non-ponies, yes. But... Not all of that was because of your stripes.”

I paused mid step and turned my head, expecting an explanation.

Life Beat sighed and pointed to the south east. “Across the great river from us is a nation called the Herd. It’s mostly made up of alicorns, ghouls, and zebras. Ponies who, well, who normal ponies don’t exactly like very much,” she said in a way which very strongly hinted that there was some seriously bad blood involved here.

But more importantly, it told me that there was someone we could offer deals to to make this nation get huffy and offer us a better deal simply to spite the other guy. Ah, diplomacy.

Life stood up and walked over to me with a sad look on her face. “Getting ponies to trade with you will be hard. Especially if you’re not, well, mostly normal ponies.”

I sighed. “So, everypony here is big into hating on zebras, huh? It’s not our fault the war started!”

Life blinked then frowned. “Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the Zebrican Empire start the trade wars and then escalate them to actual war after some kind of misunderstanding?”

I nodded slowly. “Yes, the Empire did. A government. It’s not like literally every Zebra alive was called into one huge room to cast votes on if we would end the world as we knew it or not. In fact, no one alive today—” I caught myself in the middle of that phrase, remembering most if not all sane ghouls were, well, pre-war. “— uh, I mean very few ponies alive today had anything to do with it. Also, the only reason the empire attacked is the old Cesar died and his elected replacement was a member of a fringe religion who literally thought Princess Luna was a demon.”

Life tilted her head slightly. “Wh— Oh! Because of the nightmare thing? That’s… That’s so dumb! The elements purified—” Life closed her eyes tightly for a minute then let out a long sigh. “I’m not going to get worked up over a two hundred year old stupid mistake again! I am not going to get worked up over a two hundred year old stupid mistake again!”

I gave her several moments to compose herself. She groaned and shook her head one last time, then looked me in the eyes. “I didn’t mean to say that everypony here hates zebras or ghouls. I mean that our town joined the NCR because they were like more us than not, and they didn’t betray us, which the nation of abponies and zebras did.”

“How?” I frowned, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about ‘abponies’ either.

“Five years ago, the Herd sent a zebra to us to make a trade deal,” Life explained quickly. “They promised us a water talisman in exchange for some very expensive salvage and a copy of an old Zebrican alchemy book that was in the prison library. They took everything, and then never gave us the talisman.”

I blinked and looked up at Life with a confused flick of my ears. “You… You gave them the goods without getting the trade item at the same time?!”

“No,” Life shook her head. “They passed us a fake.”

My ears drooped. “Oh… I understand why there’s trust issues on talismans, then.”

I knew I had to turn this around, or even this nice mare wouldn’t be interested in trying to deal with a nation they hadn't even known existed before today.

"I wasn't lying, or promising the stars,” I said with as serious and honest an expression as I could muster. “There is a lot we could do for you."

Life nodded then smiled kindly. "If Lith is so rich you can build infrastructure, why are you looking to trade?"

Ah, there it was. The direct question that would give them some leverage against us. But, in this case, we needed to feed them a little leverage or they’d never trust us. Or feed us, at that.

"We're technologically rich, but that’s about it. We're always running low on food, so we’re also low on people. Naturally, this means while we can make a lot of pre-war goods, we don’t make everything we could, or even enough for everyone. We can’t field the horsepower to do that. Her Majesty asked me to try and find places which can trade for food or other plant based products by giving them infrastructure or manufactured goods."

Life Beat hummed curiously. The look on her face suggested she was seriously considering what could be done. If she overheard our conversation, then at least she knew we could provide hovering wagons.

She would probably be terrified if she knew our airships and hovercraft were made using changeling magic and technology rather than cloud based pony designs, but we’d take this one step at a time.

“How come you have a food shortage?” Life asked, pursing her lips. “With how common they were before the war, there’s no way you don’t know how to make hydroponic gardens. You know, like what they have in stables. If they can grow plants with one underground, they can do the same indoors in a cold climate, right?"

I sighed and shook my head. “No. We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well…” I sat down to get comfortable. This could be a long conversation. “Hydroponics requires specific nutrients to let the plants grow, some of them are derived from other plant products. If we had a fully working Hydroponics Garden we could keep it going indefinitely because they are self sustaining. But we don’t have one, and we don’t have the biological materials to start one.”

I paused for a moment realizing I was mistaken. We did in fact have one. In Stable Town. But I wouldn’t mention it for the sake of diplomatic simplicity. Especially since they had chosen to remain almost entirely self sustaining, and thus didn’t import or export food.

“See, while the Empire wasn’t bombed as thoroughly as Equestria was, they did hit Elmane Air Force Base with a larger balefire bomb. The Crystal City itself was hit with at least three megaspells, because the Zebras knew we made high magic weapons for Equestria there... And a dozen or so were peppered across the northlands at random just to… Saturate it.”

I shivered, trying to think of the cold heart of the zebra who ordered that part of the bombardment. ‘There aren’t any real targets up there, but let’s make sure we murder the maximum possible number of those Equestrian bastards!’

I cleared my throat to continue. “Fortunately, they didn’t know about many of the small towns Princess Cadence had founded while trying to grow her Crown Colony into something worthy of having Empire in its name again.

“Guess where almost all of the advanced technology in the Empire was.”

Life winced and nodded. “I see… I take it the land is poisonous to plants up there like it used to be here?”

I sighed. “Yep. Magical radiation soaked right into the permafrost. We’ve also got an arcane winter that by now we’re pretty sure is permanent. Radioactive snow is everywhere! Clean ice and snow is so rare there’s a piece of untainted glacial ice being used as part of our Royal Treasures… And dirt. Dirt is too valuable. We have about… Forty-five-ish, square kilometers of farmable soil. Barely enough to feed the Seven Townships! Even though the skies opened and the sun is shining again it does little to help plants grow when all the dirt we can find is toxic and somehow only gets worse when you try to purify it."

I took a deep breath to steady myself.

Life Beat bent down slightly and gave me a quick hug. “I’m sorry that sounds horrible… I— I promise I’ll do my best to try and get these ponies to be willing to trade. But, we import our food. We’d need to buy more from farming communities to trade anything with you, and then our ability to uphold our side of the deal is out of our hooves.”

My ears drooped as I facehooved. “Oh, shoot! I didn’t even think of that!”

“It’s okay,” Life said as she reached out with her magic to pluck a pencil from her desk. “I have an easy solution… Do you have a map? There’s a town you should go to.”

I shook my head. "No, but I have some parchment."

"Cool beans!" Life exclaimed with a smile.

I inclined my head as I stared up at the green alicorn. "... What?"

The alcorn's cheeks flushed a pale pink. "Just a thing I say sometimes. Sorry."

“Oh…” My face fell with disappointment. “I was hoping you had beans. Mom would love some.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Ten minutes later I walked out of the Town Hall with a crudely drawn map that was at least sufficient for my needs. Namely, telling Wander ‘Let’s go here.’. Life had included enough landmarks and notes for me to find my way. Besides, the directions to the town of Sire’s Hollow were simple enough.

Go south along the road through Jutland until you come across Magebridge. Cross the river and head east then follow the road until you find a big farm town built right alongside it.

The map was secure in my bag, nestled between the side and my courier’s uniform. That had come off before I left the Hall. It was a relief to be way too warm instead of boiling.

Ugh… I should have realized it would be warmer down here, and had mom swap my coolant for something better suited to hotter places.

My usual 50:50 mix of distilled water and sodium ethoxide-ethanol coolant may be great for not freezing when it’s stupid cold, but the lower boiling point is going to be a problem here.

Note to self: Locate old garage, see if they have any ethylene glycol. Siphon it by mouth if I have to.

Also, do not let Wander watch you pee out several liters of fluid and then chug down a big bottle of engine coolant. She doesn't need to know you’re that cybernetic.

Thinking about Wander made me smile. I had a friend! Certainly something unexpected so soon on this journey, or well, at all. Upside, I’ll bet she knew a way to get to Sire’s Hollow that was even faster than Life’s route.

All I had to do was find the ghoul and her terrifying gun.

After all, if we ran into more bandits, I wanted her and her gun’s help. Especially after she showed me the barrel and stock attachments for it. She could make a rifle out of Bad Trip. Anywhere in her line of sight was safe as Celestia’s cake vault.

Heh. The Cake Vault. Now there’s a story.

According to legend, the Cake Vault was more secure than any Stable ever built, with all of Tartarus between you and the entrance.

Or at least, that’s what Queen Katydid said. She often told the story of her aunt’s life to young foals to try and inspire them to seek the same kind of greatness Princess Celestia had once embodied. She told me the story too, even though I wasn’t that young a filly. She realized I would need some help finding a path to walk in life. The story really did help.

Especially the bit about the Cake Vault. My mind said Her Majesty was exaggerating her aunt’s love of deserts. My spirit insisted there must be such a place because the world needed something purly whimsical in it.

As a young zebra, I’d often fantasize about questing for the Vault with a team of friends. I’d given up on that dream after deciding the vault was at best a room hidden in the Canterlot Palace which Flurry Heart must have found her way into once as a very small filly.

My desire for adventure hadn’t died with that foal’s dream. I’d become a courier in part to explore the world and face its dangers all while doing good things for the ponies around me. After all, if I became a hero, they would have to like me. Right?

I shook my head and smiled to myself. A hero. Me. Heh, right! I wasn’t brave or stupid enough for that, only crazy enough to keep being a mailmare.

I could still pretend, though, and this mission was like a quest. Wasn’t it?

I smiled and began to trot forward through the market in search of Wander. My companion! My hopefully trusty squire, who would stick with me through thick and thin on our quest to bring two nations closer together!

Well, no. Not two. Three.

I needed to learn more about the Herd. As well as this nation. Especially since I had no idea what NCR stood for!

It was time to find Wander. She said she would be playing for… Caps?

I frowned and stopped my random wanderings.

“Why caps?” I asked myself with an uncertain swish of my tail.

We didn’t need any hats did we? Was there some sort of toll to pay, and they only accepted barter in hat form?

“What do you mean, ‘Why caps?’,” a stallion asked.

I blinked. I hadn’t noticed I’d walked up along side a small market stall selling sewing supplies and cutlery. For… Some… Reason…

Strange inventory aside, the stall’s clerk seemed like a nice stallion. Tall, lovely brown coat, glistening blue eyes, and a thick scruffy black mane.

I felt my cheeks flush as I took in his chiseled jawline and the scar over his left eye. He was handsome, and tough! Quick, try flirting!

I turned my head and smiled my best sultry smile. “Well, if you want to barter with hats I’d be perfectly willing to… Accommodate your wares. If you know what I mean.”

The stallion snorted and bit his lip. At first I thought he sneezed. Then I realized he was hold in laughter.

My ears drooped as my tail tucked.

“I uh… I’ll just go,” I mumbled quietly, turning away to leave.

“No! Hold up,” the stallion said with a light chuckle.

I turned to look back at him with a shaky smile as I tried to hide my shattered pride and definitely failed.

He cleared his throat. “Given you thinking my sign says I want fifteen hats for a set of spoons, and that… Uh, amusingly novice attempt at flirting, I’m guessing you’re a hermit. Right?”

I decided to just nod. No need to open my stupid mouth again. I’d already blown everything…

He reached back with a hoof and took a small leather bag out from under his counter. A swift and deft tug of the strings with his teeth opened the bag, and he dumped a small number of old bottle caps onto his stall’s wooden counter.

“These caps,” he said with a smile. “We use bottle caps as currency. Not hats.”

I facehooved and groaned into my frog. “Oh, Celestia… That makes way more sense… I— I’m going to go. S— Sorry!”

I turned and did my best to quickly vanish into the crowd, and forget what an idiot I’d been in front of a hot pony.

It took awhile to find myself back in good spirits. Fortunately the market had lots of things to keep me distracted. Two Bits was home to lots of textiles and salvage. Between what I had overheard, and what Life had told me, Two Bits did a lot of trade for pre-war relics and scrap with the Hellhounds down in Jutland. Which had been called Manever before the war.

Mom hadn’t gone to Manever when getting the books for her library. She insisted it would be too dangerous. I remembered nothing at all of that particular city. I was looking forward to finding out just what would have been so dangerous two centuries ago.

Judging how everypony I saw was armed at all times, in their own walled off town no less, it could still be dangerous.

Well, that or Two Bits feared furniture thieves. Given just how much old furniture could be found in the market, I expected that useable furnishings was one of the town’s major exports.

It was a shame my saddlebags only had so much room in them in spite of their enchantments. There were stalls selling furniture. Actual prewar wooden furniture. I could make a fortune reselling the antiques in Pomare. Everypony loved antiques. Especially after our craftsponies restored them to their former glory.

Also, Her Majesty would have absolutely loved the old four poster bed I saw being loaded onto a wagon. Perhaps to be sold elsewhere?

Two Bits was an odd trade town. Normally a trade town had to be centralized, not isolated out by the border. But since every ghoul needed Aqua Cura to survive, Two Bits always had constant streams of wagons coming and going from deeper in the Heartlands. Which, in turn, meant the salvage they bought here could be sold at a mark up and shipped everywhere in Equestria with the hot water convoys.

Which was good! Existing logistics networks would make getting food from here to Lith as easy as getting from here to Lith! Which… To be fair, wasn’t that easy. One step at a time, though.

I had just reached the entrance of a small shop towards the far side of the market from the town hall, intending to look at its selection of ‘Charming Trinkets and Tranquil Charms’ (because, well, magic shop!) when I heard the faint sound of music in the distance.

Softly jangling guitar notes drifted through the energetic buzz of dozens of conversations. The melody called to me, but so did the store!

I never got to browse the enchanted item shops back home! But if I went in I might never find Wander… At least, not before nightfall… and Mayor I-refuse-to-learn-his-name was actually serious about having me shot, probably…

If he had them use a rifle or a shotgun…

I shivered and turned to follow the music. I had to leave, and quickly.

I followed the music away from the market and through an industrial district of sorts. It wasn't very big, just a thin strip of buildings and workyards where ponies were busily sorting through scrap. The good bits were moved aside, and the rest was sorted by material.

A recycling yard! Good to see the ponies here were smart enough to know that very little is ever truly useless.

I made it through the recycling center and found a small patch of clear space, just big enough for two dozen ponies to stand between the yard and the wall. It took me a moment to realize that the space was only there thanks to being in front of a gate. It was an unloading area for salvage, one which Wander had transformed into an amphitheater with the help of a few strands of Hearthwarming lights she dug up from Celestia knows where.

She was standing atop an old hooflocker, her cloak billowing in a non-existent wind as she levitated her guitar in front of her to serenade the crowd, who would occasionally toss a bottle cap into an old metal bowl at the foot of Wander’s stage.

Wander’s smile was visible, peeking from behind her scarf as she played through the instrumental. She looked so… Alive. Not that I thought of ghouls as dead, undeath is just a different kind of living.

It was her performance. Standing there in front of a crowd, all of whom were entranced by her performance, was this mare’s personal heaven.

As Wander’s stone-fang-pick strummed her guitar’s strings, the ponies watching found their personal heavens for a moment too.

I stood and stared at the ancient ghoul, unable to do anything but watch her play and listen with a smile on my face. Then, like a slap to the face, the song was over. Its absence was followed by a moment of shocked silence that erupted into a chaotic storm of happy stomping, applause, and cries for an encore. Even over the noise, I could hear the sound of caps clinking as they filled Wander’s bowl.

If I had caps, I’d toss all of them into her bowl too! I’d never heard anypony ever play anything so amazing before! If that’s how she could play then it was absolutely certain that Wander really hated telling Pip’s story. Even in song form. That balad hadn’t had even a fraction of this song’s heart.

I reared up and waved my hooves, not to get Wander’s attention, but simply to cheer for her. In spite of my intentions, Wander noticed me and waved back. “Hey! Gears, get on up here.”

The crowd turned to look, and then actually parted for me. It felt rather nice.

As I walked up to Wander I heard several ponies quietly and excitedly wondering amongst each other if I was also a musician.

I was not. I could sing, sort of. But, well, never in front of anypony!

I made my way up to Wander and smiled up at her on her hooflocker stage. “That was amazing! Way better than the ballad you sang the other night.”

Wander coughed and rubbed the back of her head with one hoof. “Well, uh… I’m really tired of that song. I sort of also skipped a few dozen verses… Anyways, how did the delivery go?”

My smile fell into an irritable glare almost instantly. “I want to stab the mayor in the face with a soldering iron.”

“Yeah, buck that guy!” Three different ponies in the crowd said in unison.

Wander flinched. “Owch… Make the delivery?”

I nodded. “Yes. Also, um... I’ve been told to leave before sunset or he’ll have me shot.”

Wander took a step backward in shock, nearly falling off her improvised stage. “I— What?!” She looked out to her crowd. “Can anypony tell me if that’s a sick joke or serious?”

“It’s serious alright,” a mare said with a particularly grisly swish of her tail.

“Yeah, he hates zebras, and ghouls, and most ponies… Oh! And his wife.” A younger stallion added.

“Especially her, but buck her,” called somepony in the back with a gravelly baritone.

“With a bucking anchor!” A mare added.

Okay. I didn’t want to think about him having a wife, but okay.

I glared at the young stallion slightly. If I had a shit list, he’d be on it...

Wander growled and muttered something under her breath I didn't quite catch. Then she cleared her throat. “Okay, everypony. I was planning on doing a full four hours. But, if that’s how this town is, my friend and I will be moving on in an hour.”

A sea of disappointed moans and even a few boos pummeled my ears, forcing them to lay flat.

Wander reared up and held her hooves out to calm the crowd. “Woah! Easy there, everypony! Tell you what, to make up for the lack of time, I’ll play something really special.”

My ears perked back up. “Like what?” I asked, and the crowd echoed me.

I was really, really looking forward to somepony who had been alive in pre-ministry Equestria playing something she thought was ‘special’.

She meant something from before the MoI crackdown on non-traditional music, right? The ministries controlled what music got to be sold on holotape. They never approved anything that wasn't ‘culturally unifying’. It made Wander into an extremely rare source of music, if she was a musician back in the days of vinyl records and live performances.

Which she was, right? I mean, she had to be. She looked old enough.

Wander waited for the crowd to start murmuring excitedly then, to my surprise she slid her guitar behind her back, where it vanished into her saddlebags. Yeah, definitely magic, those. Then, from the other side of her cloak, dragged out by her blue nimbus, came an old, very worn down, synthesizer.

I couldn’t help but squee a little. She was going to play something pre-ministry.

Wander’s synthesizer looked like a cross between a guitar, a boombox, and a keyboard. It was battered, it was scratched, and its plastic housing was faded to the point where the once snow white body was as dull and colorless as Wander’s own coat.

I raised an eyebrow. “Where were you hiding that?”

“Burrfoot Bag,” Wander murmured as she flicked a few switches and buttons on her instrument then set it down keys up in front of her forehooves as she stood over it, ready to play, and cleared her throat. “Fillies and Gentlecolts, I would like to show you how to make a hit record...First, we start with the sequencer.”

Wander flicked a switch and her instrument began to produce a faint, rapid, and rhythmic sound. Almost as if it were saying ‘rub’ or ‘tub’ over and over and over.

“And now, a high hat,” Wander announced, flicking a second switch and causing a symbol to join the pulsing electronic tone.

She let a few seconds pass. The crowd looked uncertain. They had never heard anything like this before. I’d only heard a fragment of a song in this genre which dad had found on a Neighpone holotape in his department’s evidence bin. This had been called Electronica, if I was remembering correctly.

“These are the percussion instruments…” Wander said nonchalantly as she flicked another switch, allowing a snare drum to began tapping out a fairly catchy beat.

A few ponies started to leave, clearly not into it as much. One mare started to shuffle her hooves along with the beat.

Wander noticed, and laughed. “Hold on, guys. It needs a little bass.”

Another switch was flipped, and suddenly a deep pulsing bass drum was added to the mix. Suddenly the seemingly amateurish tune had a rhythm. Suddenly it had a pulse. A life beat all of its own. It wasn't anything special but… You could dance to this. Ponies were dancing to this!

The whole crowd began to sway slightly. Their flanks moving along with the beat. They stopped walking away.

I smiled. She had them. She certainly had me.

Wander winked at everypony. “And now… Magic!”

She lifted her forehooves, bending her hind legs for balance, and began to play the keyboard. The song crystallized, the beat you could dance to melded with electronic melody unlike anything I’d ever heard before. They flowed together, rolling in the bass’ depth, and mixing with the percussion in a way I found unique and beautiful.

Wander continued playing, creating sounds I’d thought could only be accomplished by an orchestra. Her song seemed to last an eternity, but in a joyous way. It was bright and sunny, and it made you feel welcome and loved. It invited you to dance, and led the way.

Then, all too soon, it was over and Wander was speaking. “That was Celestia's Sun Eternal. A song written for the Princess by m— A pony I used to know. I hope you enjoyed it. She’d love to know it’s still being played two hundred years later. Even if I did put my own touch on this rendition.”

I missed the hint of sadness in her voice at first. But then it hit me. I’d listened to something her wife had written.

Celestia above… She mentioned her wife wrote orchestral pieces when we had been making smalltalk yesterday. She had actually just played a piece for sixty ponies, on her own, and made it sound excellent… Just, wow!

Then the sound of applause and the clinking caps of her bowl overflowing drowned out my thoughts and Wander gave me a nudge. “Hey, take the caps here and buy anything you think is essential before we head out. Basic equipment only. Rope. Chain if they have it. Climbing gear especially. Come back when you’re done and I’ll have more caps for optional extras.”

“Sure thing,” I said as I emptied her bowl into my saddlebag and set it back down.

I turned and squeezed my way through the crowd and headed back to the market, now feeling extremely sad I couldn't stay and listen to more of the music Wander liked to play.

Stupid racist old stallion…

Oh well! I’d get to hear her play everywhere we went together!

5 - The City on the Shores of Hell

A slab of dull green rusting metal towered over me, its face marked with ancient words which had long since lost all meaning to anypony. Long ago, the design would have told travelers that Manever was the city they could see on the hill five kilometers up the highway, the speed limit was 120 kilometers per hour, and there was a bit of tourist info reminding ponies to visit the Botanic Gardens.

The sign’s text had recently been crudely painted over in a dull blue. The new writing was Equish, but the lettering was very poorly done. The painter had used straight lines instead of the curves and loops of each character, and the lack of serifs made knowing the correct pronunciation impossible. If I hadn’t been told was pronounced as “Jutlandver”, I’d have assumed the sign read “Justice Land” thanks to the crude font.

Given how intolerant ponies typically were of Hellhounds, I’m surprised the wastelanders were using the Hellhound name for Manever.

I looked up the hill at the ruins and shivered. This city was sick. The buildings, the land they sat on, even the streets. The spirits dwelling in every last part of the city were... Tainted. I could feel it as clearly as I could feel clumps of infernally humid air coiling around us.

Whatever weapon had struck Manever, it hadn’t been balefire. It couldn’t have been. Balefire didn’t do… This.

The sky around the city was a clear blue, ‘perfect for a picnic’, as the saying once went. The sky above the city, on the other hoof, was piled high with rolling black thunderheads which swirled and oozed over and through one another, while muted bolts of green lightning flashed through them, and occasionally hammered one of the dozens of decaying skyscrapers.

The buildings didn’t stand tall, either. They jutted up from the ground like crooked fangs. The topmost floors had all been carved into jagged spires of rock and metal over the centuries by that visibly toxic lightning. The fangs also seemed to be moving. Not much, just enough to make a zebra wonder if angry spirits dwelling among the ruins could possibly have enough power to take a bite with teeth like those.

The hill the city sat on wasn’t faring any better. I’d gotten used to the Heartland having plants growing in little patches here and there. Flowers. Grasses. Trees. Bushes. The land was finally recovering from Armageddon.

But not here. Not around Jutlandver.

Here the land oozed and bubbled. The hill was covered in a thick purplish mud that shimmered and glistened as if covered by an oil slick. It reeked of decaying meat.

I turned to Wander, my ears plastered back against my head as I felt an urge to vomit so strong that I was starting to wonder if I could actually throw anything up. Wander looked back at me through the clear faceplate of an old gas mask. My ears flattened even more.

“When the buck did you put that on?” I demanded with a stamp of my rear-left hoof.

I saw Wander’s cheeks twist behind the mask. “An hour ago,” she said, her voice muffled by the mask. “Surprised you didn’t notice.”

“I was too busy looking at Hell!” I countered, pointing to the maelstrom of enraged weather spirits with one leg. “And smelling it! Do you have another of those?”

Wander shook her head. “Nope. Can you turn off your nose?”

I shook my head. “Nope… What even is that smell?”

Wander began to walk towards the city. “The mud. It uh, it just kind of stinks. They say it’s full of bodies, and the mud’s slowed down their decay so much they’re still rotting… I don’t think that’s right. Even a city’s worth of meat would have rotted away a century ago. Preservation in a peat bog is kind of all or nothing.”

I nodded in agreement and began to follow her. “Are we really going to walk through that city? I know you’re blind to spirits, but… Come on! Look at that!”

I thrust one hoof up at the clouds again, managing to time my gesture perfectly with a flash of lightning. “Can’t you see something is terribly wrong here?”

“Oh, I can see it,” Wander agreed. “But you know what’s worse?”

Wander swept a foreleg across the field of purplish mud around us. Just a few hundred meters ahead, the mud oozed right up the the edges of the road, and I could see that it was eating away at the asphalt, leaving behind sections of road which appeared to be melted plastic rather than pavement.

From that point on, the caustic mud spread out to consume the whole horizon to either side of the city ahead. I sighed, seeing the problem immediately.

“There’s no easy way around, is there?” I asked dejectedly.

Wander shook her head slowly, careful not to jostle her gas mask. “If we go east, we’ll have to cross the Celestial River. Nothing but rapids for… Well, about a week. We’d have to walk back north and go around its source up in the mountains. If we go west, it’s a week’s walk through irradiated wasteland to get around. I came through here not too long ago. Every shipment out of Two Bits goes through here too. It’s fine.”

I bit my lip and trotted forwards to gently take Wander’s head and turn it so she was looking at a patch of the clouds on the edge of the unnatural storm. “See that?”

“Yes… Let go of me,” Wander said firmly.

I let go immediately and pointed to the spot I made her look. “Right there, at a glance, I can see a tangle of at least three dozen Spirits of Air trapped in that one cloud. At least they were Spirits of Air. Once. I don’t know what you’d call them now, but I can feel them from here. They are angry… No, enraged. Whatever hit this place mutated them just like the Windigos! We are looking at a literal cloud of spirits that are as warped from what they once were as a ghoul is from ponykind… No offence. I just… I don’t want to go near that. And that’s just the one cloud! There are thousands up there.”

Wander chuckled and swished her tail hard enough to make her cloak sway. “None taken. To be fair, I’m pretty sure that zebras have steered clear of this place ever since the Last Day. It’s not just you. But for real, I’m telling you we’ll be fine. I know the pack of Hellhounds who live here.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mentioned Hellhounds in Pip’s ballad.”

Wander nodded. “Mhm.”

“As the things that killed Steelhooves.”

“Yep.”

“Who was a Canterlot Ghoul, like you.”

“He was.”

“While he was in power armor.”

“Look, Gears, babe,” Wander said with a weary sigh as she turned around. “Hellhounds aren't a threat to us. I’ve played for this pack for so long that any hounds we run into had grandparents who sat on my lap as pups. My rep alone would keep us both safe even if the hounds were not on such good terms with Ponies these days.”

I took a deep breath and gave Wander a pleading look. “Please… Is there any other way that won’t cost us a week?”

Wander closed her eyes for a moment, then to my surprise, she rolled up her sleeve and switched on her pipbuck. The ancient device made a rather concerning pop as it switched on. Wander flinched slightly as the device protested.

The poor thing had a spark gap! One bad enough to shock Wander when it was powered on. I made a mental note to take Wander to mom’s workshop once we were back in Pomare. That poor pipbuck needed some TLC.

As soon as the ancient leg terminal was done humming to life, Wander’s horn lit up and she began to quite expertly work the dials, switches, and buttons with the blue glow of her magic. She scrolled through the menus, brought up her map, and examined it for several long moments before sighing and waving her pipbuck around with an irritated look on her face.

“Come on, pip… Download the map update already…” Wander muttered to herself.

I held my breath, waiting for her to say something like ‘yes, there’s a small trail that winds around the hill to our left, and…’ Unfortunately, that simply wasn’t to be.

The pip pinged.

Wander refocused and looked closely at her map, then shook her head. “No. Double no on going through the wasteland. It’s not just still irradiated, somepony marked the place as crawling with old robots about two weeks ago. A second memo says that a squad of Applejack’s Rangers went to clear it out, and they tagged that mission as failed. That’s not a thing they do often.”

Wander switched off her pipbuck and rolled her sleeve down as the glow of its screen faded. “Our options are: One, swim across a river with rapids so bad only Celestia herself is known to have swum across and survived. Two, walk back north for a week, hike up mountains for three days, then back down for a week just to get two days walk from where we are right now. Three, attempt to cross a stretch of land covered in Assault-Ponies—”

My eyes widened. Assault-Ponies. Zebrican mechanized infantry. A machine spirit given a body and orders to murder any pony it ran into as violently as possible. Their name is their function!

“W— What?!” I sputtered. “How are there Zebrican constructs this far north? The Badlands are literally a continent away!”

Granted, they would probably ignore me like they would any other Zebra, but Wander would be ripped to shreds, vaporized, and/or beaten into a pulp.

Wander shrugged and swished her tail irritably. “I don’t know! I’m just telling you what was tagged. Option Four, you transform into an airship and fly us across the river. Or, Option Five, we go through Jutlandver and you don’t look up.”

I closed my eyes and took another deep breath. “I can’t fly.”

Wander turned her head to make sure I’d watch her playfully raise her eyebrows. “But you can transform?”

My deadpan glare informed her that no, no I could not. But I felt the need to say it anyways. “No.”

Wander winked playfully and waved for me to follow her. “Come on, let’s go. Option five won't take more than two hours, tops.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Jutlandver was a city of constant wind. Ill winds. I could taste the hatred in it. I could feel the way the unnatural currents ripped at my clothes, as if it wanted to tear them off my body. Strangely, the gusts were not cold. Not all of them. The winds alternated between distressingly warm, as if coming from a fire, to servo-chillingly cold.

I could have handled that on its own, but when combined with the moaning and shrieking of the winds as they howled through the crumbling concrete jungle… Well, I walked quickly, with my head down and my ears constantly searching for any sign of danger beneath the oppressive blanket of noise.

The further into the city we walked, the more nervous I became. We had abandoned the highway a short distance into the city. Somepony, or perhaps some hounds, had built a ramp out of shipping containers, billboards, and scrap plywood which let wagons move up onto the elevated highway which had once bisected Manever with a stack of roadways three stories high. That highway collapsed centuries ago. The city was split in two, with a river of rubble separating the halves.

I stood at the edge of the highway for a little while. Long enough to see the crater right in the middle of the city. It hadn’t been balefire that murdered Manever. Balefire was a flash of emerald flame and a pulse of necromantic radiation and then nothing but hot ash and cinders. It left behind a scar on the spirit realm and a clean hole in the earth.

The crater at the heart of Manever was a perfectly spherical hole in the world that had become a lake two kilometers wide. A lake full of a viscus, bubbling purple liquid. The longer I stared at it, the more I swore that sometimes, for just a heartbeat, pony sized shapes would move within the slime.

They came up with the bubbles, as if a great many pony-sized creatures were trapped inside and desperately trying to claw their way out of the pit.

As I retreated from the edge of the highway, I’d never been more glad I didn’t sleep or dream in my life. I would have had nothing but nightmares about that lake for a week if I could dream. Maybe even a month, if the sky above it found its way in.

Whatever weapon had made that, the Gardens weren't able to clean it up, and I had no idea what it could be.

I wasn’t fully trained as a Shaman. Many very skilled Shamen had tried over the centuries to help me unlock my potential, but I just couldn’t do anything more complex than apprentice work and potion brewing. On the other hoof, I’d read everything we still knew about the Spirit Realm and how to influence it.

I also knew many of the old tales, the oral traditions of the original Zebrican Shamen. Of course, I also had my own unique insights to rely on, too.

Balefire, Pink Cloud. Everyone knew those names. I knew more. A few things which had been left as blueprints or lab proposals which mom and I found in old ministry files.

And yet, for all that I knew, nothing could tell me what that megaspell had been! It must have been radically experimental, because if it had existed for any real length of time before the Last Day, I’d know its name.

The crater lake wasn’t in sight any longer, but I could still feel it. It pulled at my very being as if there were a noose about my neck. It had to be what corrupted the spirits that had been in Manever on the Last Day. What other explanation could there be?

The thing in the ooze wanted to devour me. Every step we took through the rubble strewn streets made that more and more painfully clear. I could scarcely think of anything other than the way the buildings loomed over us, casting unnatural shadows which grew ever more umbral as we moved towards the city center. That, and quiet click of my hooves on the asphalt.

The way they echoed. Like a heartbeat. Or the rhythmic popping of the bubbles in the crater.

It was affecting my walking speed! This had been a terrible terrible idea!

I shivered as we rounded a corner and began to climb up a rubble pile. Wander was in front of me as always, scrambling up the broken chunks of concrete, furniture, filing cabinets, and other assorted office building contents like she’d been born a biped. I did my best to follow where she’d stepped, but I couldn’t always gain any purchase.

This place wasn’t worrying her. It wasn’t trying to eat her. Had the megaspell been engineered to disrupt the spirit realm itself? Was it a Zebrican countermeasure for the stolen zebra magic Equestria had been slowly reverse engineering?

That made too much sense.

I began to climb up the rubble pile. Somewhere, stones clattered as if sliding down a mountain. Wander and I immediately looked up, but there was nothing. Some other building had crumbled just then. Not this one.

I winced as I heard the rubble crash to the ground nearby, out of sight. The spirits here knew where we were. They were in nearly everything. The ponies who built this city had placed so much care, love, and skill into constructing each and every last building. Of course spirits had moved into the homes ponies had built for them.

If they had wanted to kill us for entering the dungeon this place had become, they already would have. They were trying to warn us away. No. Not us. Wander wasn’t even a little nervous.

They were trying to warn me away. From the crater… No, from the liquid inside!

What could it be? I needed to know. We would be at the crater in just a few more minutes. This was officially an emergency!

I closed my eyes tightly and did my best to open myself to the world around me as it truly was. Even though I wasn't very good at making much use of zebra magic, my inner sight was perfectly clear. The source of the spiritual corruption all around me was like the brightest of lights, and it tore away the shadows of the physical world.

For a fraction of a second I saw Manever as it had been before the war. A newly founded city, a place of business, banking, and academics. Ponies filled the pristine streets, trotting along happily, talking to one another, their voices overlapping and merging into a dull buzz.

Everything was fine. Everypony was happy. Then, the war came.

The city changed. The streets were now dirty, no longer being swept clean. Dirt, dust, and litter piled up everywhere. The streets were still full, but not with ponies going about their day. They were angry, and hungry. Their coats had lost their luster. Their ribs stuck out from their chests.

They argued with one another, and while they all had different things to say, everypony spoke of food shortages. Food shortages had affected the poor for nearly a year, and now hunger was clawing its way up to reach even the city’s wealthy elites.

Everypony was starving.

Their own military was taking the food, though not by force. Farms that wanted to stay in the Ministry’s graces simply had to divert most of their produce to the front lines. Soldiers needed to eat, and some logistical error had shifted too much of the disparity onto the ponies of Manever.

While interesting, this isn’t what I wanted to know. Why was I seeing this echo of the past? Why was this something the spirits around me wished me to know?

Probably because I am a terrible shaman and they misunderstood me when I asked what was wrong with the city.

I strained myself, pushing at the walls of the world with what little power I had, trying to bend things to see the city as it was now, not as it had once been.

The vision shifted once more, only this time it plunged me into hell.

I was in the pool. Not physically, but mentally. I could see it in its entirety, the spirits were glad to show me what it was. It had been their goal… Everything before was simply context.

It was a mass of liquefied ponies. Every single last soul who had been in the city. On the streets, in their homes, at work, on the highway. Everywhere. It didn’t matter.

When the megaspell hit it, they liquefied, flowed towards the center of the blast, and did not die. Their souls swarmed in the liquid, screaming, in agony, crying out for help.

No, not help.

Revenge.

Revenge on zebras. Revenge on spirits. Revenge on everything even tangentially related to the War, and the creation of the eternal hell in which they swam, merged, fragmented, and even reproduced in!

Every day, more and more minds were plunged into that hell as splintered fragments grew into unique minds of their own. Minds which would be tortured forever in this... Pocket-afterlife created by the blast.

That’s what this megaspell had done. It was a spiritual weapon. A way to literally send people you hated to hell. Forever.

The damned within the boiling pool were consumed by two thoughts. No! No, three thoughts!

That’s why the spirits had shown me the prewar conditions. The pool was not merely restless souls enraged and tormented for centuries. They all died while there had been a food shortage. They were starving tormented vengeful souls.

Yay… That’s so much better.

Revenge, food, and obtaining a suitable vessel to take them away from the pool to have their revenge.

I strained even harder, pleading with the spirits to be as exact as they could possibly be. What was a suitable vessel? I had to know.

They answered me as bluntly as could be.

Oh, shit! I was a suitable vessel!

The spirits were not corrupted by the megaspell! They had done this to themselves as the world’s metaphysical immune response to the thing in the pool!

The oppressive gloom as you got closer to the crater. The unnatural storm centered right over the bubbling pool. The corrosive ooze surrounding the city was the work of Earth Spirits, a way to kill anything trying to enter the city before it reached the pool. The spirits were trying to keep everypony away from the crater.

Whatever lurked in that pool was so evil that the very spirits of the land wanted to keep things away from it. Especially me! They made that abundantly clear!

Coming here had been an incredibly bad idea!

This is why mom didn't come here when we were searching the ministry hubs! She developed tech using captured Zebrican blueprints and enchanted items. She’d have known about this… Prototype hellmaker. This damnation.

Damnation… A fitting name for this particular megaspell, if there was one. Hopefully there had only been one of these, and it had been launched simply because everything else was being fired.

Damnation… If I got too close to the pool, that’s what I would bring to the wasteland.

I need to tell Wander. Now. It’s important.

Suddenly, the whispered images the city's spirits sent me were pushed aside by a million enraged voices. They spoke as one

the Pool demanded.

I screamed, snapping myself out of the vision.

Wander spun around when I screamed, Bad Trip floated in front of her, ready to fire. I couldn't see her eyes behind the glare on her visor, but I knew she was looking at me.

“What is it?! Where are they?!” Wander demanded as she hunkered down to minimize her profile atop the pile.

My body shook as I looked over her shoulder, to the right. That’s where the pool was. I could feel it trying to pull me in, even from this far away.

“No. I— It’s not an— We can’t keep going. We need to leave!” I said, still trembling.

Wander lowered her weapon, slowly returning it to its holster as she stood up. “I didn’t know zeebs could get even paler! Is the storm overhead bothering you that much?”

I shook my head again and pointed over her shoulder. “No! The pool. It’s the pool! We need to leave! It wants me!”

Wander froze for a moment then leaned towards me incredulously. “It… Wants you?”

I nodded twice. “Yes! I just had a vision. I needed to know what caused this storm. The spirits did this to themselves. It’s a warning! We must not get anywhere near the crater in the center of town! I can feel it trying to pull me in, even from here. It’s— It’s angry! So angry! It wants a vessel and it wants revenge. And I am a vessel! It knows I’m here, we have to leave right now!”

Wander turned her head slightly, looking at the way I was trembling in place, how my tail was raised in alarm. “You’re panicking. Okay… We’ll move away from the crater. Will it be okay if we move along the edge of the city?”

“We can’t go further towards the pool or it will get stronger. Just… Away from it. If we get too close something horrible will happen!” I insisted before pointing in the direction the rubble had fallen from. “That building crumbling! That was a warning! Whatever messed up the spirits here is in that pool, and if I get too close it will wake up and eat me!”

Wander held up her forehooves, managing to somehow balance on her hind legs like she was meant to stand that way. “Hey, Gears, relax. It’s okay. I said we’ll leave!”

Wander began to climb down the rubble pile. I began to tear up. When she reached the bottom I wrapped my forelegs around her in a tight hug. “Thank you…”

Wander returned my hug then gently pulled my legs off her shoulders.

“Easy… It’s okay,” Wander took a look over her shoulder for a moment then shivered. “If that pool has you this spooked, I don’t want to go near it again either. Come on, I’ll take us through here as fast as I can.”

Wander began to trot away, moving down the street away from the evil lurking in the heart of Manever.

“Thank you,” I whispered again.

”You should still tell her what you are, sweetie,” Imaginary Dad’s voice chided as I began to follow Wander up the street.

I like having friends, Dad.

”You’re putting her at risk. If that thing can claim you somewhere else… Say, in a storm drain, or the sewer, or a fountain… You know, places that a big gaping hell-anus’ creampie might seep into.”

I bit my lip. Imaginary dad was right… But if I told her everything about me I’d lose a friend.

”If she hates you because you’re adopted, well, buck her with a bucking anchor!”

Imaginary Dad had a point… But it was more than just the way I got my pony parents.

Wander lead the way towards the edge of town. I followed her. Silently. Just, letting reality blur and fade away. I couldn’t bear to think about the thing that wanted to devour me who—

The pool screeched, pleading, screaming, enraged, all at once.

The last thing I remembered was screaming and running down the street as fast as my legs could carry me.

☢★★◯★★☢

I couldn’t remember how long we walked through the dead silent streets of Manever before we found Jutlandver. I was far too shaken to be paying attention to little things like time. All I cared about was putting distance between me and the pool.

On the off chance we found an undetonated balefire bomb one day… I’d have to see if Her Majesty would let me detonate it in that pool. It needed to die. This is why my people had made balefire. I understood now. Somethings were too terrifying to be allowed even the tiniest chance of survival.

If only they hadn't been mistaken about Princess Luna still being Nightmare Moon…

Shaken as I was, I didn’t get to take in very much while we had been in Jutlandver. I remembered it being built well above the street level as a series of walkways connecting the middle floors of ten skyscrapers. Everything had been made from salvage. Metal barrels filled with concrete had been stacked to make support pillars. Old furniture had been piled up into walls. That sort of thing.

Somehow, in spite of the storm above and the caustic soil below, Jutlandver was quiet. The wind didn’t howl here, and I remembered the warm steady breeze turning a row of shabby windmills. It was what I expected a wasteland village to be like.

Aside from being filled with massive, hulking, mutant diamond dogs, of course!

Hearing about the three-pony-tall brick-shithouses with claws that could cut an armored pony’s head clean off in a ballad was one thing. Standing amongst them was quite another. I’d probably have been terrified if something a trillion times worse wasn’t unliving in their backyard.

I think they had been surprised to see me. I was pretty sure Wander explained that I was in shock because of the pool. A Hellhound might have mentioned another zebra who had come here and had the same reaction. It’s possible that I gave a puppy a ‘stripy-pone ride’.

I couldn't be sure of any of that. I’d been too scared for my memory to record more than just a few fragments here and there. I spent a lot of it near the windmills. The biggest one’s spirit was very nice. I think.

All I knew for sure is we stayed long enough for Wander to trade some of her medical supplies for an old police riot mask for me to wear. It was a nice mask. Two filters. Big clear visor. Just like Wander’s, only green instead of black. And mine had both filters installed.

I liked not smelling the corrosive earth. I remembered that very clearly.

Apparently, I’d also traded my broken goggles for a map of Manever. I only knew that for sure because I no longer had them on my forehead, and Wander was floating a map alongside her as we navigated the twisted streets.

“— tting too close to the dogs…” Wander mumbled as she squinted up at a half-rusted away street sign, then back to the map.

I blinked. The world had just sort of… Came back all at once. It was overwhelming.

“Huh?” I asked, in my most intelligible possible voice.

Which, as it turned out, sounded pretty bucking stupid.

Wander turned around and smiled at me. “You’re talking again. Good! Don't’ worry. We’re almost out of here… And the Hellhounds said that the other zebra who came through here was just like you so, yeah! We’re getting the buck out of here and never coming back.”

“Good!” I said a bit louder and more eagerly than necessary.

Then the facts of the matter hit me. I slid to a halt and turned to look over my shoulder. “We were talking to Hellhounds!”

Wander looked over to me and nodded slowly. “Yes… It’s okay. They are nice people.”

I nodded, my ears twitching nervously. “I know! I think I played with their pups. But, I— We— We need to warn them! About the pool! It’s evil!”

Wander trotted up to me and put a hoof on my shoulder. “Gears. Stay with me. Don’t snap again. You did tell them about the pool. Their medicine dog knew about the danger. It doesn't want them, and the spirits keep them safe here… Apparently, the pool is only interested in zebras.”

I shivered as I remembered the pool’s touch on my mind. “T— That make sense… Take revenge on them using one of their own… Okay… Was— Was their, um… Medicine Dog absolutely certain?”

Wander nodded firmly. “Yes. He was very specific. He even said some things that helped calm you down… I think he also gave you something to drink. I don't know for certain. I was trading for your mask.”

A drink? I didn’t remember that… But I think I tasted a hint of oil clinging to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t be certain. My sense of taste was… Well, not very good at all.

I reached up and touched the mask on my face. I’d almost forgotten I had it on… I needed to not think about the pool anymore.

“Thanks. How can the Hellhounds handle living here? Don’t they have a better sense of smell than us?” I asked as I took stock of our surroundings.

We were on yet another rubble strewn street corner filled with abandoned rusting auto wagons, totally intact but entirely bleached pony skeletons, and the occasional mound of junk the hellhounds had made into cairns while looting. It looked no different from anywhere else in this cursed city.

“I asked them last time I was here,” Wander commented as she turned her attention to the map. “They think it smells great.”

I blinked several times and titled my head. “They… Think it smells… Good?”

Error 422! LOGIC CANNOT BE FOLLOWED!

“Well, yeah! They’re carnivores, you know. This place probably smells like the inside of a Hayburger to them.”

Oh. That makes sense. Good!

I sighed and shook my head slowly. “Wander… I was around before the war, but not for very long. I have no idea what that is.”

Wander hummed and looked back up at the sign. “Oh, a fast food chain that went bankrupt just before the ministries came into power… I think they rebranded but… It’s been so long since I’ve ever cared about food I’ve almost forgotten all about that sort of thing.”

I nodded and trotted forward, looking at the map. It was hoof drawn, or well, paw drawn I guess. The detail on the map was incredible, in spite of it being made using a sharpened stick that was burnt and home-recycled paper.

Every building, every street, all were drawn as if from a birds eye view. Not in the usual format of putting boxes for buildings. They’d bothered to detail how the top of each building looked.

That was ingenious! The map made every skyscraper a unique landmark. If you couldn’t read the text on the map, or didn’t have a compass, you’d still be able to use it!

Note to self: Never underestimate Hellhounds. Especially not their scouts!

“What are we looking for?” I asked. “Are you trying to use the map labels? Because the building tops would probably be more useful.”

Wander sighed. “I’m trying to remember what used to be in this part of the city.”

“Why?”

“Because I performed here often enough to have known some of what was around town, and the map does not label pre-war structures by names that, you know, tell me what they actually were. I only read a little Hound,” Wander remarked as she glared at the map then down the street.

“The problem,” Wander continued as I remained silent. “Is that they warned us about wild dogs infesting this part of the city, and I want to make sure we take a safe route out of here that doesn't cross something like, say, an old power plant that might be patiently waiting to explode. Or anything else that’s just begging to give us trouble.”

I nodded slowly, frowning. “Wild dogs? As in feral ghouls that happen to be hellhounds?”

“No. Mutant dogs descended from the pets that managed to survive,” Wander corrected. “The hounds described them as, uh… Well, in Equish I guess it would be ‘bear-dogs’. As in, the size and strength of.”

I cleared my throat and squinted down the street. “Okay, I see… A post office, a library, and a police station.”

Wander’s face scrunched enough to make her mask move. “I… We’re not going past the police station. Twenty caps says its got a few sentinels that would just love to shoot at the ‘Zebra Spy’.”

My lips pursed in realization. I hadn’t thought of that as a danger in the Heartlands… I’d realized there would be malfunctioning robots, but I hadn't considered that even properly functioning robots could be a threat.

“Okay. Sooo! Where can we go that's not swarming with giant mutant dogs which are not friendly?” A shiver of dread slid down my spine as I realized we might have to get closer to the pool to go around the dogs.

Wander sighed. “Well… We’re boxed in by some fallen towers. We’re not going back the way we came, and we need to get around the towers to get out of the city. Either we go this way,” she said tracing a path on the map with a pebble in her magic as she spoke. “Which takes us closer to the pool… The pool I’ve now had two mystically inclined people tell me is literally liquid evil! Or, we go this other way, and risk getting a bit too close for comfort to where those dogs are supposed to be. Or... Well, I guess we could go straight ahead through the botanical gardens…”

I raised an eyebrow at Wander. “Why are we even hesitating? The gardens sound like the only choice we have.”

“Weeellll,” Wander said as she rocked back on her hooves nervously. “It wouldn’t be the first zoo or zoo-like place I’ve been too over the years… Maybe the eighth? It also wouldn’t be out of line to say that going into a zoo is just begging for there to be some sort of… Incident.”

“Ah,” I slowly touched the map with the point of my hoof, enjoying the warmth that radiated from Wander’s magic aura while I pointed to the route that would take us closer to the pool. “We’re not going this way.”

Wander nodded. “Yeah… “ She turned and look into my eyes. Her twin red pupils contracted with fear. “I camped by that when I first came up here… I— I saw nothing other than bubbling liquid. The medicine dog said he can see ponies under there… Trying to get out.”

“We’re never coming back here,” I said adamantly.

“Or using that route,” Wander agreed.

We only really had two choices. Unknown danger, or huge vicious dogs that people who could claw through power armor thought of as a problem.

I cleared my throat. “So… Do we fight through a pack of feral bear-dogs, or take a chance with the garden?”

Wander took a nervous breath. “I want to say the dogs… But if Hellhounds are afraid of them…”

“Let’s take a walk in the garden,” I said as I began to trot across an oddly clear intersection.

I frowned as I took note of that oddity. Why was this part of the road clear when everywhere else was full of old cars and junk piles?

Wander trotted up next to me while I thought through the puzzle. I knew the piles were made by the hellhounds, and if they were worried about dangerous animals here, maybe they didn’t scavenge here, and therefore we didn't see any of their reject piles.

But then, why were there no auto-wagons?

Had they scavenged them, but left everything else alone? For metal perhaps?

No, that made no sense. The Hounds would have taken wagons from safe areas first if they wanted them.

That meant there had been no wagons driving here or even parked in the garden’s lot when the megaspell hit the city.

But why?

The street remained empty as we walked down it. Nothing at all but the crumbling buildings towering above us, the cracked and faded asphalt, and the looming wall of the Gardens ahead… And a few piles of chalky rubble laying in the street between us.. And… The… Wa… Ohhh…

Those were not rubble piles. That was a street literally paved with bones.

Hundreds of ponies had died in the small parking lot the street opened up into. Among them lay old wooden signs which the elements had long since rendered unreadable. Protestors. At the gardens. Who had been in the open when the city was hit and everypony’s soul and flesh had been cast into the pool.

Poor bastards…

Wander stopped walking for a few moments to take the sight in with me. As her hoofsteps stopped clicking and echoing, I could hear a faint voice coming from something electronic. A recording… But where from? And what was it saying?

I resumed waking and made my way towards the mass grave, following the sound. As I approached the garden’s gates I saw a small portable loudspeaker tower. It had been tipped over somehow, as the years went by. It was resting at an angle against the garden's three story high brick wall, with its base in the middle of a sandbag semicircle around the wrought iron garden gates closed with loops of heavy chain.

The sandbag fortification was surrounded by pony skeletons wearing shreds of riot gear. I saw a mask just like mine. Police officers, here to ensure the protest didn't get out of hoof? Or had they been here to put an end to it?

The recorded voice was audible the moment I stopped walking again.

“— your homes! None of the garden’s plants are best used as food. These plants serve vital medical purposes. Please, disperse and return to your homes. If you do not disperse within ten minutes, we are authorized to use teargas on y— What in tartarus is that Oh, buck! Everyone! Take cover!.”

A loud but surprisingly dull boom rumbled from the speaker. Then the recording crackled, hissed, and sputtered as an indescribable shimmery, oozy, ripply magical noise scratched form the speaker. The sound of the megaspell…

I shivered.

“Return to your homes!” The speaker repeated, looping back to the start of the recording. “None of the garden’s—”

I tore my attention away from the broken speaker endlessly looping through a dead stallions’ last word and turned around to face the crowd of long dead protesters. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

I felt a little guilty that I couldn’t ever know what being hungry was like… These poor ponies had died trying to get a meal of whatever random weeds and flowers they thought there must have been in the garden.

I turned to look over my shoulder at the remains of the officers. They must have had it even worse. There’s no way they hadn’t been starving too, and their job had been to keep their fellow hungry ponies from having a terrible meal… Which they themselves couldn’t eat either.

Poor guys… Was there any metaphysical or doctrinal reasons not to hug a skeleton out of sympathy?

“Hey!” Wander called from a short distance away, snapping me out of my thoughts.

The ghoul was standing next to the base of the loudspeaker. I trotted over to her, taking care to not step on anypony’s remains. The poor ponies were suffering enough as it was…

Somepony needed to find a way to destroy that pool. They had to be freed.

“What?” I asked Wander, hoping I could force the pool from my mind again.

“The gate’s chained shut, my keyfinding spell is pointing into the gardens, and the wall runs to the buildings on either side of the garden… Our only way in is to climb up the loudspeaker,” Wander said nodding at the tower. “That’s the bad news. Good news is my peek through the gate says once we’re in we can jump from that tower there onto the roof of a greenhouse, then we can just hop between the greenhouse roofs clear to the other side. It’s not that far!”

I checked my saddle’s straps, tightened them up a little, then nodded in agreement. “Sounds like a plan.”

Climbing up the tower was easy. While slightly rusty, the pyramid lattice of ladder-like support struts had managed to remain intact enough to take my weight, which meant Wander was completely safe. After all, the gaunt meat-pony was definitely much lighter than the voluptuous metal and silicone mare.

The moment I could see over the wall top, I froze. Wander had been right. The garden was definitely dangerous.

It was full of giant mutated carnivorous plants.

I didn’t know much of anything about botany, but I knew about meat-eating plants. What zebra didn’t? We had a whole category of cooking called Revenge Entrees which were made using such plants after they had eaten a zebra. Most of them were tastier chilled.

The garden was overgrown, and filled with pitcher plants that had huge thorns on the inside of other larger pitchers, perfect for holding prey inside their acid-filled ‘jars’. There were massive fly traps too, or should I say bear-dog traps? One of them, which was closed, still had a huge canine leg and paw sticking out from between the wooden teeth of its maw.

The ground itself was covered in an odd leafy plant that I thought was a fern at first until I noticed the ‘fronds’ were moving, curling around anything they touched, leaving slight burn marks on other plants stalks before letting go…

Wander reached the point next to me and looked down. “Oh… That, uh… That’s how the entire garden is.”

“Yep…” I agreed with a nervous flick of my tail.

“Sooo, want to buy a ticket for the nope train to buck this and try our luck with the dogs?” Wander asked just a little hopefully.

I sighed and shook my head. It was time to tell her a little about myself.

“Wander… If you get hurt, you regenerate.”

She nodded. “Yep. I know you don’t, but I have some stimpacks. If you get bit—”

“If I get bit,” I interrupted, “the only pony who can fix me is about three weeks travel north of here. I don’t need doctors, Wander. I need a cybersurgeon… Or, well, I guess a roboticist would do in a pinch.”

Wander mmmed nervously and looked down into the garden again. “They don’t appear to have grown up to the tops of the green houses… I don’t like that, but it is still a clear path.”

I nodded again and ran a weary eye over the slowly lashing acid-ferns below. They covered the floor, but every surface above them was similarly choked with an angry red creeper. Vines like that should generally grow all the way up the sides of things. What was keeping them away from the upper levels? “Yeah… Want me to go first? I’m heavier than you. If the glass can take me, it can take you.”

“Good plan. Go for it,” Wander said with a nervous swish of her tail.

I turned my attention to the greenhouse nearest the wall. It was huge, easily the size of a small condominium. I’d be able to live in there with at least eight families, if none of them minded a communal kitchen and bathroom. On top of being huge, I couldn't see through the glass. Years of filth covered the once clear panels, blocking almost all of the light from passing through the glass panes… And something was filling up most of the space inside the greenhouse.

Hopefully, it was just full of a huge pile of mulch and fungus left over from dead medicinal herbs.

”You know damn well they are full of the plants’ stomachs. Or some kind of hybrid plant-pony monsters. Or… I don’t know… Mutant rats the size of the whole greenhouse, which is actually their shell, like a hermit crab!” Imaginary Dad chastised. Excitedly, for some reason.

Please don't jinx me from beyond the grave, dad!

I looked ahead of me, towards the edge of the greenhouse. There was a three meter gap between the end of the loudspeaker and the beginning of the greenhouse. The greenhouse’s metal support frame was painted blue, which meant it shouldn’t have rusted much. The supports were also fairly thick. I’d try jumping for one of them.

After all, just because the glass might handle my weight standing on it, it didn’t mean it could handle me crashing into it.

I carefully maneuvered into place on the very end of the loudspeaker. The aging metal creaked and groaned under my weight. It couldn’t hold me for long. The endlessly looping recording seemed to quaver and hiss in protest as I stood nearly atop the speaker itself.

I jumped. I’d never been very good at jumping.

The greenhouse grew larger and larger in my vision. I spread my legs wide, not wanting the sharp point of a hoof to strike the glass and—

CRUNCH!

I saw stars as I slammed barrel first into the support beam. The greenhouse shuddered under the impact, but did not buckle. Glass creaked and squealed in protest, but did not crack.

Thank, Celestia!

I began to slide down the roof. I scrambled for purchase, and my rear hooves found a lip of metal between the glass panes to grip onto. I was safe.

I slowly stood up and began to walk across the greenhouse roof, moving towards the greenhouse next to it. The greenhouse creaked and moaned with each step, but it seemed to handle my weight just fine.

I smiled and turned around, waving for Wander to jump too.

She backed up a few paces on the tower, managing to maintain her balance atop the groaning structure as she took a running leap towards the greenhouse. She sailed through the air, her cloak billowing behind her...

Giving me the first look I ever had at what was under it.

She had her holster on her rear left leg, a tiny little bag on a leather strap over one shoulder, and a bandoleer sewn to her jumpsuit with marked bottles of Aqua Cura slotted in where 60mm grenades should go.

That was it.

How the buck did she fit her guitar in that bag?! My bags were bigger on the inside too, sure, but the things in them still had to fit through the opening!

Wander landed on the green house with a wumph and a crack. The glass beneath her spiderwebbed around her hooves as she landed. I yelped and lunged towards her, managing to grab her cloak with my hoof as I landed on my belly.

The glass didn’t break. We both let out a sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” Wander said quietly.

“Don’t mention it.”

Wander dusted herself off, even though nothing she’d done would have gotten her dirty. I was glad my gas mask hid my smile as I watched her literally try to brush off the non-accident.

“Maybe I should jump first, if the glass is this brittle,” Wander proposed as she took the lead.

“Just don't land on your hooves. Glass is like crystal, it doesn't take hits well from anything heavier than a pebble. Land on your belly.”

Wander groaned and turned to look into my eyes. Her red orbs pleaded with me, begged for something. Once I realized what worried her, I nodded. “I won’t ever tell anypony about this.”

“Thank you,” Wander murmured as she set out to make the jump to the next greenhouse.

There were seven more greenhouses between us and the end of the garden. I could see the caustic mud-field through the buildings on the other side. We were almost out of town! Thank Celestia! I never thought I’d be so glad to see meat-reeking metal melting poison mud!

We ran across the roof, and made the first jump. The second greenhouse was sturdier than the first. It didn’t shake when I landed on it, though the loud wumph made Wander wince and call out. “How much metal is in you?”

I blushed and squirmed in place before standing up. “Uh… That’s a little personal.”

“Not when we’re jumping onto glass panels over greenhouses full of mystery-danger!” She pointed out with a twinge of real fear to her voice.

That was a very good point… Whelp, here’s where the end starts.

“I weigh two hundred and thirty seven kilograms,” I answered quietly. “Make a fat joke and I’ll pin you down and scorch your taint off with my eye laser.”

“Woah!” Wander triple blinked behind her visor. “That’s almost three times what I weighed before going on the balefire diet!”

I reached up and started to slip off my mask so I wouldn’t melt a hole in it. Wander held up her hooves defensively. “Easy! Not a fat joke! Just wondering how many implants you even have in there… And also now completely okay with walking on any glass that can support you.”

I nodded and lowered my mask back on and let out the breath I had been holding. No way was I going to breath in any of that stench if I couldn’t help it. It smelled like it might corrode my insides…

If only breathing was as optional as eating or drinking… But that would have gone against mom’s orders relating to my design.

We made our way to the edge of the roof and made our jumps again. My hooves made an odd dull ‘wumph’ sound as I landed on the glass. I frowned and looked down, trying to see what was different this time. While I was looking Wander landed next to me, again making a dull ‘wumph’ that seemed to come from inside the structure.

“The hay was that?” Wander asked reflexivity as she began to slowly cross the rooftop.

I wiped some of the grime from the glass and squinted hard. There wasn’t any light reaching the inside of the greenhouse. It was entirely filled with something… Grayish brown… Papery… And ribbed.

I had seen something like this in a book, what was it?

“Come on!” Wander called. “They said the bear-dogs get more aggressive at night. I’d like to be a few clicks away from the city when that happens. Especially because they’ve seen them running on the ooze without a care in the world.”

I shivered. If those ‘dogs’ could withstand acid strong enough to eat away at stone, my LAERs would probably have a hard time putting them down. I nodded and turned to move to the next greenhouse.

“Sorry. Just, you know, that sound was really—”

Wander’s next step brought with it the distinct sound of shattering glass. The pane she had stepped on must have been cracked. She plunged downwards with a terrified yelp.

I ran towards the edge of the hole, eyes wide, nostrils flared, dreading the sound of a sickening crunch. A wet splat met my ears.

What? But… But she’d only fallen about ten meters tops. That wasn’t long enough to become pavement pizza!

“Ew!” Wander shouted from within the hole. “What the buck is this stuff?”

Thank goodness, she’s okay!

I trotted up to the edge of the hole, bracing my weight on the metal crossbeam so I wouldn’t fall through any compromised glass. “Need a hoof up?” I asked as I peeked into the hole.

A hole that was filled with more of the papery stuff and a viscous yellowish-greenish muck that smelled, well, delicious! It was probably pure poison.

Wander was stuck in a blob of it roughly twice her size, slowly sinking down into the liquid-ish mass.

Wait a minute… Was that… Honey?

Wander yelped as she looked up to reply to me. The yelp was in pain. “Get me out! Something is biting my hoof!”

That’s when I saw movement in the shadows around wander. Huge, insect shaped, shadows. And not the changebuggy kind. A massive, truly hideously oversized, black and yellow chitinous exoskeleton clad face slowly moved out of the shadows.

Black and yellow stripes. Clicking mandibles. An excited buzzing. Bulbous compound eyes that appeared to glare into your very soul. Wander had fallen into a giant mutant wasp hive!

Wander made a distressed sound I couldn't even begin to describe, then shrieked. “HELP! HELP NOW! NOW HELPING, PLEASE!”

Very few things can make a pony move at what feels to be light speed. Giant wasps is one of those things.

Before I knew it I had opened my bags and retrieved a small grappling hook I carried to retrieve anything I might drop down a crevasse my strider couldn’t traverse. I clipped the hook to my saddlebag buckle and threw the end of the rope with hoof grips down to Wander.

She bit down on the rope before winding her forelegs around the rope securely. I immediately began to run. I didn’t think wasps made honey, and based on how hard it was to make those first few steps, they didn’t. They made quick-dry cement!

Giant. Mutant. Wasps.

Giant mutant wasps that vomit quick-dry cement.

NOPE!

I heard Wander get free with a loud squelch and pop. The next thing I heard was the thrum of insect wings. Hundreds of them. Followed almost instantly by two screaming mares.

One of whom was me.

I felt the rope go slack as Wander hauled herself out of the hole and let go of the rope to sprint across the roof and jump to the next greenhouse. I could see a large hole in her cloak. And the tip of a black and purple stinger sticking out of it.

”Defend yourself, you idiot!” Imaginary dad screamed in my ears.

He was right, I could hear the swarm closing in on me. I switched my link module online. My battle saddle hummed to life… And then I remembered it could only shoot things in my front facing arc.

I raced towards the edge of the roof, prepared to do something stupid, and jumped. I soared through the air, my hooves clawing at my riot mask, pulling it down around my neck to free my mouth. I expected the foul stench of the mud to assault my nose. Instead, the garden’s air smelled sickly sweet, like candy which had somehow gone off.

I looked down as I reached for my holster with my teeth. For a moment I could see the plants below me. Their gaping maws pointed upwards, almost drooling as they hoped I would fall short of the roof.

Then my teeth closed on my pistol’s grip and I could see behind me. The sky was wasps. Just wasps. Hundreds of them. They surged out of the hole in their nest like water from a broken pipe.

I drew my pistol. The vacuum tubes on top began to glow as it charged. I’d forgotten to pre-charge it this morning.

We were so bucked…

I hit the roof shoulder first with a crunch. The glass beneath me began to crack. BUCK THAT!

I scrambled off the cracking glass like my life depended on it, which it probably did. Milliseconds after I got off the glass I felt a rush of air above me before a stabbing pain spread all across my back once, twice, three times, all in the span of a heartbeat!

The pain was horrible. The wasps’ stinger couldn't pierce my armor, but its venom melted my hide, making it bubble and sizzle. I screamed around the gun in my mouth, twisted my head, and fired a burst of laserlight into the swarm. Dad’s old gun screeched as it sent half a dozen rays of emerald light into three wasps. The liquid in them boiled instantly, making them pop like balloons and scatter neon orange hemolymph everywhere.

EW!

I managed to stand up. A wasp the size of a foal slammed stinger first into my shoulder, knocking me down again. Melting a hoofball sized patch of my flesh off again… I could feel my clothes burn and sizzle along with my hide. My saddle’s enchantments would protect it, but not for long. I turned, trying to move the bag with my deliveries away form the wasps.

Then, the swarm was on me.

The world became nothing but buzzing, black, yellow, and pain.

I screamed.

A bolt of blue light streaked past my head. I heard Wander yell something. I think she wanted me to run.

I stood up, doing my best to ignore the pain of my entire coat being melted off. Not an easy task by any stretch.

I ran forward, broke free from the swarm, and jumped on instinct. I was glad I had. If I hadn't I would have run straight off the edge of the roof into a pitcher plant.

Wander was standing on the next roof over, firing into the swarm to cover me. Her head snapped up as I landed on the roof next to her, without a shred of fur on me, covered in a mixture of wasp venom and leaking coolant.

“LUNA’S ENGORGED TITS! WHAT THE BUCK? IS THAT WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE UNDER—”

I turned my head and fired everything my pistol had into the swarm. “RUN, STUPID!” I shouted around my weapon

“Right!” Wander agreed instantly.

We ran as fast as we could. The swarm flew as fast as it could. Wander’s telekinesis let her fire blindly backwards as fast as she could. I could hear wasps pop as the magical energy blasted through them. The swarm only ever grew louder and angrier. It didn’t care if we hurt parts of it.

“Oh come on!” I shouted as we reached the next roof and the angry buzzing grew even louder as still more wasps flooded the sky. “Changeling swarms are twice your size and half as scary!”

Wander laughed maniacally. “Canterlot wedding planners beg to differ! RUN!”

The swarm parted and began to flow around us in two wide arcs… They were going to cut off our escape! Oh buck the hay no!

Not while you're in my forward firing arc!

My LAERs jumped to attention. I willed them to fire, and bolts of purple-tinged lighting streaked through the sky. I focused on the swarm to our left. Bolt after bolt of lightning blasted wasp after wasp. The air became little more than a cloud of orange bug-guts and wasps, but still the swarm didn't falter.

It just got even angrier.

Wander and I jumped again and again. Her bolts of terrifying-seizure-death focused on the right side of the swarm in a futile attempt to slow them down. There were just too many. If I was hearing them correctly, each greenhouse was in fact a thin glass shell around a mutant wasp hive.

I almost wished our only route out of the city was a swim in the pool.

Suddenly, the greenhouses ran out. The garden’s far wall loomed ahead of us. And above us. Somehow, neither of us had realized that the wall was slightly taller than the greenhouse roofs. We had no way out!

So I made one.

A full-power shot from both my LAERs blasted a large section of the wall into a cloud of brick dust and twisted ironmongery. The wall above it collapsed in a shower of bricks. I didn’t even think, I dove for the new opening. Wander jumped along side me. We sailed through the gap as wasps flowed over the wall, understanding we were escaping their unholy wrath.

Wander landed on her hooves with a crunch and screeched as one of her legs snapped and folded under her. The magic aura around her pistol vanished as the pain broke her concentration. The weapon went skidding across the street, stopping well out of her easy reach.

I landed with a loud metallic thunk and began to fire my pistol into the swarm. Automatic weapons are better for aerial targets. My pistol was automatic, but did next to nothing compared to my LAERs. In this case, the sheer number of wasps demanded more dakka than their semi-auto could supply.

Wander began to recover almost immediately. She stood up. Her leg twitched and bulged once, snapping grotesquely back into place as the bone healed itself within seconds. She growled angrily and whipped her guitar out from under her cloak with a bellow of, “ENOUGH!”

A wasp stung her left flank four times, making her scream and curl up in a ball.

The hay did she think her guitar would do?! Make for a good flyswatter?

I continued to shoot into the swarm while trying to look through the wall of what were clearly tartarian tormentor wasps for a doorway we could try to duck through to escape them. Six different wasps tried to sting me, their stingers skipped off my armor, each one sending a fresh jolt of pain through my body.

Mom, why do I have to feel everything attached to me like it’s a body part? Some things shouldn't have touch, mom!

I managed to peer through a gap in the wall of wasps for an instant. No door. Just a sign.

Manever Community Botanical Gardens, home to Equestria’s largest hive of Mexicolt Honey Wasps!

Buck you, pre-war ponies! BUCK YOU RIGHT TO TARTARUS!

This was why mom hadn’t come here! It wasn’t the pool. This was wasp country! She had known about this!

I was going to die here… The wasps would keep my hide from regrowing, I’d keep bleeding coolant. I’d overheat, slag my systems, and die.

As the wasps’ incessant wrathful buzzing began to block out every other sensation I had, I felt my systems attempt to cry, even though I didn’t have tear ducts at the moment.

Mom, Katydid, Feature… I’m so sorry!

”What about me?”

You’re me and also dead!

”Rude…”

My last thoughts were weird!

Wander shook off the pain and stood back up. She yanked the stone tooth off her neck with a savage tug from her hoof and glared at it.

“Life or death time is now time!” She shouted at the tooth.

What?

Something in the tooth stirred. A spirit! One I hadn’t been able to sense. It was either very old and skilled, or horribly injured. Nothing else explained how I hadn’t been able to sense it before.

Wander raised the tooth along with her guitar and struck a sharp chord. The tooth shimmered, emitting a faint white light. I could watch the magic flowing through Wander’s telekinesis as it was absorbed by the tooth, feeding it… Only to be spat back out as a burst of blue-white light which poured off the guitar strings and washed harmlessly over me, pushing the wasps away.

A shield! She was using a talisman to make a shield!

Where the buck had she found a zebra talisman? You know what, I don’t care!

“Keep that going! We can hide in,” I looked around again, this time spotting an open doorway across the street. “In there!”

Wander nodded and struck the same chord again, then again as she started to play an upbeat rock and roll tune I found vaguely familiar.

I began to slowly move towards the open doorway. The wasps started to sting the shield bubble, making it sparkle and pop. Wander groaned with each strike, and I could see the spirit in the tooth drawing on more and more of her magic to maintain the shield with each hit.

Wander would fall unconscious before long… And we’d be back to square one. Dying to wasps in the street.

I knew what I had to do. Stripy-pone back rides!

I dove between Wander’s legs and sprang to my hooves, forcing her up onto my back in a smooth motion before bolting towards the open door.

The wasps raged around the shield, stinging it so much that parts of the shield wore thin, and stingers managed to slide through the small gaps. Yeah. That talisman was definitely broken.

Wander began to sing, her voice sounding pained and out of breath, meaning she was definitely singing expressly to keep herself active.

“I say we can act if want to, If we don't nobody will.
And you can act real rude, and totally removed,
And I can act like an imbecile.
I say we can dance, we can dance everything out control!
We can dance, we can dance we're doing it wall to wall.
We can dance, we can dance. Everypony look at your hooves.
We can dance, we can dance. Everypony takin' the chance.
Safety dance!”

She had a zebra talisman that made a shield when you sang the Safety Dance. Whoever made that talisman deserved a hug. Then a bap on the nose.

Her song carried us across the street and through the door. I turned and immediately slammed it shut behind us. Wander collapsed off my back with an exhausted moan, her shield falling as she dropped her guitar. A stinger instantly erupted through the wood as a wasp slammed into the door. I looked around in a panic, the door was the only way into this room that I could see. The windows had been boarded up.

I turned the door’s lock and backed away from the door, dragging Wander as I went. I felt my entire body itch as my healing talisman finally began to regrow my pelt, or at least the parts where I wasn’t too covered in caustic venom for it to regrow.

Time for a status check.

Pelt, regrowing.

Weapons? All here.

Clothing? Melted to nothing. Buck.

Saddle? Fine.

Strider? Fine.

Bags? Pristine.

Coolant? Running low.

I hadn't lost too much coolant, but I’d still be running hot, which wasn’t good at all. Upside, I wasn’t dead now and if I could just find some alcohol, salt, and water, well, I could fix low coolant issues just fine.

I heard a wet squelch and wheeled around, nostrils flared, ready to fire at the wasp. It wasn’t a wasp. It was Wander pulling a stinger the length of her foreleg out of her back.

“You’ll regenerate from that, right?”

Wander looked up at me and whimpered. “Tooth… Can’t loose… Tooth…”

I nodded, gulped at the thought of heading towards the sound of raging insects outside, and
trotted over to her dropped guitar, and the tooth. I picked both up and brought them over to her.

Wander nodded wordlessly and then pointed to the door with a shaking hoof. “They… Poison. Poison still hurts me… Not stung badly enough. Been… Here a lot. Death’s futon. I need, sleep. Will sleep this off… Be fine in… A night or so. We… Rest… Here… Okay?”

My ears lay back in anger. Not at her, but at the situation. I was going to have to be near the pool for a night. This was not okay… But I’d do it. Wander was my friend.

I nodded. “I’ll cover you.”

“Good robopone,” Wander murmured as her eyes fluttered shut.

“Cyborg,” I corrected. “My pelt’s organic.”

Wander’s cheeks wrinkled behind her mask as she smiled. “You look really robot… With that armor… No fur… Besides, Red Eye… Cyborg… That slaver king. You know. Sang about him.”

Figures that one cyborg does something bad so we’re all hated forever. Stupid racism! Why do you work the way you do?

I nodded. “I remember. I’m… I’m not like him.”

Physically, or mentally.

Wander tried to laugh, but was so tired it came out as a quiet wheeze. She spent a few long moments regaining her breath, then grinned at me. “I... Didn't say you were. I was as good as dead back there, but you didn't hesitate. Far as I'm concerned, that makes you a good robopone."

“Cyborg,” I corrected again. “I’m bleeding! Come on, you can see that.”

Wander opened her eyes, sat up enough to take a look at my still healing, still dripping chassis, sniffed the air, then smirked. “That’s… Salted vodka. Can’t fool me. Know my vodka.”

Damn it… Why hadn’t I added red dye to my coolant?

“Okay, fine! It’s alcohol based coolant, but I’m still bleeding!” I protested, stomping a hoof on the old rotting floor.

“Yes,” Wander murmured quietly. “Bleeding robot blood. You robot, you!”

“Cyborg!” I protested. “Do I look big enough to fit a Crusader Mainframe into? I’m a person! You can’t code something that complex in a package this small!”

“Robopones are people too! Season three, episode sixteen,” Wander held her trembling hoof out in an odd gesture which resembled a salute. “Never give up! Never surrender!”

The exhausted, toxin addled mare slumped over face first on the floor, falling into a deep, fatigue and poison fueled slumber. I gently rolled her into a more comfortable position. Half for kindness’s sake, half to make sure her heart was still beating.

It was.

I turned around and aimed all of my guns at the door. Nothing was going to hurt my friend on my watch. Not even what was hopefully not infinite wasps.

I kept my vigil through the night. The wasps left after just a few long minutes. Dogs scratched at the door and howled. Something unknowable and evil whispered things I refused to listen to as the moon set.

We were never, ever, coming back here. Not for all the coal in Zebrica.

6 - Raid on Magebridge

Two days. It had been two days since we left Manever behind. Even though I knew I was never going back there, the pool still haunted me. Three days ago, I had been perfectly fine being alone, I even enjoyed it. Nearly walking into that pool changed everything.

I needed company. I needed someone real to talk too. Not about the horrors we’d blundered into. About literally anything else. I needed to push those memories aside, and focus on… Well, something nice. Or a mystery.

Obviously, I had someone to talk too. Wander was leading the way to Sire’s Hollow. Traveling companions were supposed to talk with you. That’s how all the stories go. Unfortunately, Wander didn't seem to read the same novels I did. She was a very quiet pony.

I hadn’t noticed how quiet she was before. Wander didn’t seem to enjoy talking, or socializing unless it was necessary. Normally, I would be fine with that. Hay, I hadn’t noticed it at all for the first few days we’d been together. But now that I felt the need to talk about anything other than what we’d just gone through, well…

Trying to get her to just talk for the sake of conversation was like pulling teeth, assuming you were a dentist and the pony had come to get a tooth pulled. But I didn’t want to just talk about anything. Not with Wander. I wanted to know why a pony would choose to wander from town to town for hundreds of years to make her living playing ancient melodies.

Trying to get Wander to talk about her past was also like pulling the teeth... but instead of a dentist, you were the tylwyth teg of Crystal Pony folklore, the monster who broke into ponies houses to rip out their teeth. And the pony knew you were coming for them that night.

“Come, on,” I begged, as I trotted around yet another ancient husk of a dead tree.

Wander sighed and shook her head as she decided to climb over a boulder. Probably to make me have to go around and thus get a few lengths of space between us.

I frowned, and put on my best Sweetie Eyes™ to plead with Wander, even though she had already created the boulder. “Please?”

“No!” the ancient ghoul snapped even more harshly than the last two times I’d even remotely approached the topic.

I must have needed more practice with Sweetie Eyes™… Why did they call them that anyways?

I sighed and followed her over the top of another hill. “You already know a ton about my deep personal secrets! It’s only fair that I know something about you.”

Wander grunted irritably. “Get used to disappointment.”

I narrowed my Sweetie Eyes™ into a glare configuration as my own irritation reached critical mass. All I wanted to know is what that show she’d quoted was! “If you won't tell me I’ll just have to puzzle it out, like you did with me!”

“Good luck,” Wander sighed, her tail flicking back and forth.

“Really?” I sighed and hung my head. “You won't tell a friend—”

Wander stopped dead in her tracks and spun around so quickly I couldn’t even maintain the glare configuration.

She glared into my eyes and leaned forwards, managing to loom over me. “I. Don’t. Have. Friends!”

I stood there, completely still as she turned around and resumed walking down the hill towards the road in the distance.

”The buck was that about?” Imaginary Dad asked, clearly more shocked than I was.

Hay if I know! I saved her life and she doesn't think of me as a friend?

”She’s also okay with you not being a meat-pony… Ugh, mares!”

That too!

I shook my head clear and then pointedly cleared my throat. “Excuse me!” I demanded.

Wander silently kept walking past what looked suspiciously like a burial cairn.

I grit my teeth in irritation and galloped forwards, passing Wander then pivoting to block her path. That got her attention. She took a deep breath and then turned and stared into my eyes with an uncomfortable intensity I could only compare to watching mom look at the dates in her diaries.

“I’m not explaining that,” Wander informed.

“The hay you aren't!” I said, reasserting my glare configuration as sharply as I could and activating my eye-laser just enough to make my pupil glow for maximum intimidation. “I saved your life the other day! You really believe I’m a person! We bonded! That makes us friends, or so I thought! What is your problem with me?”

Wander closed her eyes tighter and growled. “I don’t have friends, okay?!”

“Then what are we?!” I demanded, jabbing at her patchwork covered chest with my left hoof.

Wander winced. “Ow! Easy. We’re an employer and employee. I work for you because you’re offering me something I can’t turn down, and you’re being a fair boss. It’s more than I deserve.”

Deserve? An interesting choice of words.

I nodded slowly, softening the glare configuration and switching my eye-laser back to standby. “I get it… You don’t think you deserve to have friends.”

Wander took another deep breath, turned, and walked around me. “Because I don’t.”

I wheeled around to follow her, making sure to keep pace at her side. I could feel my systems starting to warm up. I’d lost enough coolant to no longer have the mechanical endurance I was used too. If Wander kept this pace up, I could only stay neck and neck with her for a few kilometers at best.

Is this how normal ponies and zebras felt? That’s awful! Mom should fix everypony's endurance!

“That’s not for you to decide,” I insisted. “Other ponies decide who to give their friendship to. You don’t get to just decide on your own that you’re not worth their time and care.”

Wander’s ears lay back fast enough for me to see the movement under her cloak. She wanted to say something, I could tell, but she was holding her tongue for dear life.

”She called you her boss,” Imaginary Dad reminded coyly.

She did! How exploitable.

I cleared my throat and sped up enough to draw alongside Wander again. “Well, if you’re my employee, then you have to do what I say, right?”

Wander shot me a dirty look. “Nice as a way to stay sane forever would be, I can quit this gig any time I want.”

True, but something told me she wouldn’t hit her quitting point if I carefully paused at the very edge of her problem, rather than going right for the core. I could work with that. Whatever it took to get her talking.

Anything to take my mind off of the thing in the heart of Manever.

“Oh, I’m not going to be that kind of a jerk,” I said as soothingly as I could. “I do, however, demand to know what it is you’re trying not to say.”

Wander huffed, her scarf fluttered violently as she exhaled. “Fine…”

She stopped walking and turned to look me in the eye. “Every other pony who ever counted on me for anything would warn you to keep your distance from me, Whirling Gears.”

“Why?”

Wander narrowed her eyes dangerously. “Don’t push it.”

I narrowed my eyes right back. “I need to know who's working for me if I want to be able to trust them.”

Wander grit her teeth. “Buck! Fine! You get this one, okay?”

I nodded. Time to go full boss mode! “That’s fine for now. I really think I should know why my guide thinks that every single pony she ever met would tell me not to trust her.”

“I left them all to die. Twice,” Wander muttered as she hung her head in shame.

That wasn't remotely like the excuses or half truths I had expected. “I— Wait, what?”

“My old friends, the ones I mentioned…” Wander said, her voice nearly a whisper. “I… I could have saved them. My Stable pass was for my family. I got a plus one on top of that, and so did everypony in my family. I could have let her join me in the Stable… I could have made sure my wife and my friends were all safe with me, but just because I was mad at them and wanted to get away for awhile, I didn’t let them come with me… Then the world burned… I killed them, Gears. I killed them by leaving them to die in a cataclysm I knew was right around the corner.”

Well… horseapples!

I reached out and pulled Wander to my chest with one foreleg, doing my best to give her a hug. She pushed me away and turned around.

“Then… After the world burned, the guilt ate me up. I had to know if they were okay. So, I left my Stable… If I hadn’t left, it turns out I would have saved everypony I left behind. There was a… a malfunction. I had the technical expertise to fix it. In my search for a way out of the Stable, I’d even figured out its secret. I knew exactly what the problem was. I didn’t say a thing about it to anypony. I just left.”

Wander fell silent and stared out over the horizon. For a heartbeat, I thought that was all she’d say. I wondered if I should try giving her another hug. If she blamed herself for her friend’s death, she would definitely blame whatever happened to her stable on herself too.

Wander turned around and looked me in the eyes for a moment before turning back to look out over the horizon. “A whole Stable, some of Equestria’s brightest…” she murmured. “I thought Shadowhorn could fix things on her own. She was the Stable’s actual Chief Engineer. If I figured it out when I was messing with the system to try and find the ‘doorknob’, she had to have already known something important was busted, right?”

I nodded with a frown on my lips. “That seems reasonable.”

Wander shook her head and sighed, then chuckled bitterly under her breath. “Nope! I was wrong. She had no clue. They all died. I could have warned them. Instead, I left! I thought that if they found out I wanted to leave, they’d make sure I couldn’t. I left, and killed a thousand ponies.”

Wander stood up and turned, walking down towards the road which ran down the valley ahead. “I felt like a monster with just four innocent ponies lives on my conscious, Gears. You will never understand what I felt when I came back to my Stable.”

“I’d like to try,” I said with a sympathetic droop of my ears.

“You’re pretty good at imitating feelings, but you’re not that good,” Wander said, her barbed insult falling flat as she couldn’t put any real venom into it.

I snorted. “I’m not a robot without emotions. Try me.”

Wander sighed. “If I tell you, you don't get to ask me anything else about my past. Ever. Okay?”

I nodded. “I won’t ask.”

“I died,” Wander said quietly. “I broke down and went feral for a while. Not… Not from brain rot. Any living pony could lose their mind like I did. When I came back… I decided that the old me would stay dead. Old me had friends, family, fortune, and fame. She didn't deserve any of it. She was a selfish, evil, monster. I still am. I’m not redeemed yet."

Wander took a deep breath and stared off into the sky. "I’ve been working at redemption for centuries.”

My heart went out to the poor mare. That’s the kind of pony who needs friends!

“I hate to say it, but you sound like you need a friend to help you finish healing.”

“Yes,” Wander agreed with a nod.

I blinked. “Really? You agree with—”

“Thing is,” Wander turned and looked over her shoulder. “I don’t deserve one yet. Boss.”

I nodded slowly. “Alright, if that’s how you feel,” I said with a frown.

Silently adding, then I’ll drag you out of that pit of yours by the tail, if I have to.

I looked up to see how much further we had to go. The road wasn’t very far away now, and I could see the river a few kilometers down the way. We’d be in the next town soon.

I’d have to get a certain ghoul a gift. I’d have to call it an employee benefit to make sure she didn’t turn it down. Wander believed I was a robot, but still saw me as a person. I wasn’t going to let some two-hundred-year-old trauma stand in the way of earning my third friend.

☢★★◯★★☢

In Zebrica, town names are meaningless non-words. For example, the ancient center of alchemy, Cesthnass. On the surface, a nonsense sound. But, if you knew the legends of the city, you’d know the name was a mispronounced contraction of its older name, Castellum apud Confluentes, which meant “The Fort Where the Rivers Become One.”

Sure enough, the city of the alchemists had been built around an ancient fort located right at the tip of the wedge of the mountains, where two of Zebrica’s mightiest rivers joined to form the Spirit's Path.

The shortening of names from sentences into a single word was a trend seemingly everywhere but Equestria. Equestrians tended to name things with wordplay, usually a pun, rather than just a description of what the place is masked by layers of contractions, slurs, and linguistic shifts. That trend is why I half expected Magebridge to be the name of a town built around a bridge made from magic.

In the moment I could first see Magebridge on the horizon, I wasn’t sure if that might actually be true.

Magebridge wasn’t a town built around a river crossing. It was a town built across a river! Specifically, it was all built atop a huge bridge, one which had eight separate rail-lines, two covered two-lane roads, and three hoofpaths, one centered on the bridge’s deck and one on each of its edges.

The size of the bridge made sense, given where it sat on the map. Before the war, this had been one of Equestria’s three main river crossings. This is the bridge which every single item shipped from Manehattan would need to cross to then be sent anywhere west of Canterlot. What did not make sense was how any bridge, even this colossus, could support the weight of an entire pony town atop it!

While the bridge was made from stone supported by steel trusses and was, in fact, four separate quarter-kilometer long trestle arch bridges with a suspension system linking all four segments, it well… It also had three blatantly impossible drawbridge segments.

A super-long bridge (or series of individually impressive bridges brilliantly fused into a singular glorious structural unit) designed to have bits that moved in the middle shouldn’t be capable of supporting a post-war town so overbuilt that they had built a platform over the whole first level of the place and put a whole second row of buildings up on that new tier. I even saw a crane starting work on what might be a third tier above that.

Magebridge was like an open face sandwich. The bridge was the bread, the lowest level was the cheese, and the topmost layer was the veggies.

From a kilometer or so off, it was a bit hard to see much detail on the first deck of the town, especially with the sun right overhead casting the entire place into deep shadows, but I could make out the shapes of tall buildings made from sturdy things like train cars, shipping containers, stone, and scrap-iron.

Everything on that first level was robust. It had to be, it was all load bearing. The second deck was… less impressive.

Magebridge’s upper platform was made from something I didn’t think I’d ever have thought to build with. Opus caementicium. In Equish, it’s just called Zebraican Concrete.

The materials needed to make it could be found almost anyplace. A lot of ponies thought alchemy was required, and that the ancient material was tougher than modern concrete. Neither of those things were actually true, though modern concrete was only just barely better than the ancient recipe from the builders of Cesthnass.

Water, fly ash, some gravel, and whatever old bits of broken ceramic stuff you can sweep up. Mix it all together and you get a surprisingly sturdy concrete.

There had to be a few Zebras living here. Nothing else could explain how they had known the recipe, and also known that to make a strong floor with it you had to put a grid of sticks or metal rods in the middle of the concrete. I could see bits of the supporting gridwork sticking out of the edges. Ponies wouldn’t have known to do that. They still thought it was a magical material!

Further proof that the deck was Zebra made was just how lightweight everything up there looked. I could see large cloth structures I graciously decided to call pavilions and not tents. They were made from scraps of tarps, oilcloth, and shipping blankets, and poked up everywhere between the other buildings! The other top floor buildings were made from wood, siding panels of old pre-war buildings, mats of thatch, and even a few bits of cloud in gaps and along edges.

Assuming that until fourteen years ago all but a hoof-full of pegasi were living up in the clouds, the second story had to be very new. It was nice to see a young community doing so well that it could expand… But why expand it upwards? Why not simply construct the newer buildings on either end of the bridge, at the shoreline?

A possible answer hit me like buckshot to the leg. Security. Defensively speaking, Magebridge would be damn near impossible to take on hoof. You either had to cross through the choke point at the ends, or make the swim through deadly waters and then climb up a dozen meters of equally defensible vertical pylons just to get to the lowest floor. Suicide either way. I gave the builders a nod of respect when I realized just how soundly they’d secured themselves.

I raised an eyebrow and looked around. The riverbank was kind of nice. There were patches of grass and a few groves of young trees growing along the side of the river, and the highway we were trotting down was dotted with small plants which poked through the crumbling blacktop. The very flat, open, entirely deserted blacktop.

The flat open blacktop which lacked any cover whatsoever.

Snipers could easily keep the town secure, but… If wagons went through here, shouldn’t there be soldiers patrolling to keep bandits at bay?

I turned towards Wander with an uneasy look on my face. “S— Shouldn’t we be able to see at least a few guards?”

Wander nodded slowly. “Yeah… I was about to say the same thing. I don’t like this. When I came through here two weeks ago they had two squads of NCR troopers on patrol here.”

I nodded and activated my link module. My battle saddle hummed to life. After the wasps, I wasn’t going to let myself get caught up in any more of the Wasteland’s traps.

“Can you see the upper deck?” Wander asked as she squinted at the not-very-distant town. “Are there any snipers stationed up there?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Oh come, on!” Wander groaned. “You have robot eyes. I've seen them! Don’t they have a zoom function?”

I sighed. “Mom was sort of stopped halfway through building me by balefire,” I explained.

“So… she put in an eye-laser before optical zoom?” Wander asked incredulously as she reached under her cloak with her magic to draw Bad Trip.

And also remove a long, slender, black plastic case marked with the letters MoA in fading pearlescent paint.

“To be fair, she put in a toaster slash bread knife first,” I muttered as I strained to try and make out any sign of the snipers Wander asked about.

Wander’s head rotated rather awkwardly to face me. “You… Have a toaster? Where’s the slot?”

I couldn’t help but notice she was eyeing my plot when she said slot… Celestia’s fetlocks! Why did everypony always come to that conclusion!

I groaned and managed to suppress my face hoof. “The laser is the toaster. It was originally for slicing and toasting bread at the same time. I took it out and made it into a weapon. It hurt like you wouldn’t believe, and I never modified any of my own parts again… Look, I don't see any snipers, but I mean, if they were good snipers I wouldn’t see them anyways. Right?”

Wander nodded, opened the case, and levitated out an oddly bulky rectangular scope and put it up to her eye like a spyglass. She looked over Madgebridge for a moment then sighed. “Nope. No one up there… At all. This isn’t good.”

I nodded in agreement. “Definitely not. So… We’re going to walk through a town that’s probably just been attacked. What’s our plan?”

Wander floated Bad Trip up to her face and slid the scope onto a rail which ran atop the weapon’s barrel. A buttstock and barrel extension module came out of the case next, which Wander attached to her weapon to convert it from a pistol into a rifle.

“Take point and blast anything that's not happy to see us. I’ll cover your Swordmare pinup plot from behind,” Wander ordered as she stowed the weapon accessory case away.

I nodded and began to trot towards the city, eyes peeled and ears scanning. I was about to go through a very shadowy place which would likely be teeming with things that wanted to hurt me for fun. Just like delivering the mail back home!

We began to creep forwards, one slow step at a time. I knew deep down that we could be killed at any moment if the attackers had posted their own guards. There was no cover, and raiders would happily shoot at travelers from the sniper platforms if they had taken control of Magebridge. On the other hoof, if the town had just repelled an attack, they might just as well fire on two ponies advancing on their town with energy weapons drawn.

Step by tense step, we advanced. Slowly, steadily, moving in a straight line. Always forward. Always into danger.

A few hundred yards into our march towards death, Wander cleared her throat. I didn’t take my eyes off the town, but I tilted an ear her way.

“Where are they?” I asked quietly.

“I don't see anything… But it’s seriously distracting me, now. Why did your mom give you a laser to toast and slice bread?” Wander asked with the sincerity of somepony who genuinely couldn’t think of anything else.

Great! One of my design oddities had my sniper too distracted to cover me.

“Because originally she was going to put her own brain in here, and she really loves her toast,” I said quietly as I continued to scan the shadowy edge of town. “She’s a little crazy, and she thinks I eat. Which means she must have thought she would still eat if she had been in here instead.”

“Oh,” Wander said, seemingly satisfied.

Then, five steps later. “Wait!" Wander exclaimed in genuine surprise. "That means you’re a robobrain!”

I took a deep breath. “Please focus on the possible firefight ahead of us.”

“But…” Wander said with a confused twinge in her voice. “I’ve seen robobrains! They use wheels, and none of them have fur. Not unless you count old carpeting that got stuck to their chass—”

“Wander! Mission! Danger!” I hissed, my left eye twitching angrily.

“Sorry,” the ghoul apologized. “It’s just, well, you fly in the face of everything I know about the wasteland, and I know a lot about the wasteland.”

”Tell her everything so she won't get you killed, please,” Imaginary Dad ordered politely.

“I’m the laboratory prototype of the Robobrain Mark III, mom’s last project for the Ministry of Arcane Science. There’s only one of me, and I can support an equine brain while retaining all higher cognitive functions. The Mark three therefore let robobrains be much smarter, since you were not limited to animal brains for ‘ethical reasons’. My design was intended for espionage and infiltration of Zebrica. Pop an MoA agent’s brain into one of my model and boom! You have a pony who can infiltrate the Empire without getting their cover blown by anti-transformation magic countermeasures.”

I paused for a moment to make sure Wander was following everything. She didn't say anything, so I continued. “I’m able to mimic a zebra thanks to being constructed from a mix of cybernetic and robotic parts with real living zebra tissue wrapped over my endoskeleton that’s preserved by magic which is probably necromancy if we’re being honest but I’m hoping is really just a very experimental healing talisman. Now, please, focus!”

“Oh. Good to know,” Wander said, her voice holding a twinge of concern. “Also, we don’t have to be on full alert. I can see corpses but don’t hear looting. They're long gone.”

I blinked as the reality of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. Wander had a scope. She could see everything up there right now, and probably for the last few minutes, too!

Un-bucking-acceptable!

I wheeled around and met Wander’s eyes with the fiercest glare configuration I could muster. “You— You knew it was clear for the whole conversation and used implied mortal peril to get me off guard so you could pry at my personal life!”

Wander cleared her throat and looked away from me awkwardly. “Uh… Well, yes. But only because, I mean, you said somepony else was going to put a brain in you! I can’t just ignore that!”

“Horseapples!” I countered with a glare. “You started with wanting to know about my mother’s laser toaster!”

Wander nodded and sighed in defeat. “Yeah, fine, you caught me… Like I told you, I really don't deserve friends.”

I shot her a hurt look which rode on a wave of boiling anger. Intentionally or not, that little statement proved to me she was intentionally trying to make me dislike her because I was getting friendly with her. Well, as soon as I wasn’t angry we’d see who would win that little game!

“So, you can pry into my life, but I don’t get to pry into yours?” I demanded, my ears laying back against my head.

“You can,” Wander said with an odd, almost apologetic, flick of her tail. “Just not my pre-war life. That mare is dead. The other seventy-five percent of my life is free game for questions.”

Aha! I smirked. She felt bad about trying to push me away. Hello, whatever your name was. The dork in there who quoted some old nerdy show to prove to me she’s not anti-robot. I like you, but the self-loathing persona that's consumed you has got to go.

I will drag you out of your grim self-deprecating shell, and you’ll thank me for it!

“Look, just because you don't hear anything doesn't mean they aren’t still here. We should still move in carefully,” I said, hoping to dismiss both her attempts at sabotaging a budding friendship, and let go of my own anger in the same stroke.

Wander frowned and nodded slowly. “Fair… Though both bandits and raiders tend to be noisy while looting to scare survivors away.”

It kinda worked. Mostly because I hadn’t been familiar with that particular wasteland tactic. Lithin bandits were always quiet, so as to slip away unseen for long enough that their tracks in the snow wouldn’t betray them.

Wander and I resumed our silence and crept forward once more. Magebridge was almost in hoof’s reach when I saw the bodies Wander had spotted before. The town’s entrance had a small stone fence made from rocks piled one atop the other, and the bodies of the guards were draped over it.

Twelve uniformed corpses lay on the fence as a grim sign of what had befallen the town. Their tribes were concealed by their tan long coats, olive green helmets, and silver gas masks. I couldn’t tell if their uniforms were made pre or post-war, there was too much blood, too many holes, and far too much burning to ever tell if any part of the uniforms had been new before today.

I winced as I looked over the carnage at the gate and into the town itself. The first line of buildings was pockmarked with bullet holes and laser burns, with a scattering of broader scorch marks near doors and windows and silvery glints of shrapnel peppering everything.

This hadn't been bandits after an easy score, and from what Wander had told me about Heartland raiders, the lack of heads on pikes and flayed corpses nailed up to things like some kind of perverse pre-classical tapestry meant it wasn’t those, either. Untrained as I was in the ways of soldiering, this was clearly a military strike.

Wander trotted towards the wall and leaned down to inspect something. I wasn’t paying her any mind. I was too busy peering down the street, my eyes fixing on every shape in the shadows for the glint of a gun barrel.

Magebridge’s streets were… interesting. The centermost rail line had been left clear, but everything else had been built on, with just the hoofpaths and the leftmost pre-war road spared from development. There didn't seem to be any crossroads, just the main throughways and the occasional ally. One long, clear, straight, road through town. Another sniper’s heaven.

Great…

“Something broke through the wall here,” Wander said quietly.

I turned and looked to where she had wandered off to. Sure enough, something big had pushed its way through the stone wall, making a new entrance just a few meters away from the still-closed gate.

I raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn't they just knock down the gate?”

“No idea…” Wander murmured before sweeping Bad Trip up and looking down the street through her scope. “Oh. They had something with wheels. I can see some muddy tracks down the road. Maybe it wouldn't fit through the gate?”

“No way! This gate’s meant for cargo wagons. It’s six ponies wide, that hole is five ponies wide,” I pointed out with a worried frown.

Wander took her eye off the scope, looked to the gate then back at the hole. “Shock and Awe then… Great. This was a military strike. The Herd did this!”

I decided to hunker down alongside an intact portion of the wall. “Ponies keep mentioning the Herd. Who are they?”

Wander took a deep breath. I wasn't sure if she was angry, or just getting ready to dump a lot of information on me as quickly as possible. After all, if another nation had done this, we were in the middle of a war zone and time was of the essence.

“Back when the NCR was just starting to take shape, they didn’t have the pony power to help everypony who joined them,” Wander remarked as she took cover as well, but continued to scope out the street ahead. “Most citizens were normal ponies, so they prioritized growing more food. Pouring vital resources into planting gardens was okay, for the first eight months. Then Pip located her remaining two Bearers, the Gardens were activated, and the land was swept clean. Suddenly, every ghoul and alicorn started to get sick, starve, and in a lot of cases, die.”

I winced. If the NCR’s ghouls were mostly living at the edges of their nation now, that meant there had been a mass exodus to the borders at some point.

“Let me guess, the Herd is a bunch of ghouls and alicorns who decided they’d be better off on their own?”

Wander nodded slowly. “Mhm… Zeebs, too. It was hard for ponies to ditch old world feelings about Zebras. A bit too hard for most, including a few of the ponies elected in the first and second terms of the NCR’s council. When the alicorns and ghouls decided to make their own country, with blackjack and hookers, the Zebras mostly up and joined them.

“They were migratory for a long time, so the NCR’s brass called them ‘The Herd’. The name stuck even after they settled way off to the west. They found the edge of the Gardens effect and moved along it till they found a pre-war city that was half clean, half irradiated. Apparently, they talked the hellhounds already living there into letting them settle, and just about half the hounds in the west joined them.”

I hummed to acknowledge I understood everything. “And they decided not just to leave, but to pick fights the ponies who had prioritized the majority over the minority?”

That sounded a bit too petty to be true... Which, knowing ponies, meant it was completely factual. Didn't it?

“Nope,” Wander corrected as she shifted her aim. “They would have bucked off for good… And the NCR would have liked that just fine, if the Herd hadn’t’ decided to take all their stuff with them. At first, ponies here thought it was good they were leaving. Then they realized they had an even worse labor shortage and now an equipment, tool, weapon, and money shortage on top of it. So, the NCR was always a bit hostile to the Herd.

“The story goes that when President Gawd, same one as in the ballad, heard that the Herd was going to strike a trade deal with Los Pegasus for ammo, she ordered her troops to go make Los Pegasus a part of the NCR by force if needed, just to prevent the Herd form being able to wage a real war.

“That… Well, that didn't go over so well. The Herd was already there when they arrived, fortifications were dug by both sides, there was a month-long standoff, somepony shot an NCR Officer, there was a battle… Long story short, the only reason we weren’t at war with the Herd until now is that Los Pegasus’ rangers opened fire on both sides from the city walls and just indiscriminately cut down everypony they saw until they both signalled for a truce.

“Prince Silverlight, uh, he’s Los Pegasus’ ruler, he basically said that if everypony didn’t get the buck off his lawn and sign a peace agreement, he’d stop supplying ammo to anyone other than his own citizens. Ninety percent of the bullets in the wasteland have been made in Los Pegasus ever since the megaspells dropped, so everypony backed down.

“Thing is, that agreement was for five years. It wasn’t long enough for either side to really cool down. We’ve had nine years of border skirmishes, clandestine operations, and what the NCR believes is mercs the Herd pays to disrupt their trade routes…”

“Then,” I said apprehensively, “You think the Herd decided to take a lukewarm war and make it hot?”

Wander nodded. “Yeah. I do. I know I was a bit wordy just now, but you need to understand that we’re going to walk into a town that was attacked by a bunch of mutant super soldiers, ponies with centuries of combat experience, Hellhounds who aren't usually peaceful with normal ponies, and zebras with a generation’s worth of bones to pick with an entire nation they see as racist bastards. We’d have seen them if they were occupying the place by now. Expect the entire place to be boobytrapped, probably with toxic waste spread around so normal ponies can’t occupy it… How many rads can your shell take before your brain starts to cook?”

“That’s not a problem for me,” I said without thinking.

Wander raised an eyebrow. “You’re a robobrain.”

Buck! I nodded slowly. “Yes. Don’t worry. My braincase is... fully shielded. My power core is pretty radioactive, so it has to be.” Not really a lie.

“Oh,” Wander nodded and returned to scoping out the street. “I don't see anything that screams landmine… Let’s go. We need to get out of here and past the front lines as soon as possible.”

I nodded in full agreement. “Definitely! I can think of about three ways to dissolve that slab up there with alchemy… And if I can, that means a real shaman could whip the same thing up with a charm to collapse the whole roof on us the moment we get to the middle of the bridge.”

Wander had begun vaulting over the wall halfway through my frightened ramble. She’d somehow managed to bring herself to a dead stop halfway through her motion. “Uh, wait, what?”

I cleared my throat and slipped into the town through the hole in the wall. “It’s okay. I’ll see the charm well before it triggers, if there is one. I don’t have any experience with mines, can you keep an eye out for those?”

Wander nodded and landed next to me with a sharp click. “No problem.”

The two of us began to walk through the town, and the story of the fight unfolded before our eyes. It was told in corpses, shell casings, and bullet holes. A rather large group of ponies had attacked Magebridge. So many that the soldiers guarding it had clustered at the western gate to hold the position. They failed, and were driven back into the streets.

The streets were where the real fighting had taken place. They were covered in spent shell casings. More bullets than I had ever seen in my life had been fired on this bridge. Strangely, most of them were the same sizes.

Every few paces there would be two neat piles of massive brass shells, easily thirty or forty to a pile. I couldn’t fit more than two of those huge rounds in my hoof if I’d tried. I didn’t want to imagine what monstrously large weapon fired those things in automatic bursts.

Clustered between the giant cartridges were smaller, more reasonably sized spent shells. Some I recognized as 10mm, a smattering of .32 caliber, and even a few odd 7.62 rifle rounds. The handgun shells’ open sides faced mostly towards the east. The rifle shells faces mostly towards the west.

The defenders had the rifles, their attackers had pistols and the one massively terrifying heavy weapon. Which, on the off chance it had been left behind, was going to be my new coltfr-- Uh, I mean, gun.

I looked around, partly to try and get more of the story and partly to check for any spirit-based traps on this extra shadowy section of road. None of the NCR soldiers I could see had rifles. Their attackers had taken them.

Then, I saw something that made me squeal in fright. A single NCR trooper, a pegasus. I knew he was a pegasus because his trenchcoat had been roughly cut in two, along with his body. His wings were spread out on the ground behind him, nailed down to a railroad tie. He hadn’t been cut in half cleanly, it had been done by bullets. Or shells. I wasn’t sure if the 20mm rounds were considered cannon shells or just really big bullets.

He’d been gunned down by whatever carried the heavy weapon, then shot several more times in the face and chest with smaller guns. Then nailed down… and somepony had painted ‘Traitor’ across his helmet in his own blood, either before or after painting x’s across his eyes.

Wander heard my squeak and flipped Bad Trip around to cover me, only to gurgle as she fought to keep down her lunch. “Oh! I… Uh…”

“So… about getting clear of the Herd’s battle lines,” I said as I began to hurry down the street past the corpse with a determined canter.

Most of the street ahead of us was blocked from view by an overturned wagon. I’d been dreading approaching it this entire time, it was the ideal ambush point… Hopefully, the Herd's troops would know that and not use it, assuming we’d just grenade the crap out of it before going past.

Wander turned and joined me with a nervous laugh. “That’s not the Herd, that’s raider shit! Looks like they are hiring mercenary—”

We rounded the edge of the cart and froze in our tracks. All of a sudden, it obviously wasn’t the Herd who'd attacked Magebridge.

Up until now, there had only been the bodies of soldiers. Now we had corpses belonging to the other side, and also civilians.

The street ahead of us was literally filled with bodies. Ponies had been pulled from their homes, rounded up here, presumably given demands, then been gunned down… With the 20mm cannon. The monstrous shells formed huge piles right behind the wagon, where someone might stand to address the assembled crowd. There was enough brass in the piles to cast a life-size statue of a foal.

Not every shell had been used to mow ponies down. Whoever had been firing had turned their weapon on Madgebridge’s upper deck, collapsing a large section to crush many of the poor ponies beneath literal tons of concrete, rubble, and their own belongings.

There were a few NCR troopers dotted amongst the slaughtered civilians and rubble. While trying to see if they had been attacking during the speech, a bit of green protruding from under some rubble caught my eye. A pony in a green flak vest. One which I found terribly familiar. My eyes narrowed in hatred.

The bandits who attacked me in the Woods of Woe! That was what they had been wearing. They did this!

After seeing the first one, I quickly found more. Nearly two dozen, by my count. At least the town had taken some of the bastards with them.

“Celestia…” Wander gasped, her jaw hanging open in shock.

The horror before me was enough to make any mare sick, but the branded bandits had more to give. My eyes widened in terror as a little fact slipped into my mind, courtesy of Imaginary Dad.

”They don’t stink yet. It’s a hot day, and they don’t stink yet. It’s been less than four hours since they were killed. It takes an army several hours to loot a place like this, and every door on this street has been opened. They left minutes ago, an hour at best, and their rear-guard has probably seen you already. Run! ”

I whipped my head around, taking a look at every last building to my left and right as quickly as I could. Dad was right! Every single door had been kicked in or otherwise opened! All of them! There were hundreds of buildings on this street alone, with two more streets on this floor alone.

Thank you subconscious for providing me with this info courtesy of my imagination!

I turned to wander, my ears flat with terror and hissed. “Wander! They don't stink. We’re only smelling the blood. There’s no rot!”

Wander frowned and sniffed the air. “Yeah. So w—” I watched her eyes shrink as she realized what I had. “Oh, buck me right in the nose…”

Wander looked around her, and floated one of the 20mm shells to her nose to sniff the casing. “Still some burnt scent clinging to it… Yeah, we need to go.”

“Quietly,” I agreed as I started to turn around.

Wander reached out and grabbed my shoulder. “No. This is the largest group of these guys I’ve ever seen, and they’ve never attacked a settlement before. Mark my words, there’s going to be the entire rest of their gang coming down that road to meet up with the vanguard any minute now. We’re going east.”

I nodded in agreement and turned back around, then tilted my head as I took notice of an alleyway. Why, of all things, the narrow passage between a plasma-scorched brick restaurant and a collapsed house full of cannon-shell holes caught my attention when there was an entire bridge full of dead ponies in front of me, I had no idea.

But I wasn’t about to ignore it.

I held up a hoof and pointed to the alley to guide Wander’s attention, twisted to take aim at the center of the ally’s darkest shadowy patch with my rifles, and began to slowly walk towards them. Step by careful step I advanced on the alley, ready to fill it full of magical lightning at a moment’s notice.

As I drew closer, I could see a shape in the shadows, a pony, leaning slumped against the collapsing house’s wall and propped up by an old dumpster which could have given him cover if he wasn't well past needing it… The dead have little to hide from.

He had a hole through his chest, and his uniform jacket was absolutely drenched in blood. More blood than could possibly have come from the single small hole in his chest. It took me a moment to figure out why that was, mostly because it took another two steps to spot the red cross painted on his right sleeve.

I shuddered and closed my eyes for a moment. What kind of monsters kill the medic? … Why am I asking that when they also slaughtered civilians?

Wander hummed and trained Bad Trip on the corpse for a moment then lowered it. “His mask glitters a bit. That’s probably what caught your eye.”

I nodded. “Yeah… Probably. Let’s… Let’s pass by him and take another street, okay?”

Wander nodded in agreement, looked up to check that the ally was clear, then slipped past the dead medic and began to walk to the other side of Magebridge. I followed her, slipping into the ally and squeezing myself to one side to avoid touching the corpse.

Unfortunately, being a bit wider (okay, a lot wider) in the flanks than Wander, I couldn’t quite squeeze by and my right hind hoof bumped against the poor pony’s hip. I winced, hoping that he’d moved on and his soul wouldn’t haunt me for the insult.

The corpse's head tilted back and looked up at me. “H… He...lp…”

My filly-like scream echoed off the ally walls. A bolt of blue-white light streaked past me as Wonder reflexively fired a shot over my head. The not-quite-dead-yet-medic gurgled and clawed at his mask with one hoof.

“Oh-shit-he’s-alive!” Wander yelped, rushing back into the alleyway.

The stallion’s feeble pawing at his gas mask clued me in on what he wanted. Suppressing my terror as much as I could, I reached out and pulled his mask up, accidentally knocking his helmet off as I pushed it onto his forehead.

He looked up at me and gasped something I couldn’t make out. Presumably, a thank you.

He was an earth pony. The extra hardiness granted to his tribe was probably all that was keeping the poor pony alive. He had a wonderful jet black coat of fur that seemed to glisten and shine even in the shadowy ally… As well as one of the most handsome faces I’d ever seen.

His gold eyes looked dull, and I could tell by how little color was left in his cheeks that he was almost dead.

He gasped again, and this time I was able to make it out. “Water… Please.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any,” I said, hanging my head apologetically. “I— 'm out.”

No need to tell him I never carried any… Why? Why didn’t I realize I should carry some for others?

“I’ve only got the irradiated kind,” Wander added as she pulled a small cloth bag out from under her cloak. “But I do have stimpacks and assorted meds. Hold on. We’ll get you back on your hooves.”

The medic shook his head. Well, twitched it slightly. “Won’t… help…”

“Sure it will!” Wander said as cheerful as she could. “Just one quick little prick and normal ponies push bullets right out of their wounds like a Canterlot Ghoul.”

Wander’s a sudden shift in attitude weirded me out until I realized she was attempting to do a proper bedside manner. A cheerful pony can help a patient recover better than a stoic one.

Wander took the safety cap off the auto-inject needle and moved to inject the dying stallion with whatever blend of healing potions and mundane or arcane stimulants it happened to contain. The medic gently pushed her hoof away, taking seemingly all of his strength to do so.

“N— No…” He gasped. “Save… it. Not many… left in.. wasteland.”

“I know,” Wander said calmly. “You’re dying. We need to know what happened here. Let me save you, please.”

“N— No… Won't work,” He said, taking a sharp, painful breath that to even my untrained ears was a clear sign of a collapsed lung. “P— pneu… mothorax. And… Pulmonary... edema.”

Wander frowned. “I’m not a doctor.”

The medic smiled. “Drowning… in… own… blood,” he slowly spelled out. “Potions… can’t help. Not even… i—”

I winced and steps back as the poor pony spat up a mouthful of blood, gurgled for a rather distressing couple of seconds, then choked the blood back down and gulped for enough air to finish speaking. “Even i… mixed with… stims.”

Wander nodded and recapped the needle solemnly. “What can help you?”

“Too late…” He muttered, then smiled. “Where… pretty mare… get… pre-war… millit— drugs?”

Wander blushed slightly at the compliment, I blinked in surprise.

Stimpacks were rare here? We could make them!

Also, while Wander may be pretty in a certain light, she had some major personality issues to work on before she’d be a catch, mister medic… Oh. Also she’s gay. So… Mmm, it was probably for the best the poor pony was dying.

Why by Celestia’s mane am I shipping a dying pony with my soon-to-be-friend instead of trying to save his life?!

”Because I never trained you in first aid, and you can still tell he’s too far gone for help now.” Imaginary dad said with a sigh.

Oh. Right...

“I picked up a case in Canterlot just after the war. These ones are adrenaline, standard health potions, and a tonic that should dissolve any foreign body in you… You sure you don’t want me to try one?” Wander answered as she reached into her bag to replace the needle.

The medic nodded.

Wander’s face fell with more distress than I’d seen her show before. “I have painkillers. Do you want some?”

“Don’t have time… for them… kick in,” the medic gasped. He paused for a moment, his face contorting as he visibly fought for more air.

I wished I knew what I could do to help him. Unfortunately, my medical knowledge was pretty much limited to “keep anything red inside the body at all times”.

The medic stopped moving, spat up more blood, then began to speak slowly, deliberately, and very painfully. “Rainbow Raiders… Not real name. Call th— Called Tainted. Fifty attacked. They had support. R— Re… Real, support. Big robot. Huge pony… power armor. Just, just one power armor, but… four guns. Huge! Never saw anything… like… it… Tainted wanted a water... talisman being shipped to— to… Two Bits.”

Wander nodded and gave his hoof a squeeze with her own. “I’ll make sure the NCR knows what happened here. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

I cleared my throat and nodded. “Y— Yeah. We’ll make sure.”

We’d killed him. This was our fault. If we weren't talking or debating with each other and had just marched into town we would have been in time to save him.

The stallion shook his head slowly. “No… Not that... Don’t care— NCR. Oak. Oak’s alive… made it out. There were… some survivors. They took the talisman with... Squad retreated to... Sire's Hollow. Took… civilians. Ran. They don’t know, army’s following. The town’s in danger. It’s been… twenty minutes. Save them. Please… Might catch up… if you go now. Two ponies faster than… cart carrying… an... Ultra…”

He slumped down, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth and nose. His eyes didn’t close. I’d always thought they closed when a pony died. Instead, he just… stopped.

Buck…

I reached out and gently closed his eyes. It felt like the least I could do. No, it wasn’t the least. I felt I had to do more for him. More for the ponies massacred here. They deserved a measure of revenge.

I turned to look at Wander. “We’re going to catch up with them.”

Wander frowned. “Excuse me?”

I stood up as straight as I could and adjusted my saddle’s straps. “We’re going to catch up with them. You have a sniper rifle, I have some good weapons. We’ll catch up with them, and kill them all before they hurt any more ponies.”

Wander shook her head almost violently. “Absolutely not! You heard what he said, they have power armor and a robot. We don’t even have regular armor!”

“Yeah, and both those things are powered by spell matrixes. Guess what LAERs are designed to fry?” I said as I began to walk out of the ally.

I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. We had the element of surprise on our side. If I ambushed the armor jocky I could probably short out his suit’s matrix with a few seconds of sustained fire. The robot would fall the same way. Wander could pick off the goons.

“Granted, you have anti-mech weapons,” Wander conceded with a sigh. “But he said they had fifty ponies to throw at us. I counted about twenty of their dead. We can’t take thirty armed ponies on and win! Not even though ambush.”

“We would have allies,” I pointed out. “A squad of NCR troopers.”

Wander groaned to herself. “Gears! They just had their ponuts kicked in! They’ll be dragging wounded, they may even be out of ammo.”

I shuddered at her crass imagery and kept walking, not even bothering to turn around as I turned down the street. “I’m going, Wander, and you should too.”

Wander jogged out of the ally after me, catching up in order to look into my eyes with a grim frown. “Gears, listen to me! This is a terrible idea. We’ll get killed.”

As Wander held me in place, an idea took shape in my mind. A mean idea, but an idea that would definitely get her to do the right thing.

I gently pushed a hoof into Wander’s chest. “You begged him to let you save him,” I said bluntly. “I think I’ve figured you out. You think you need to save as many lives as you feel you took before you’re not a monster anymore, don’t you?”

Wander’s serious look instantly melted into one of distress. Yep. I was right.

“I… It’s not… Not just that…” Wander murmured slowly looking down at the asphalt beneath us.

“Sire’s Hollow is a farming town, you told me,” I reminded. “A major one. A breadbasket for the whole NCR, you said, right? You can’t do that with a few ponies. It’s got to be a large settlement. Hundreds, maybe even a thousand ponies live there, right?”

Wander nodded. “Yes… They have a militia. They have troopers, they’ll be—”

“They’ll lose a lot of ponies trying to stop somepony in power armor who has multiple 20mm autocannons!” I snapped, narrowing my eyes angrily. “Would your wife be proud of you for letting them die when there’s a chance we could stop their big guns?”

Wander’s distressed look boiled over into pure rage. She grit her teeth and raised her hoof to slap me, then froze, let out an enraged growl and turned around and punched the collapsed building behind her.

“No… She wouldn’t,” Wander wheeled around and shot me another glare. “Don’t you, bucking ever, bring my wife into things again!”

“We don't have to kill all of them,” I said with a slow nod. “We just need to stop the power armor and the robot. They’re after a Water Talisman. If they had more ponies to spare, they would be here. If we take out their big guns, that town’s safe.”

Wander closed her eyes and growl-groaned before shaking her head. “I said I’ll do it… But when we’re lying in the grass, bleeding out, you’d better use the last of your zebra magic to let me tell my friends I’m sorry I bucking failed!”

I raised an eyebrow. “Failed what?”

“Our deal! I’ll bucking fail our deal…” Wander growled before wheeling around and galloping down the bridge towards Sire’s Hollow.

Oh. Right. Running.

We had to catch up with them, and I was low on coolant. I sighed and gave my barrel a tap where a zebra’s left lung would be.

“Sorry about this…” I said to my poor secondary coolant pump as I took off at a full sprint.

8 - PC Load Letter

Author's Note

RBMK3 Lab Prototype Terminal Log File - 376924

Extreme system damage sustained on 13 / 8 / 2291 at 0:42:09 am.

Cause of damage: Impact with unknown object.

Known Major Faults

Hydraulic Pump No. 2 - System failed.

Power Surge Protection System - Partial failure.

Ocular Acuity Processor - Partial failure.

Voice Synthesizer - Partial failure.

Onboard Weapons Power Distribution System - System failed.

Error: Cannot detect integrated weapon systems.

Status Code 24. Immediate repair required.

Known Minor Faults

Breach detected in Armor Plates 7 ,8 ,9, and 11.

Check Engine

Error: RBMK3 Lab Prototype does not possess internal combustion engine.

Self Diagnostic system requires reset!

Resetting…

Reset complete!

Resuming Minor Fault detection...

Reactor coolant - Low.

PC LOAD LETTER

System coolant - Empty.

Hug required

Status Code 43. Maintenance required.

Warning! Primary power distribution system damaged.

Attempting to switch to secondary system…

Secondary power distribution system online.

Shutting down primary power distribution system...

Success!

Attempting to boot...

Level up!

Dire Luck - Most ponies panic when facing something bigger and meaner than they are. You do too, but you're just a bit luckier than the average Wastelander. +10% Crit Chance vs enemies of a higher level.

8 - PC Load Letter

Over the centuries, I’d heard a lot of ponies complain about waking up too fast. About being awake and conscious before they could see or hear. I’d always chalked that up to some weird quirk of pony biology I’d never experience. Not anymore.

I couldn’t hear anything, or see anything, but I was awake. I was thinking. I was feeling.

Most of what I was feeling was a dull ache in the surge protection diodes down my left side and an annoying emptiness just behind my right shoulder.

What in the world happened? What was I doing before—

Oh. Yes. I got in to a hoof fight with a war machine.

”And kicked its plot six ways to Sunday!” Imaginary dad praised, his ‘voice’ practically dripping with affection.

He got me about as good as I got him, dad.

”Yeah about that, maybe check and see what your error codes are, and better yet what they mean.”

Now that was a very good plan. I like how my subconscious comes up with good ideas for imaginary dad to say.

I brought up my error codes and ran through the list. I winced as the sobering reminder of how badly I was hit. I was laid bare by the text in the file. So many things broken or damaged. How was I still operational? What on earth compelled that robot’s programmers to give it a melee attack mode? And most of all…

“PC Load Letter?” I said slowly, my brow lowering and lips pursing. “What the hay does that even mean?”

“Her system is spitting out new error codes?” A stallion asked.

Apparently audio was back.

“I didn’t say that,” Wander said, sounding quite happy. “She did! Hey, Gears. Can you hear me?”

I nodded. Or at least, I tried to nod. Apparently I was laying on something, and that something didn’t like my chin moving. “Yes… Who is with you?”

“They call me Bluegrass,” the stallion from before introduced.

I liked his voice. It had a little bit of a rumble to it, with a hint of old country drawl mixed with a bit of a Fillydelphia accent.

“Nice to meet you… It sounds like you're, um… Poking around my insides. How many ponies know—”

Wander cleared her throat to get my attention. “Hey, boss, I understand secretes. I have my own. Bluegrass is the only pony in town who's seen your cyberware.”

“Don’t you worry, miss. I know how and when to keep my trap shut,” Bluegrass promised with a chuckle. “‘Sides, I don’t blame you in the slightest for wanting to keep quiet about your implants. They seem pretty extensive, and I know more than a few ponies who lost a leg to bandits only to find that same leg for sale in an electronics shop months down the line.”

I sputtered, my ears perking. “You can do cybernetic augmentation?!”

“Sure can!” Bluegrass remarked calmly. “I’m fixing you, aren't I?”

“I mean, you can make and install cybernetics, as in, you the Wastelanders.”

“Of course we— Oh, that’s right. Wanderer mentioned you’re not from around here,” Bluegrass went silent for a little bit.

I could feel a screwdriver scraping about a circuit access panel in the back of my head. It didn’t hurt, but it sure as hay wasn't comfortable.

“Please be careful. That’s my optical processor,” I pleaded.

“Mhm,” he acknowledged. “It got knocked about pretty good. I’m resoldering the chip back in in a second. Just want to make sure the traces are all okay… Crystal looks fine. Wander, pass me that chip, please.”

“Which one?” Wander asked with more than a little hesitation.

“The 80486DX.”

“Which one?” Wander repeated.

“I thought you said you knew matrix tech,” Bluegrass chided.

“I said I know audio matrix tech. Video is not audio.”

“Mmm, fair enough. The clear quartz one with twelve contacts on each side.”

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

I felt a slight— No, a really intense burning burning in the back of my head and hissed, doing my best to hold still and not scream.

Bluegrass sputtered, and I heard something metal clatter to the ground in shock. “What in the— You can feel that?!”

“Y— Yeah… I feel all my parts,” I muttered quietly, bracing myself for more pain. “Just get that chip hooked back in, please.”

“What monster enchanted you to feel like that?” The stallion demanded just before the burning returned.

“My mom,” I whimpered as fire scorched my brains. “Is… Very… Nice…”

“Then she must be insane,” Bluegrass commented as my vision suddenly returned.

I was laying on my belly on a bizarrely hard mattress in a mostly wooden room. Wander was standing a few meters in front of me, next to a desk with a toolbox on it as well as fragments of what I hoped wasn't my aux hydraulic pump…

Ah, so that was the reason for the empty feeling.

The pain faded almost as soon as the iron was removed. “Yes. But this isn’t her fault. She didn’t know what she was doing when she put—”

Wander’s instant, almost reflexive glare made me immediately stop.

Bluegrass hummed. “Are you doing okay?”

I pushed myself up from the bed enough to nod. “Yes… Did you remove anything?”

“Yeah, you had a pump that was just plain shot. I took it out and patched the tubing. Wander said all your legs are mechanical, and after removing it none of them seemed harder to move than the others. If I have one the same size, I’ll give you a good price on it.”

I felt the access panel close, and then the familiar itch as my pelt knit itself back together. Bluegrass clucked his tongue. “That healing charm you’ve got in you… I wouldn’t let anypony else here know about it. That’s worth killing for.”

“It only does my specific skin,” I answered reflexively. “If you used it, it would give you a zebra mare’s stripes.”

He snorted in amusement and moved away from me. “Whelp, that should do it,” he said as he moved into my field of view.

He was an older earth pony stallion, somewhere on the line between middle-aged and old. He had a dusty blue-gray coat of fur, amber-eyes, a dust-brown mane, and was dressed in a black leather vest, well mended and festooned with all kinds of tools.

Bluegrass gave me a smile. “Can ya stand?”

I nodded and pushed myself up form the bed. I didn’t need my aux-pump to do normal things. It usually only kicked in when I had to lift something heavy. Without it, I was going to be limited to about seventy five percent what a zebra mare of my size should be capable of.

I frowned as I realized how much of a problem that would be.

Bluegrass’ eyes narrowed. “Please tell me that hydro-line I patched is holding.”

“It is,” I promised. “I just realized without that I won't be able to lift as much as I'm used too.”

Bluegrass bit his lip awkwardly and shrugged. “Well, not much I can do when the pump has more in common with a old bag of stale chips than a machine.”

I shook my head. “No! No, no! I’m extremely happy with what you did for me. Thank you very much! I didn’t think I’d be able to be fixed at all while I was in the Heartlands.”

Bluegrass smiled and shrugged his shoulder. “Not all that long ago, that would have been true… May I ask where you got your implants? I haven't seen any like that and I’ve been fixing Equestrian cyberware for years.”

I frowned and gave it some thought. “Yes, if you tell me who is producing your cybernetics.”

Bluegrass looked at me like I just asked how to walk to the moon. “Uh… Are you sure you’re okay? Ain’t no one making cybernetics. Plenty of ponies just had ‘em when the bombs dropped. Ponies like me have been keeping them in working order and installing them on whomever buys ‘em… Then they die and someone will salvage the implant, I’ll fix it again, and so on.”

I winced. Gruesome recycling aside, the idea of using something built for somepony else made my stomach turn, which was a first and would hopefully be the last. I didn’t want to think about buying a ‘spare part’ here.

You were supposed to size the implants for the pony using them. You know, for health reasons.

Bluegrass sighed. “Yeah, it’s a grim business. On the other hoof, it’s one of the best livings you can make in the Wasteland, and ain't nopony going to mess with a cybersurgeon. Not if they want to shoot lasers from their eye some day.”

Bluegrass puffed up his chest and gave me a smile. “Especially not the one responsible for fixing up Calamity’s wing-n-leg!”

I gathered he meant that he was the pony responsible for healing whoever Calamity was.

I turned to look at Wander, hoping my perplexed look would be enough for her to understand that she needed to fill me in properly one day.

Wander blushed and cleared her throat. “Oh… Yeah. Uh, I don’t like him so I left him out of the song. He’s one of Little Pip’s friends. Helped save the world, yaddah-yaddah.”

Bluegrass’ pridefully puffed chest deflated and his eyes narrowed. “What do you have against the pony who brought us all power? Without him, after the gardens, we’d be plumb out of luck for keeping a town lit!”

Wander turned and looked into Bluegrass’ eyes with nothing less than total honesty. “He stole my keys.”

Bluegrass opened his mouth as if to say ‘ah’, then nodded. “Fair.”

Wander sighed. “Gears and I will have to pass through Junction Town… Maybe he still has them. He can keep them, my house has been rubble for a decade now… I just want the charm back. It was a birthday gift.”

Ah! The naive and charismatic hero had a roguish friend. I swear, every story in Equestrian history has that duo in it somewhere.

I cleared my throat to get Bluegrass’ attention. He turned his head back to face me. “Thank you for fixing me up. I feel very good.”

His smile returned. “You’re welcome. And now, if you don’t mind… Are those Zebrican implants? I didn’t think they did cybernetics but—”

I shook my head sharply to cut him off. “No! The old empire would call me an abomination. I’m— I mean, I have prototype hardware. My mom is a roboticist.”

Blue’s eyes widened in a very amusing way. It reminded me of a descending airship.

“Y— Y’all can make new implants?” He asked, mouth agape.

“Yes, my kingdom is able to make certain implants… I’m here to hopefully open trade negotiations,” I said with a cheerful smile.

Bluegrass’ lips pursed. “Y— you… I—” He shook his head slowly and looked up. “Let’s say I believe you. What in Celestia’s bloated teats would anypony with industrial manufacturing and spellmatrix crafting capabilities possibly get from trading with us?”

“Food,” I said as bluntly as I could.

“Food?” He asked.

I nodded. “Food.”

“Y'all can make sub-dermal armor and replacement limbs, but can’t grow food?” Bluegrass asked with a suspicious narrowing of his eyes.

I sighed and nodded. “I know it sounds implausible… Until you know that my Kingdom is very far to the north, where the Crystal Empire was before the war.”

Wander shifted position slightly, turning to face the two of us. “From what she’s told me, her hometown is stuck in an endless winter and the Gardens didn’t reach that far north.”

“Ah! Now that makes some sense,” Blue said rubbing his chin slightly. “Now, if you don’t mind me asking, what can y’all make aside from implants?”

“Plenty of things,” I answered with a polite smile. “If you’re interested in what we have to offer, I will be speaking with your mayor tomorrow. If they don’t mind you listening in, I would prefer not to have to make the same speech twice in one… Day?”

I turned to look at Wander questioningly.

“It’s been… Maybe six hours. The sun should be up any minute now,” she said with a knowing smirk.

Why the smirk? What did she know that I didn’t?

Bluegrass had the same smirk plastered on his face too… What was I missing out on?

“Oh, I’m sure he won't mind if I listen in,” Bluegrass remarked. “You’ll want to give him two or three hours before going down to the town hall. He was up around midnight shooting at bandits with you two and our Trooper friends. Everypony has a guard rotation. Even cybersurgeons.”

Bluegrass stifled a yawn and turned to leave. “I have a shop next to the town hall. Stop by this evening and we’ll see if I have a pump that fitscha. I think I’ll go join the mayor in napping.”

Ohhhh! They were a couple! Cute!

I smiled. “Okay! Have fun! And thanks again for the repairs.”

“Ain't no trouble,” Bluegrass said as he opened the door and trotted through, nearly brushing against the big lever style brass lightswitch. Screwed into the wall next to the door.

Suddenly it dawned on me. The room was lit. Evenly lit. Without flickering, and I couldn't smell fire. This room had powered lights.

I looked up to to double check, and saw the glowing glass bulb placed right in the middle of the ceiling in all its glory. “How are you generating power?” I asked as Bluegrass started to close the door.

“We’re one of the NCR’s breadbaskets, so we get a Star Battery. Y’all have a good night!”

“You mean morning,” Wander corrected.

“That too!” The stallion said before closing the door.

I heard his hoofsteps and the creak of floorboards as he walked away, followed swiftly by the sound of hooves descending a staircase. He was gone, and probably out of listening range. Good.

I stretched my legs to double check my range of motion. Everything seemed normal, aside from the pain in my left side… That wasn’t going to go away, was it? Great…

Wander trotted over to the bed and sat down on the edge. “You’re welcome.”

“How the hay does he think I’m just a zebra with a few implants?” I demanded, turning around to look Wander in the eyes so I could make sure she wasn’t lying to make me feel better.

“Easy,” she said with a smirk. “I tried to fix you first. The stallion giving us directions didn’t ever pick you up. I TKed you to the room. He thought you passed out, brought the booze and salt you needed. When that through a funnel didn’t wake you up, I knew something broke. I hoped it would be something I could fix, so I cut into your hide and poked around, found the broken armor plates and… Well, yeah. I couldn’t fix that.”

Wander flopped back down onto the hard mattress, managing to look adorable in spite of her thick jumpsuit.

She laughed nervously. “You had me real nervious there… I jacked my pipbuck into your hardware. Nothing was running. So I ran out and asked around for a mechanic. I thought whatever broke was feeding your brain nutrients or was a power supply or something.

“Lucked out and the first pony I found was Blue, he said he wasn’t a mechanic but did work on cybernetics. Match made in heaven! He came back up with me, and when I tried my pipbuck again this time you were up and running. Your mom left a really nice help file in there. I was able to talk him through what parts to open. He thinks you’re mostly flesh and bone, just lacking legs, some ribs, and a bit of brain.”

I took a minute to process all of that. “But… He was looking in me.”

“Mhm. Your hardware is different enough that he, well, he thought the compartments he was looking into were meant to keep the parts from getting gummed up with… uh… Well, you know. Body-gunk.”

Wander shook her head slowly. “Then again, maybe he does know, and understands it’s something to keep quiet about… I got a good vibe from him. I think he won't tell anypony you’re a robot.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “This again? I’m a robobrain!”

"You know... I like you,” Wander said as she sat up to look me in the eye. “You're a good pony, but you're pretty damn mysterious. And not in a way I like."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, let me put it this way,” Wander began with a sigh. “Your mission, it's not a one mare job. Traveling the wasteland is dangerous. Sure it's safer than it was fourteen years ago, thanks Pip, but it is still dangerous. But you act like you could pull your mission off yourself if you had too, and your Queen sent you here on your own so she thinks you can go it alone, too. What kind of a cyborg are you? Was killing that Ultra-Sentinel really a lucky break for you, or did you let yourself get hurt to make me think you’re not as dangerous as you really are?"

I raised an eyebrow at her question. “What makes you think I’m more than a mailmare who happens to be mostly hardware?”

Wander hesitated for a moment then took a deep breath and sighed. "Yeah. Look, I've been attacked by hundreds of robots over the years. Including robobrains, which unlike everypony else, I happen to know are cyborgs and not robots.”

“And yet,” I deadpanned. “You keep calling me a robot.”

Wander smiled at me. “Heh. Course I do. It bugs you.”

Oh. So that was her game huh? Well… I’ll just call her… Um...

“I know what you told me you are back in Magebridge,” Wander said as she brushed a strand of her mane out of her eyes. “But I want to know exactly what you are. Especially because you look like a nerd's overly sexualized sketch of a zebra mare. No offense, you were built that way. It’s just that anything pre-war that’s anywhere as advanced as you are… It’s probably something nasty.

“There’s also the little matter of you killing that Sentinel almost a bit too easily. I think I deserve to know everything about you. Or at least, your hardware and software…"

In spite of Wander saying ‘no offense’ her comment did sting a little. I had no idea that most stallions didn’t like mares with my proportions. All I had to go on was the trashy romance comics in mom’s personal collection and her vague ideas of what stallions liked.

Ugh! Maybe I should just choose to flirt with mares instead… Maybe they would like how I looked more. It wasn’t like I could easily remove the silicone. That would hurt so much worse than removing my eye to modify my laser!

I sat down on the floor. This looked like it would be a longer conversation. At least I had time before the Mayor would be in his office.

"Buck it,” I sighed and looked into Wander’s eyes. “I understand organics being nervous around robots. I really do get it..."

Wander nodded twice. “So, you admit you’re a robot!”

I narrowed my eyes. “Never!”

She giggled, then cleared her throat and returned to her serious look. “That never happened.”

“Agreed,” I said diplomatically before continuing. "I am the sole existing prototype for the Robobrain Mark III, which was meant to be a Full Body Prosthesis for MoI agents. I have a mark II braincase, with an upgraded neural interface, attached to a pile of cybernetic prosthetic parts rather than conventional robotic parts. It isn’t a production model, but it works well enough to support a sapient mind without any loss of mental faculties.”

Wander tilted her head curiously. “I don’t remember ponies getting the brain-in-a-jar treatment before the war. I know you claim to be a prototype, but all I remember is ponies with the odd limb or an organ or two replaced. You… Seem more like something made in Stable 101.”

A stable was making cyber— Of course one was! Wander said that Red Eye was a Stable Dweller, and he was a cyborg.

“So that’s what Stable-Tec did with mom’s designs!” I exclaimed with a grin. “She sold some of her work to help fund her projects. Uh, illegally sold. Not that she understood she was doing something bad. I should probably mention that…”

Before Wander could respond to that little nugget of info I smiled again, and shrugged to deflect the question. “Can we go there? I would love to see if there’s a chance of upgrading my sense of taste so it does more than just tell me what chemicals are present in something I ingest. It’s the one sense I don't perfectly emulate! I could also use some better coolant than what I can synthesize, and I had to replace my reactor coolant just now.”

Wander sputtered, her ears perked in alarm, nearly flicking her hoof off her head. She held up a hoof, with a panicked expression on her face. “Hold it! Reactor?! I thought you were using an atomic battery, not a radiation reactor!”

I giggled and shook my head a few times. “No! Nothing that crude. It’s a thaumaturgic power source similar to the nuclear breeders you’d find in power armor. The team my mom worked on it with named it after Twilight since she supposedly had infinite mana, or whatever.”

Wander tilted her head slightly and slipped off the bed. Her hooves struck the floor with two soft thunks. Unsure as to her intentions I remained silent while looking at her as perplexed as I could.

Wander trotted around me for a moment then raised her pipbuck, checked a few things on it, then looked back to me. “That’s why these plans are almost gibberish. You’re just a huge pile of advanced technology!”

I shook my head. “Oh, Celestia no! I wish you could classify me that way!”

Wander raised an eyebrow. “Explain this then,” she instructed, tapping her pipbuck’s screen with a hoof.

“Everything in me is either an engineering sample or a lab prototype. You can think of me as mom’s scraps bin with some ‘in house’ fabricated parts… Nothing in here passed laboratory testing in any formal sense, and many parts are unique. I’m too WIP to count as advanced technology. Heck, mom’s had to replace some of my parts that just up and died over the years.”

Wander took to steps back from me with a horrified expression. “In other words, you have a large bomb for a heart that was thrown together by a mad scientist one afternoon!”

I snorted, then fell over giggling. “Hehehehe! Oh, no… No. The Sparkle Breeder was finished. I think there’s eight of them. They were to be presented to Miss Twilight at a conference in a week. You don’t have to worry about me exploding…”

I trailed off and winced. “Well, unless someone hits my core with an anti-material rifle. Then I’ll explode pretty darn good.” I looked up at Wander and smiled. “On the up side, if you ever get really hurt, I can bite down on something for the pain and expose my core for a bit. The rads should have you back on your hooves in seconds!”

Wander bit her lip and scrunched her eyes. “I— I don’t want to know how much power you have running through your roboveins, if that’s true!”

I shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know… Mom just used her engineering sample because that’s what was on hoof. The Sparkle Breeders were designed to power large vehicles, or even buildings.”

“Wait, it was meant to power things like that?” Wander frowned and looked off into space as if processing something.

Then her eyes lit up. “They were trying to develop a real alternative to coal power plants! If one could power a building, a building full of them could power a city!”

I shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know. I can’t tell you anything mom wouldn’t have known.”

“How the buck not?” Wander asked, her head tilting slowly. “I mean, either you were there with her at work, or she would have at least known what the project she was a part of was trying to do!”

I gave Wander an awkward and shaky smile. “Uh… When you meet her, you’ll realize why that’s not necessarily true. Even back then she was… Pretty unstable.”

”That’s putting it a bit lightly, Gears.”

Yeah, but… You know… Politeness.

“How do you mean?” Wander asked with a suspicious frown as she sat back down on the edge of the bed.

Oh boy. How to explain mom?

”The best way is to just be honest. Tell her everything, but keep it brief.”

Thanks, dad.

I cleared my throat. “Well, my mom is special. In both senses of the word,” I sat down on the floor and did my best to remember the story as she’d told it to me. “Mom’s parents were… Not very good ones. From what she’s said they fled Canterlot so mom’s older brother couldn’t sign up for the Wonderbolts. See, his brother died in the war and from what mom’s told me all he ever cared about after that was avenging him. Apparently that meant literally every Zebra in Zebrica had to die.”

Wander hissed and twisted her lips. “Oh… Her folks spent their entire day making sure that their little psychopath wasn’t torturing cats in the basement, didn’t they?”

I nodded. “Yes. Mom grew up with almost no contact with her parents at all. On top of that, she has always had certain mental disabilities. For instance, I have no idea who my uncle was because mom never told me his name…”

Wander sighed. “Okay, so she’s pretty messed up then. How did a mare like that get a job at MAS? Obviously she’s amazing with robots, but you don’t hire someone who can’t tell you their brother’s name.”

“Mom was drafted,” I said.

“Drafted?” Wander asked her lips pulling down for a moment before she nodded. “Ah! Right. The Gifted Foals program, scholarship, thing… What did she do to get in?”

“To make a long story short, while her parents didn’t care for her, mom was semi-adopted by a zebra who worked as the janitor in her apartment building. He did his best to look after her and taught her a lot of shamanism. When my Uncle found a way to enlist without parental permission, she got scared he would die and used what she knew of zebra magic to make him a shield talisman. It worked pretty well, he told his superiors his sister made it, and next thing you know mom’s got her own lab at fourteen.

“She lived in it, basically. Just tinkering with things all day. She loved it, but never really understood that what she was making was being used to hurt ponies. Like, say, plasma weapons. She invented the basic device for making plasma… By accident. She was trying to improve a breakroom toaster because, and I quote, ‘The spirit in it wanted to burn things better.’ I’ve seen the toaster. It doesn't have an active spirit.”

Wander took a deep breath, closed her eyes and let it out slowly. “Are you telling me that Twilight, Twilight of all ponies, locked a little filly in a lab for years?”

I shook my head immediately. “No. Her Executive Adjutant did. I forget his name, but Mom was his direct responsibility. From what mom’s said, I’ve come to understand that he lied about her condition every time it came up. For Equestria, and all that.”

Wander clenched her teeth and growled. “Pre-war ponies! I’ll never understand why they thought some things were good ideas!”

The ghoul pony was visibly shaking. I waited silently for Wander to calm down. After a few long moments she shook her head and punched the bed’s hoof board. “Ugh! I swear to everything holy, the first casualty in that war was common bucking decency!”

I nodded. “Sure seems like it…”

Wander sighed and flopped back down on the bed, emotionally exhausted. “We bunnytrailed real bad there… Stable 101, no. We can’t go there. Pip blew it up. Remember the verse about the Cathedral? It was built on and in 101.”

“Ah, colt…” I sighed and looked at the floor in disappointment. “You should probably tell me the whole story sometime. That song didn’t really cut it and I am terrible at understanding metaphors.”

“How terrible?” Wander asked.

“Pretend I’m missing the .dll files to handle those requests,” I summarized with an embarrassed smile.

“Kay,” Wander said before waving a hoof dismissively in my direction. “We’ll run into a Pipite soon enough, and they’ll be happy to talk your ear off for the day or so the whole story takes.”

I nodded, and almost asked what a Pipite was but remembered Wander had explained the religious order to me before. I guess it made sense that when you saved the world, became immortal, gained control over the weather, and could see and hear everything in the world, ponies would start to worship you as a god.

Actually, I didn’t guess. That made perfect sense. Pip currently met all the classical requirements for a weather goddess.

I wonder what she thought of that. Also Wander had said she was cute in the song. So she was probably godtier cute on top of every—

“Uh, we’re off topic!” I announced perhaps a bit too loudly. “You wanted to know about me, right?”

Wander nodded. “Right. Let’s finish that up.”

“Okay so, some time after bypasses and balefire eggs were invented, Zebrican agents bombed a laboratory Mom worked at, and she lost her mind. Not literally. I mean she snapped. She wound up having to get an artificial heart, and was put in an Iron Lung. She couldn’t handle being cooped up like that, so she designed an artificial lung that could be implanted so she could be mobile again.”

Wander flinched and shuddered. “I had a friend in one of those breathing beds… Let me guess, she was so scared of getting hurt like that again she started designing artificial organs for everything? Also, how’s that relate to you?”

“Well, you know that I’m a MAS project. But you don’t know why I am made from mostly experimental parts.”

Wander hummed. “Yeah, okay. That’s something important to know. Especially considering what I want to know specifically. Go ahead.”

I nodded. “Okay, so, mom wasn’t really stable back then… She’s a little better now. Her bosses let her stay with the MAS after her accident because in spite of her going a little crazy she was still laser sharp for science and engineering.

"I’m the end result of her obsessive focus on cybernetics. A full replacement for everything, except the brain. Yes, her bosses asked her to design my platform for espionage purposes, but I’m different. I’m the one mom had in her hooves. I was designed to keep a pony alive forever. Specifically, mom.”

Wander sat up, her eyes narrowed in disgust. “Who the buck was your mom working under?!”

I shrugged and swished my tail across the floor. “I have no idea. Sorry.”

Wander grit her teeth again. “There’s no way they didn’t assign her to that project because they knew she was scared of dying.”

I nodded. “Of course they did. It’s only logical to use the right pony for the job, even if that is a little cruel and you should send them to therapy for comparison's sake… So, yeah. Mom made me intending to put her brain into this unit. But then the world ended, and suddenly there wasn’t a brain surgeon to put her in…”

I trailed off and closed my eyes as I tried to not picture what I’d seen that day clearly. “She… Tried to put herself in. Obviously, that didn’t work out. She survived only because of how mechanical she already was. She left to get help putting her skull back together, leaving me in her lab.

“She came back terrified that everypony was dead. I didn’t understand why… But she put me in here so she would have company. She knew she’d likely live a few hundred years thanks to her augmentations… And was scared I’d die before her.”

Wander slid off the bed, trotted over to me and wrapped her forelegs around my shoulders tightly. “That’s pretty horrible… I can’t blame her for doing it to you, but… Luna’s mane, I can’t imagine not being able to feel things! Not emotions, I mean physical objects… I’d have given that up for my wife. Not my mom, though.

I smiled and slipped out of her grip, standing up in the middle of the room. “I didn't’ give up anything. This body can do everything a zebra can.”

“Yeah,” Wander agreed with a nod. “Except taste.”

“Sure, but everything else was finished,” I said quickly to spin the conversation away from my lack of taste.

I really wasn’t up to explaining that I’d arbitrarily made a list of chemical combinations to call good, and another to call bad. That always weirded ponies out.

“For example, you know that I can feel pain. But I can feel everything else too! Go ahead and poke me somewhere. I’ll close my eyes.” I said as I closed my eyes.

“Uh, sure?” Wander said uncertainty.

I felt something poke my left glyph mark. “Left flank, glyph area, kinda hard…”

I opened my eyes and gave Wander a smile. “Theoretically, if I found a nice stallion, even romantic stuff would work normally! Well, except for having foals. But that’s not something I want to do, personally.”

“Huh. Cool!” Wander remarked thoughtfully, only for her intrigued expression to slowly warp into what I could only describe as maximum incredulity.

The kind of face a pony makes when they realize something you just said is total horseapples.

I frowned. Nothing I said was false… What was—

"Wait!” Wander demanded. “Hold on a second, you're as old as I am!"

"A little younger, actually,” I corrected with a swish of my tail.

“You’re still over two centuries old!”

I nodded.

“Annnnd, you don't know if your mare-bits work?”

I shook my head. “Unfortunately no. I haven't gotten any relationships that far yet.”

Wander trotted up to me to look me in the eyes at an uncomfortably close distance. “You’re telling me that not only have you never gotten laid, but you’ve never even clopped off?!”

“Clopped… What?” I asked as my face flooded with pure confusion concentrate.

Wander backed off sputtering. “You know! Masturbate!” She shouted while sweeping one of her forelegs… Dramatically?

I frowned and did my best to recall that word. I thought I heard someone use it before but I didn’t have any idea what it meant. So, I shrugged. “Sorry, I have no idea what that means.”

Wander’s jaw dropped. “But— I— You instinctively should, at some point, take care of your own urges by yourself!”

“Oh! Is that what it means?” I asked, happy to learn a new word.

“Yes! Thank, Luna!” Wander sighed, visibly relaxing. “Wait— No! You still haven't done it because then you’d know if those parts worked!”

I blushed and looked away. “I— I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was allowed…”

“A— Allowed?!” Wander stammered, then slowly shook her head. “Right! Right your mom’s nuts and you live with her. Of course she said you couldn't do that.”

“No! She never mentioned anything about it. She only told me other ponies were supposed to take care of that for you, and that I should pick either stallions or mares to pursue for a partner. I couldn’t make up my mind so I flipped a coin and it came up heads so—”

Wander looked like she was about to hit critical frustration and self destruct. “Okay! Okay! We’re stopping this right here! Right now! Gears, I will happily explain to you everything your mom hasn’t once I’m not in the middle of cringe city.”

“Oh! That would be nice, thank you, I think.” I smiled.

Wander looked at me and groaned. “You… Definitely inherited parts of your mom…” She shook her head and sighed.

I frowned, not sure what she meant. I wasn't remotely as good with machines, and I was far better at navigating social situations. I also still knew what time was.

What did I inherit from her? Dad? Help?

Imaginary dad coughed. ”No comment.”

“Topic change, before I facehoof so hard I touch my brain again,” Wander said in a way which made me realize at some point she must have actually done that. “So! Before you were stuck into that Robobrain, what were you before that?”

"An automated Zebrican fire control system," I replied without thinking.

BUCK! Why did I tell her tha—

"Heh! Nice one!” Wander chuckled as she turned around to start pacing the room. “I guess you've been a zebra for so long you don't really remember?"

Oh. Yes. Jokes. That would sound like one. Quick, use it to make a point!

“You’re afraid of me, aren't you?” I asked.

Wander stopped pacing, turned and nodded. “Yeah… No offense but I’ve seen so many malfunctioning robots, and fought off so many robobrains with visible brain-rot that have gone berserk that, well… I wanted to know how hard it would be to kill you if I had to.”

Wander didn’t seem ashamed to think about that, though she did look a little uneasy at having to make that clear for me.

I nodded twice. “I understand some people are afraid of robots and cyborgs, I get it. We can be completely normal then without any warning at all we suddenly snap and go feral.”

I narrowed my eyes as I emphasized the word feral.

Wander winced and gave me an apologetic frown. “I— I never thought about it that way. You’ve made your point. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I didn’t take it like that,” I answered honestly. “There is a real risk I could malfunction and hurt you… Just like how there’s a risk you could malfunction and hurt me. All I wanted to do was point out the hypocrisy.”

Wander nodded, then smiled just a little bit. “So, you’ll glitch out when I go feral huh?”

I tilted my head back laughed as I imagined how that would go. “That would be the best! You’d be trying to bite through ballistic alloy, and I’d probably be making vaguely lurching motions and saying ‘girr, brains!’ on a loop.”

Wander triple blinked and tilted her head. “Huh?”

“Oh,” I blushed as I realized I’d have to explain what this platform did when I wasn’t controlling it. “Well, the only real ‘glitch’ that can happen with me is if I lose control of this body. Then the processors in this thing would take over and run basic survival protocols… If they had them. Which they don’t.”

Wander smirked. “Oh I like where this is going. What is it they do have?”

I giggled, glad she was amused instead of creeped out. “All that this body has is a really terribly programed set of subroutines which are placeholders for— Uh, this body would would default to an infiltration protocol. But like, a terrible one.”

“Because the Mark III was for spies?”

“Right! But since this is a the lab prototype none of the finalized software is there, or was even made in the first place. All my processors have to run is a vague “blend in” routine my mom coded as a placeholder. I ran it once to see what would happen and it made me just sand incredibly conspicuously next to a guy in the bar and laugh at everything except his jokes... Half a second too late. Heh! Pony coding, am I right?”

I giggled again, remembering how completely crap the automated systems in this thing were.

Wander shook her head slowly and laughed with me. “Yeah, it’s pretty terrible! No wonder we decided to just put brains into robots.”

Wander hummed curiously for a moment. “Hey, so you seem to know a lot about pre-war tech. I’m guessing you helped your mom in the lab?”

“No. But when I’m not carrying messages I work in her library, so—”

“Library?” Wander asked with a frown, then her ears perked. “Oh, yes! You mentioned that. How did she of all ponies make a library?”

An easy question to answer! “Mom and I fled north to keep data she retrieved from pre-war facilities safe. She prioritized technical information, blueprints, lab notes, scientific journals, that kind of thing. We recovered… A lot. A lot a lot! Mom had a valid MAS ID. It wasn’t hard for her to slip into ministry hubs and download their archives. As far as they cared she was supposed to be there.”

Wander’s jaw dropped as she realized the full implication of what I’d just told her. I liked how every pony’s face did the same thing whenever they learned exactly what was in mom’s library.

“W— wait, you mean your hometown has blueprints for everything?!” Wander stammered.

I shook my head quickly. “Oh heck, no! Not even close! We couldn’t get into Canterlot, Mariponi, Baltimare, or a few other places. But we do have quite a bit! That’s half of how my Queen is able to trade technical expertise and infrastructure related blueprints.”

Wander stamped a hoof angrily and trotted over to the bed to flop down face first onto it. “Ugh! I’ve been wandering for years and there’s a paradise full of pre-war tech across a mountain range that’s apparently ghoul friendly! Buck my life!”

“It’s so not a paradise,” Gears says with a wince. “We have running water, heat, power, and communications, but well… Windigos, bloodice, everyone’s hungry all the time, Radstorms. I could go on.”

“There’s a lot I want to ask about,” Wander said slowly and awkwardly, as if she were trying to change the subject herself. Then, she sighed and slumped a little. “But... I feel like I’ve been doing all the asking. How about you answer one last question then you get a turn?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that an offer to ask about your past?”

Wander mmphed something into the bed I couldn't catch.

“Didn’t get that,” I admitted.

“Yeah… But just this once. Because I— I owe you one for the feral thing!” She muttered.

I smiled. “Sounds good!”

Muahahaha! Gears 2, Wander… Something like 50?

”At least it’s not a shutout, kiddo.”

“Do you happen to know how Zebras made robots so much better than we did?” Wander asked as she rolled over. “I’ve been wondering about that since I read how their robots easily outsmarted ours… And also our soldiers too, sometimes.”

I pursed my lips nervously. This was something I didn’t want to say too much about. Not to somepony as smart as Wander. “W— Well… Yes. I do. They made their robots the same way they make everything else.”

“Okay? So, their magic is fundamentally different?” Wander asked as she sat up.

I nodded. “Yeah. Zebra Shaman don’t channel magic through a spell matrix for advanced enchantments… Or any enchantments, actually. They bind a spirit to an object and make a deal with it. The spirit does whatever it’s been asked to do, and the Shaman ensures it gets something in return. Usually power and a few gems. A totem of some kind will channel ambient magic to the spirit, letting it grow over time. They eat the gems... Somehow.”

“Huh… I uh, I lived near a Zebra before the war. Like, way before it. Before the industrial boom even,” Wander said. “She never mentioned that’s how she did things… Then again, I never asked.”

I snickered. “Yep! You’re a much older pony than me!”

She narrowed her eyes to glare at me and continued without a word to address my remark. “She talked about shamanism a few times. So, for robots, a Shaman like, binds a spirit to each part and it’s a whole bunch of nature spirits working together, or what?”

I shook my head almost violently. Ugh! The idea of a thousand voices screaming to choose a single action for a machine… No! Just, no!

“No, no, no!” I said, waving my hooves in frustration at the very idea. “For robots, or making any complex machine animate, a Shaman will search for a machine spirit and—”

“Wait, machine spirit?” Wander asked, tilting her head. “What’s that?”

I gave Wander my best deadpan stare. What is that? It is what it sounds like!

“Everything has a spirit,” I said slowly. “Rocks. Grass. Trees. Water. Metal. Everything. Including things people make. Especially things people make,” I explained with a bit more enthusiasm than I probably should have used. “See, you’ve got this big shiny soul that’s rearranging natural materials full of spirits into a new form. When you melt iron and carbon together, you’ve just fuzed two nature spirits into a single steel spirit. Get it?”

Wander nodded. I continued. “When you build a machine, every spirit in each part merges, following the action of the soul putting things in order. That builds a machine spirit. Almost all of them are… Well, newborns for lack of a real term. Brainless, thoughtless, entities of little to no power. Because they are very new, and a spirit’s power is directly proportional to its age, which you know, can be as old as the world is. But, that’s pretty rare since spirits can get sent back to the Spirit Realm if you smash their corporeal container, or the object they call home.

“That means it’s a good idea to recycle older machine spirits by unbinding them from one machine and sticking them into a new machine. That way you have a spirit that’s been around long enough to be able to think, and has some power at its disposal.

“For robots or other automated systems on warmachines, you want one that’s around pony-level intellect. Usually that’s something from the early bronze age. That limits your choices a little, but you find a spirit and bind it to the robot in such a way as to let it use the robot as a body. Zebra robots are not really robots, they are ghosts in a machine.”

I hope that explained it clearly enough for her.

”Probably a bit too clearly…” Dad warned.

She’ll figure it out eventually even if I don't give her hints. I mentally sighed.

“Wow… That’s creepy,” Wander said with a shiver.

“It’s way worse than you think,” I agreed with a wince. “The more you know about the Spirit Realm, the worse giving a body to a spirit is.”

“Why?” Came the inevitable question.

Oh, Celestia, no! Please don't make me have to explain that… How to dodge? How to doge— Oh! Yes!

I cleared my throat. “You said one more, it’s my turn. We can talk about that later.”

Wander facehooved. “Right! Sorry. Go ahead… Just not my name. Nopony can know my name. Understand?”

I shivered as she leaned into the word understand. She was very serious about that.

“I understand,” I said as I thought of a good question. “What did you and your friends do when you hung out together?”

Wander’s eye twitched slightly. “I… Do I have to—”

“You said you would!” I chided.

She sighed and closed her eyes. “Before the war… I was a musician. You’ve never heard anything I played back then… You might have heard some of my later work. You’re too young to remember Equestria before the ministries, at least, I think. Your mom was a teenager when the Ministries were new, right?”

I walked over to the bed and sat down like Wander had when it was her turn to listen. “Yes. I didn’t see pre-Ministry Equestria.”

At least, not much of it except the southern coastline.

“Odd way to put it, but whatever,” Wander muttered. “We were a lot more free then. The Ministry of Image had this idea after a while that if our culture was allowed to keep branching out like it had been, that it would hurt the war effort and might even lead to a Zebra victory. There were reforms. A lot of reforms. The one that hit me the worst was the ban on all non-traditional music. That wasn’t the MoI’s most popular decision, but Luna backed it. We went with it because you don’t tell a Princess no. Not when she can make the night last forever.”

Wander trotted back and forth for a moment, struggling to find words. “My friends and I had a band… There were four of us. We grew up together. Moved out of Canterlot together. We each loved a different genre, and we’d made a lot of unique albums with our gimmick of writing one song in each of our favorite genres. I’d do remixes of our albums as a day job between our gigs. I wound up getting really good with audio equipment, and computers too when they became a thing.

“I stuck with music even after the MoI ban, but my friends didn’t. They… Couldn’t handle the restrictions. I don’t blame them. I just… I couldn't give up music! It’s my special talent. I don’t feel like I’m alive if I can’t play. So, I wrote songs for the MoI. It drove a wedge between the four of us us. Even between m— My— My wife and I.”

It was my turn to get up and give somepony a hug. I trotted over and wrapped Wander in the tightest hug I could manage. Which, thanks to my missing pump, wasn’t very tight.

I hoped it wasn’t insufficiently comforting…

“I’m so sorry,” I said with a sniffle. “I didn’t mean to make you talk about your family!”

Wander waved a hoof in dismissal and pushed me away from her, hesitantly.

“It’s okay… We never divorced,” she continued. “We may as well have when I left for Manehattan, though. I’d just helped set up the national radio system, which they rightly blamed for twisting their art into propaganda. At the time, I called them unpatriotic and unwilling to make sacrifices for our nation… Celestia, I was an asshole! I tore apart a group that had been friends for forty years.”

Wander stopped talking for a moment, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. A metaphorical hoof slapped me across the face. As much as Wander needed to talk to somepony about this, she clearly hadn’t been ready!

I was an asshole too...

Wander took a deep breath and pushed on. “I… I wanted to get away from them. I never thought anypony would actually use mega spells. C.A.R.E. just made so much sense! No sane person would ever… I— We all know they were not sane. No one in charge was. On either side.”

Wander paused for a few more moments then sighed and turned to look at me, her eyes looking more red than usual. “I bunny trailed. Sorry. I was still popular a few weeks before the Last Day. Popular enough to get an invite to a Stable which was going to seal up for a month to do a test run of the Stable System. You know, a shakedown ‘cruise’ to see what needed tweaking for long term habitation. All that stuff. I wanted space from my wife, because she wouldn’t stop hanging out with my then ex-friends. So I took it.”

Wander closed her eyes again. “You know how it went from there…”

I nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.

“No… No it’s fine. I did say you could,” Wander sighed and looked up at me. “Want to know what happened after I left my vault?”

I hesitated for a moment, then gave her a nod. “If it won’t hurt you.”

Wander smiled. “Guess I won’t tell the story, then!” She hesitated for a moment then sighed. “No… No, I’ll finish it for you. So you won't have to ask again.”

I put a hoof on Wander’s shoulder and looked her in the eye.

“I promise I won't ask again,” I said with a reassuring smile.

“The end of the world does funny things to you,” Wander said as she lifted my hoof from her shoulder with her magic. “Suddenly people you hated become the only thing you care about. I regretted every minute I spent safe without knowing what happened to them, and if they were okay.

“There was a chance they were okay. They’d been in Canterlot. We’d moved back there a few years before the end... I knew there was a Stable in Canterlot. Lyra was a pretty good engineer. She had money for a family pass. They could still be alive. I had to know.

“Our stable door had a voice-override. I learned how to imitate voices years and years before the war, to help with my music. I’m good enough to fool a computer’s ear. I’m also good enough with a computer to see whose voice it wanted. Turns out that the Stable door wanted more than one voice.”

“More than one?” I asked. “That’s pretty secure!”

Wander smirked. “No it’s not,” she dismissed. “It wanted the Stable-Tec owners voices, to be specific. Heh… I knew them as fillies. Those three probably put a few insurance agents’ foals through college with the chaos they used to cause! Buck I miss those days…”

Wander trailed off for a long while. For a minute I thought she decided to stop telling her story. I moved to give her an apology hug, which seemed to trigger her into continuing.

“Turns out the voice lock was… Cheap. No password or phrase. Just a digital ‘are these mares present? If so, open.’ type of voice lock. So, I mimicked their voices, recorded them, mixed them together, and I had a key. I could just leave whenever I wanted. I just didn’t want too. Not right away. It was dangerous out there…

“I tried to let myself be okay with not knowing but— I just… I couldn’t. I held out almost three months before I left. The last straw was when the Overmare asked me to play for the Three Month Survival Party. I couldn’t celebrate surviving. Not without them.”

Wander turned and walked over to our room’s window and moved the shutters aside to look out over the town. The first few pale rays of sunlight shone through the window, and gave me my first proper view of Sire’s Hollow. It looked almost like a pre-war town.

Everything was made from wood. The streets were cobbled. If it hadn’t been very clear that the buildings had been repaired with scrap-wood, and the stones clearly laid down by amateurs, I could have been fooled into thinking the town hadn’t been hit by the megaspells at all.

But the longer you looked at the old town, the more you could see it had been lovingly and painstakingly, if amateurly, repaired with whatever could be found at the time.

“I left the morning of the party,” Wander said quietly. “I had a small panic attack when the door closed behind me and I tried to get back inside. Turns out my code only worked once. Or only from the inside terminal. At least, on that Stable. It’s worked just fine on other Stables, weirdly eno— Uh, that’s another bunny trail. Sorry. Point is, I left my Stable and walked to Canterlot.

“I don’t know how I managed to survive. The early days of the wasteland were just… The worst. I was almost dead when I got to Canterlot… I— I don’t want to talk about the trip there.”

Wander cleared her throat and took a moment to compose herself. “I had no idea that the Pink Cloud was dangerous. It looked like something Pinkie Pie would have made. I figured a warehouse full of her stuff had been hit by a bomb or whatever and trotted inside. I walked inside and—”

Wander stopped for another long minute. She sat down and took a few deep breaths, clearly working her way past some hard memories. I winced in sympathy. I had a few things I didn’t want to remember either.

Like that time I saw mom cut open her own head and try to lift out—

NO! BAD MEMORY! BAD!

Wander cleared her throat, having moved past her metal hurdle. “I don’t know when I changed, if it was before I found their bodies, or after. I found… I found her body in our bedroom. Melted into our desk. She was writing a letter to me. She said she loved me, but we needed to talk about things. See a marriage counselor. Even after everything I’d done to her, she wanted to reach out and fix things between us… But we couldn’t. Not anymore.”

Wander’s composure shattered. She dropped to the floor in a sobbing heap. “If— If she’d been alive, ghoul or not, stuck to her desk or not, I’d have— I’d be there with her still, under the rubble. But... She’s dead! So I— I—”

I jumped up and immediately pulled Wander as close to my barrel as I could. This time she returned my hug and wouldn’t let go.

I felt Wander’s stone tooth necklace press against my shoulder. Even though I was separated from it by her scarf and jumpsuit, I could feel the burning power of spirit inside it. I wanted to ask about it, because the story certainty wasn’t over yet, but now wasn’t the time.

I was happy to let her hug and sob it out, but with her wrapped around a large portion of my body I felt my system temps start to rise…

Oh. Yes. I was still low on coolant!

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into Wander’s ear gently.

She continued to sob.

“I am also sorry, but I’m getting too hot… How about we go to the bar and have a tall drink? I think we both need one.”

Wander laughed bitterly. “There isn’t enough booze in the world, Gears… Trust me, I tried. Took over a distillery form raiders once. Drank it dry.”

“Correction, there isn’t enough booze in the world at any one time!” I said with a playful smile, hoping to lift her spirits.

Heh! Spirits.

Wander paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah… Having a drink with a fr— You! It— It would be nice,” she said awkwardly.

Yay! I almost got you to say the f word!

“Where is the bar?” I asked as I slipped free from her grip and trotted over to my battle saddle and bags to put them on.

I winced as I saw the trashed LAER. There was no fixing that… I’d break it down for scrap later. Once the poor mare and I had a nice stiff drink or three.

“It’s down stairs. Inn and bar. Same place,” Wander said quietly, still holding back tears.

I slipped my saddle on and tightened the straps. No mailmare ever let her delivery sit unattended!

“Come on,” I said as I trotted towards the door. “Let’s see if you can handle a stronger drink than me.”

Wander snorted. “Oh yeah, like I can handle more than the vodka cooled robot! I’ll bet you use that coolant excuse to keep ponies from complaining that you hog the bottle.”

I blushed and cleared my throat. “The Lithian Constitution protects me from self incrimination.”

Alcoholic drinks were on my ‘chemical combinations that taste good’ list.

Wander smirked, but only for a moment. She still looked sad enough to make a Changeling sick. “Heh… What the hay, I regenerate. I’ll give it a shot, or five.”

“That’s the spirit!” I said, still happy with the layers to that joke.

The two of us left the room side by side. I couldn't help but feel like I’d cracked some of her armor.

Not as much as the Sentinel had cracked mine though… I should see about buying some proper armor.

9 - Respite

The bar in Sire’s Hollow was a nice place. The Sterling Cat was not just beneath the inn, it in fact was a single huge room that the inn had been built inside of, via lots of pillars and timber bracing.

It took me a few moments to realize the bar had been built inside a pre-war school’s gymnasium, on top of what had once been the basketball court. You really couldn't tell from the court itself. The floors had been worn down so much there wasn’t a lick of paint left on them. What clued me in was that the old mounting points for the nets had been used to mount the heads of a few monsters, and also what I hoped was an empty suit of Enclave power armor crucified on the scoreboard.

There was a good chance the armor still had its original wearer entombed within. The sight of the black, glossy, insect-like armor pinned to a wall by rusty railroad spikes driven through the boots and shoulders made me wince, which in turn made my diodes ache.

On one hoof, I knew exactly what they thought about the Enclave here in the Heartlands. On the other hoof, the armor’s helmet had a hoof-sized hole punched clean through it, and somepony had painted ‘No fight in bar, plz. Thank.’ on the armor’s breastplate in something which had dried a very distressing shade of reddish brown.

This brought into question whether or not the giant mutant bear with the splayed-out ribcage, large, stony-hide-covered wolf-like beast with an obviously broken neck, and stuffed arm of an ungodly large, terrifyingly muscular beast unlike anything I had ever been seen before had also caused problems in the bar. After all, they were also spiked to random parts of the walls almost like how old books showed championship pennants hung up in pre-war school gyms.

Regardless of everything else, it was comforting to know the Sterling Cat was the safest place in Equestria. This is probably why the bar was so busy in spite of the very limited menu. At least, that’s what Wander told me when she came back with our first round. The place was so packed I’d held a table while she placed our order, two of whatever they had to drink and a small plate of hayfries to treat herself.

Apparently they only had five meals and just two drinks. If you were to dine here you could have: hayfries (They came with everything. Even the drinks!), boiled cabbage bowls filled with mashed potatoes, a crumbly unleavened bread, some kind of stew which smelled amazing but looked like raw sewage, a big mushy mass of barley and oats served in a milky porridge, or a big slab of grilled meat only listed as the “Daughter’s Monster Catch of the Day”.

As far as drinks were concerned, Wander got us very, very strong, onyx-black beer which Wander told me was so bitter she wished we could swap tongues. I loved the beer. After three or four more pints and a big block of salt bought from a cooking supply store down the street, I was almost a third of the way back to a full tank of coolant. Foaming, salty, delicious beer coolant.

I flagged down one of the serving mares and asked them what the beer was. She flew over for a moment to explain that the barkeep learned the recipe for a griffon drink called kvass and decided to make it. Then, after deciding it was too weak, he distilled it and used the concentrated kvass in place of water for brewing beer with mutant yeast.

My dad would have loved the stallion for that.

”I love that stallion. Don’t mention this to your mother. She’d be upset about the misuse of bread that could be toast.”

Their other drink was a dull purple wine, which shimmered like the sheen you get atop meat just before it started to decay. It also had a very distressing scent, a combination of rotting fruit and freshly fertilized fields. I had no clue how Wander could knock back half a bottle of the vile stuff without vomiting. Maybe it was a ghoul thing.

Or maybe it tasted amazing. The wine seemed to not be quite as popular as the beer, given that I only saw Wander drinking it. The Cat was lit by only a few oil lamps scattered around the many tables. This made everything dim, which helped make everything feel cozy and private even though a hundred ponies were packed inside for their breakfast.

I knew the sun had to be up, but the old gymnasium lacked windows, preserving the dim atmosphere. The massive crystal lamps you’d expect in a gym’s ceiling were hidden by the Cat’s inn portion, a second and third floor built within the cavernous gymnasium ceiling. A good use for the aerial exercise section of an old gym.

Before we’d descended the stairs, I would have sworn the room we had been staying in was built before the war and repaired over time. That perhaps the intact parts of the inn had been salvaged from an apartment building, but no! It was all new construction. The ponies of Sire’s Hollow definitely took a lot of pride in their architecture.

It made me wonder just how new their wall must be, since it was little more than stray bits of timber framing plated with collected junk.

I also wondered if everypony in town came here for breakfast every day. There were at least a hundred ponies packed into the Sterling Cat, most of which had a plate of food, all of whom had at least one mug of beer or a glass of wine with their meal. It felt like this was a normal day for them.

Wander had fallen quiet again after swigging that wine, and seemed to want to eat fries and drink in peace. It left me little to do but look around the Cat’s dim interior and try to puzzle out what kind of town Sire’s Hollow was based on the ponies who lived here.

The table to my left had four ponies seated at it. They were huddled close to each other and talking nervously over their meal. The mare closest to me stood out for more than mere proximity. She was wearing a dusty-red suit of pre-war combat armor made with extra large, extra thick, rounded plates designed to deflect bullets. Big bullets. Even baby cannonfire, I’d wager.

The mare was wearing a historic relic. A mostly intact set of Macintosh Barding, the biggest, heaviest, most protective set of unpowered armor Equestria had ever produced. Any more weight, and even an Earth Pony couldn’t fight in all that metal.

To my surprise, the mare carrying all that backbreaking armor had a light SMG slung over her back, and a single throwing knife sheathed on her left foreleg. You’d think a pony in that much armor would get the heavy weapon as well, but that fell to the other pony at her table I could see clearly.

The pale emerald mare to her left had a battle saddle straped on over her weird looking jumpsuit, metal-circle studded white and gray leather and rubber. She had her saddle set up with a flamer on the left flank, and what looked like a repainted SkyTech PD-3 Pulse Rifle on her right!

Where was that mare and her compressed magical energy blaster last night?! Why had nopony bothered to wake her up and say “By the way, raiders with an Ultra-Sentinel are at the gate”. Or, you know, borrowed her very rare anti-armor energy weapon for a few minutes.

That thing would have been able to put the robot down in short order. Even if she’d painted it hot pink and written ‘buck you gently’ on the side in gold.

I stopped watching the two mares after managing to hear a few snippets of their conversation over the general buzz which permeated the Cat. Sire’s Hollow would be safe when I left. The mare with the Macintosh Barding was the captain of the town’s guard. Apparently the two of them had been out on road patrol last night and missed out on the firefight entirely.

Just. My. Luck.

The other ponies I could see were less well armed, but not by much. It was clear that the fight at their town’s gate was being taken seriously even by normal citizens. A dark orange earth pony off to my left was eating her breakfast with an old M60 leaning up against her table. The young stallion sitting across from her had a large revolver resting on the table. Judging by the leather and scrap-metal armor covering his body and his large dark gray stetson, he was fixing on being something of a cowpony.

That never works out well… I hoped he wasn’t her coltfriend or brother. Or they were going to go after the Tainted together, at the very least.

At least, that’s what I thought at first. Turns out everypony was armed. There was a light raspberry colored mare with a pair of three-headed flails, a stallion with a battle saddle jury rigged to hold a quartet of shotguns, a pegasus stallion who was attaching an old straight razor to an SMG as a bayonet…

I smiled to myself. Sire’s Hollow was pretty darn safe, if you asked me. Everypony I could see was not just ready to defend their home, they were actively planning how to do it while getting ready.

Wait…

Getting ready?

”Hon, maybe you should go top up on coolant,” Imaginary dad suggested right as I realized if they were preparing for battle, that meant a battle was probably about to be had.

Not wanting to alarm Wander too much I looked across the table and cleared my throat. “Hey, so… Everypony here seems to be ready for war, or getting ready for one.”

Wander nodded and levitated her bottle down onto the table. “Yeah. I noticed that too… I think they are just on edge about last night. Worried that the Tainted might try something again later today.”

I nodded slowly and flicked my tail. “That’s not exactly unlikely.”

Wander nodded. “Yeah… They know there’s a Water Talisman here all packed up and loaded on a cart. It’s basically gift wrapped.”

I looked down at my empty mug. “I uh… I think I’ll go top up on coolant now. Just in case.”

Wander sputtered, her eyes going wide at my simple statement. “What?! You’re not done?”

Her outburst made half a dozen ponies turn to look at us.

“N— No,” I said with a nervous smile.

“You had five pints of Dire Beer! How could that possibly not be enough?” Wander demanded, her jaw hanging open behind her scarf as she shook her head.

“W— Well, it’s not pure alcohol, there’s some water and body,” I explained with a stammer.

I wasn't quite sure if that’s something a pony might say in public. After all, the other ponies here must think I’m just a regular Zebra. Which was good!

“Soooo, there’s a lot of waste. I think this beer is only fifty percent, so I've really only had two and a half pints. I’ll need… Five more to be my usual self,” I corrected, finishing with an awkward smile.

Somepony at a nearby table dropped their mug. It made a rather loud thunk, but I couldn’t place exactly where the sound came from.

Wander took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Okay, but you buy this round.”

I nodded, remembering I had the voucher. “I’m sorry. I hope they weren't very expensive.”

“Nah. This place is cheap! But, I bought the first two rounds, so you buy the next two. That’s drinking game law between fr—” Wander said before flinching. “That’s right! Heads up. The barkeep is pretty intense!”

I nodded and pointed up to the crucified set of power armor.

Wander smiled slightly. “Yeah. I didn't need to say that.”

“Nope,” I said as I stood up and looked around for the bar.

The Cat’s bartop was rather conveniently situated along the wall to my back, which just so happened to be the closest one to our table. As packed as the Cat was, I was able to make my way through the dimly lit room to the bar almost as fast as I could have if I had been able to walk in a straight line. Unfortunately, all that got me was a place in a pretty long line of ponies waiting for their food.

It was odd to see so many ponies wearing clothes, just… To wear them. Back home, most ponies would not bother dressing except for a formal occasion. The Heartlands appears to be the opposite. I understood the third or so of the ponies who were wearing some form or armor or another, but the other two thirds were also fully dressed.

They made the line ahead of me into a riot of clashing colors. A first class fashion disaster train! Of course, it’s not like they had much choice in what to wear… But bare pony fur is so pretty on its own! Why cover it up trying to look nicer? It’s silly, if you ask me.

I was the only pony here who needed clothes. White with black stripes is pretty much visual white noise… Heck, it’s literally camouflage. I was, by design, not pretty. In fact, I was so plain I’d ideally just blend in anywhere.

The bar had been built from the roof of a bus, or some other truly lengthy vehicle. I could see just a bit of it, enough to see the ten big oil drums they used to hold the drinks on tap and two very busy serving mares helping to dispense each order as it came in.

The Sterling Cat’s team of serving mares had a uniform, of sorts. A little leather outfit consisting of a leather-strip skirt and sandals, with monster pelts vests. They were pretty cute…

Not wanting to feel even less pretty than I usually did, I decided to divert my attention away from them and to the small shortwave radio located on a shelf above the bar. It was surrounded by glass jars filled with various tinted mystery liquids, and playing some music.

I was able to enjoy the last few bars of a mare’s soft, quiet, vocal-only performance. I’d never heard her music before. She had a wonderful voice. A very distinctive voice. One you’d recognize if you’d ever heard it before. You’d remember that sweet voice for the rest of your life.

That mare had a special talent for singing. No doubt about it.

Just as I was about to ask the dusty peach stallion in front of me if he knew who the singer was, the song finished and a somber DJ’s voice answered my question.

“Good morning, children! We have a real mess to talk about today. That’s why I thought we’d start things off with some Velvet Remedy. To remind everypony that no matter how bad things get, there’s always something nice around the next corner.”

I winced. If there was bad news to report now, imagine what the poor DJ would have to play to compensate for Magebridge.

“And now… The news,” the DJ continued. “If you live in the northern NCR and ordered anything from Los Pegasus, don’t expect it to come in any time soon. Those rainbow clad raiders decided they weren't happy with murdering the occasional merchant and burning the odd caravan or two. Magebridge, my little ponies, is gone.”

I gasped and turned to stare directly at the radio. How the buck did he know?! Nopony could have traveled very far— OH! Of course, somepony had radioed the news into whatever organization he worked for and his boss gave him the report to read. Duh!

“By gone, I really mean ‘everypony living there was brutally murdered’. Stallions, mares, foals, all dead. All, except, a hooffull of NCR troopers, a caravaner, and two poor ponies who had to watch all their friends die…”

The DJ paused for a moment, taking a quick breath. I could hear the anger in his voice. “You know me. I bring you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts. I was asked to gloss over the details of the massacre. I’m not going to.

“You need to know that those rainbow raiders are not just an especially psychotic throwback gang of wastelander burnouts and psychos like the old days. I have a copy of the trooper’s own report right here. If they want to, the rainbow raiders can bring some really nasty toys to the table. Madgebridge was attacked by a group of fifty of them, all with that same flak-vest. They were supported by an ultra-sentinel, and lead by a horse in power armor.

“Yes. A horse. This sick bastard was taller than any alicorn you may have seen, but lacked a horn. He had his posse round up everypony in Madgebridge, announced they were all drafted into military service, then opened fire on the lot of them when some ponies refused.”

I heard the ponies around me begin to murmur to one another. I wanted to join them. He tried to conscript ponies into his gang? No… Draft. The DJ said draft. As if he had legal authority to do so.

Was someone trying a little nation building?

”Either they’re late to the party, or you’re right and somepony is up on their high horse.”

... Really, dad?

”Joke aside, sweetheart, there’s a real short list of who this might be. You need to get word to the queen.”

Oh… You’re right. I need to find a place to make a call from soon.

The DJ continued speaking. I missed a little as I strained to listen in on the broadcast through the sudden buzz in conversation.

“The rainbow raiders chased the survivors to Sire’s Hollow. Obviously, they survived, but the how of it is quite interesting! The gang’s leader left during the chase, but their death-robot stayed on the job. I’m sure everypony out there knows how dangerous one of those beasts is, especially in the dark. Fortunately for Sire’s Hollow, a zebra happened to be traveling to the town and arrived just in time for the party, because the party was her!

“Turns out this sentinel had a real problem with zeebs existing and focused on nothing else but smashing the poor mare into a pile of chunky paste. Don’t raise a glass to her memory yet folks, because here’s your first good news of the day. That mare, kicked, its, plot!”

I giggle-winced. Not as hard as it kicked mine…

“In the middle of a wild storm, this mare came down the road, opened fire on the raiders with her exotic energy rifle, and as soon as the mechanical monster noticed her, it focused everything it had on her. Let me tell you, our colts in brown say this zebra is a real professional. She blasted through its eye with a pistol and used that opening in the armor to fry that monster with a single well-placed shot of actual bucking lightning. Set the entire thing up while dancing around its shots and punches. She even moved so the robot’s stray shots wouldn’t hit anypony in town!

"The only thing that robot killed early this morning was a whole bunch of wheat. Thanks, mystery mare. I hope somepony over there buys you a drink!”

Oh, hey. Yeah! I had moved in a way which would make sure that didn’t happen. I did a nice on accident. Yay!

“Guys, look!” A mare shouted behind me.

Her voice held a mixture of excitement and urgency. I spun around, worried that a certain giant in flying power armor had just dropped into town.

Instead, I looked into the faces of about a dozen excited ponies.

I smiled faintly. “Uh, hi?”

The short dark scarlet unicorn mare at the forefront of the group pointed at me. “Is that you DJ Pon3’s talking about?” She asked.

”Oh no! Groupies,” Imaginary dad groaned. ”Hon, before you say yes, think about—”

I’m not a liar, dad!

I nodded and held out my hoof for her to shake. “Yes, that was me. My name is Whir—”

“You’re here for a drink, right?” A tall plum colored stallion in a leather duster asked just as eagerly.

I nodded again. “Yes. I—”

I was suddenly picked up by the unicorn mare’s bizarrely itchy magic and pulled along as the group pushed its way to the front of the line.

“Hero coming through!” The mare hollered.

“DJ Pon3 said somepony should buy her a drink, and he’s right!” The stallion added.

The ponies in line turned around, annoyed at first, but then to my amazement all nodded and stepped aside. Some even smiled. One even said thanks as I was carried by.

Everything melted into a single bizarre blur of… Praise. I had no idea what to do. None of the four-and-a-half books I’d read on social etiquette had anything about this! What do?!

”Take the drink, smile, be happy. These moments never last long, so drink fast and keep putting your mug down a little ways away from where you’re sitting.” Imaginary dad advised as I was set down in front of the bar.

“Conan!” The unicorn mare called loudly. “This is the zebra that stopped the bot this morning.”

I blinked and turned towards the bar. What kind of a barbaric name was Conan? Oh, that’s Griffon, isn’t it? Of course, the bar must be run by a grif—

The floorboards shook slightly. Once, twice, three times. Rythmicly. As if something colossal were walking towards me. My ears stood up in alarm, and then a monstrously huge Hellhound ducked out of the back room to stand behind the bar.

I had no choice but to look up at him. He was as big as a tree and built like a pile of steel bricks. I sometimes got to see the arctic bears when delivering mail to our northernmost settlements, and Conan made them look scrawny. The way his muscles rippled beneath his cornsilk fur was terrifying. Because you could see them. Under all that thick shaggy fur.

The Hellhound crossed the two meters from the back room door to the bar in a single step, then squatted down to rest his elbows atop the bar. The thick slab of metal groaned and buckled under his weight.

”... I could take him,” Imaginary dad said.

The buck you could!

“Drink? Food?” Conan grunted in passable Equish.

The thick, gravely, resonating Hellhound accented speech cast my mind back to the village of Jutlandver. Sure, Conan here was a good half meter taller than those Hellhounds, and his claws were a hoof longer, and he had a pair of swords bigger than me lashed to his back with a pair of dragonhide straps…

But, he’d once have been one of those tiny little floofs that had begged me for ‘stripy pone rides’! Aww, he’d have been so cute as a tiny little puppers!

That sucked all of the menace right out of Conan for me. I let myself relax and offered him my best polite smile.

“A drink, please,” I asked. “The strongest you have. The beer is wonderful, but I need something with more…”

I pursed my lips as I tried to think of a polite way to phrase my request.

“More bite,” I said as I settled on the word choice.

Conan nodded sagely, turned around, and delicately stepped into the back room, making the floor creak and groan again.

A dark mulberry stallion tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to him and asked, “Yes?”

“Uh, look, just take whatever he gives you to your table and I’ll bring you a couple beers. You wont… You know.” He made a wobbling gesture with his hoof I didn’t quite understand. “Survive.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve had stronger stuff,” I promised.

He winced and shook his head. “No. No you haven't.”

I decided not to tell the silly pony I regularly drink pure ethanol and waited for Conan to return. He came back within a minute, holding a large glass jar very delicately between his claws. The jar contained a pale orange liquid which had a rather noxious chemical scent to it, along with a hint of potatoes, roses, and something I couldn’t quite identify.

Conan set the jar on the counter with a grunt and smirked. “Strongest drink. Atop the den… If zeeb drink all.”

I picked up the jar and sniffed it. Whatever it was, it was almost entirely alcohol. Perfect!

“Thanks!” I said with a smile before fishing around my saddlebags for the block of salt I got earlier.

A few ponies murmured as I set the bar on the countertop. I wasn't paying attention to what they were saying, I was too happy to be a mere few moments away from not constantly cooking in my chassis. The dull ache in my left side was bad enough without being hot.

Gripping the jar with both forehooves I tipped it back and poured it down my throat in one single smooth motion. My tongue provided a breakdown of the drink for me. Chemically speaking it was 80% ethyl-alcohol, 5% assorted trace organic compounds, and 15% saturated hydrocarbons.

I decided to add it to my list of tasty things. It just felt like something that would taste good, and it was almost ideal for processing into coolant.

I set the jar down on the countertop and smiled at Conan. “Thanks!” I said, my ears perking up as I remembered I’d promised to get Wander another drink. “Can I have another?”

Conan barked out a laugh and nodded down at me, lips pulling back into a fanged smile. “Yes! Zeeb welcome in Cat. Any day, any night.”

He turned and vanished back into the back room to get another jar.

The unicorn mare who’d carried me to the counter shook herself as if emerging from a state of shock. “I— Y— Throw up right now! That stuff has kerosene in it!”

So that’s what that the additive was. Delicious! I licked my lips happily, seeking a bit more of the ‘taste’.

“I’ll be fine,” I promised her before picking up my salt block and taking a bite of it.

The buzz of conversation stopped. The crowd of ponies began to stare at me. A sea of eyes in every color of the rainbow. It unnerved me so much I almost missed Conan setting a second jar of moonshine on the counter top.

Almost, but not quite.

“Thank you,” I said as I took the jar and headed back to my table.

Ponies parted for me as I walked through them. They stared at me like I was some kind of… Something. I had no idea what they were being incredulous about. By the time I sat back down at Wander and my table, I was just getting a little weirded out by the townsponies stares and hushed whispers.

On the upside, I could feel my systems processing plenty of coolant! I might be topped up again after that one jar.

I sat back down at the table and offered Wander an apologetic smile.

“So uh… I got a drink on the house. Here’s yours,” I said as I passed her the second jar.

Wander frowned. “Hey, he told me there was only beer and wine on the menu! Not—” Her pale blue aura lifted the jar’s lid up so she could sniff out its contents.

Wander’s face grew even more pale as she got a whiff of the jar. Her eyes shrank, as if she were looking into the face of death herself. She put the lid back on the jar and looked up at me. “This is jet fuel.”

“So, you don’t want it?” I asked hopefully, raising a hoof to take it back and flicking my tail eagerly.

I may not have a real sense of taste, but my systems really liked this stuff. It was so easy to convert into coolant!

Wander’s ears drooped backwards. “W— Why did you use that tone of voice to ask that?”

“Can I have it?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah… Go ahead.”

I took the jar, opened it, and downed it in a few large gulps. The patrons’ shocked silence returned.

Wander joined them, staring at me in shock for several long moments before quietly muttering, “Shouldn’t have gotten into a drinking contest with a machine.”

I flashed her a quick hurt look then turned away to finish munching on my salt block.

“What did she say?” One of the security mares at the next table whispered.

“She said she shouldn't have gotten into a drinking contest with The Machine,” another whispered back.

“Must be her nickname,” somepony said sagely.

“Yeah, no shit!” Another whispered loudly. “You saw how she…”

The sound of munching on my salt block drowned out the incredulous whispers. I didn’t feel like correcting them and admitting I’d never had a nickname.

I was chewing on the last of my tasty sodium chloride crystals when somepony cleared their throat behind me, clearly asking for my attention. Wander looked up before I could turn around and nodded towards the mystery pony.

“Looks like the troopers from last night want to chat with you, Gears,” Wander said.

I turned around, doing my best not to look distressed. After all, if a soldier wanted to talk to me, it must be official business of some kind.

This was my first time seeing either pony without their masks. They both had their armor, dusters, and weapons on, as well as their helmets, but they had removed their masks. The sergeant was a really pretty dark violet, which went well with her glittery ultramarine eyes. Her mane, while messy and curly, was neatly trimmed and went well with her coat, being a two tone pattern of lilac and mulberry running through her curls.

Instant jealousy! Why couldn’t mom have at least let me have an equestrian style mane? Or even something other than a mohawk? Zebras can style our manes into more than a mohawk, mom! There’s dreadlocks, braids, waves…

”Focus, dear.”

Oh. Yes. Thanks, dad!

The unicorn stallion with her was good looking as well. He had a nice olive green coat, brown eyes, and a dark almost but not quite black mane. How appropriate for a soldier to come in camouflage colors!

Without his mask on, I was able to see that he had a nice chiseled jawline, and high cheekbones. I wondered if the rest of his body was as statuesque.

“Can I help you?” I asked the mare, since it looked like she had more rank stripes.

She nodded. “Sure can. May we sit down?”

I nodded and scooted over, wincing as my chair scraped against the floor and squeaked loudly. The two soldiers took seats at our table, setting down their bowls of mashed potatoes and beers. The mare immediately began talking as soon as she was seated.

“My name’s Onyx Castle, this is Open Bolt,” she introduced, pointing to herself then her sergeant. “For the sake of this conversation, we’re all civilians here. Got it?”

I tilted my head. “I’m not a soldier… But I gather you want to speak about something outside of any official connotations?”

“I have a hard time believing you're not a soldier, but yes,” Onyx said with a knowing smile.

“It’s true,” Wander said with a blank look on her face. “She’s a mail mare.”

Bolt snorted as he choked back a laugh that almost cost him a mouthful of beer. “Sure she is!”

“Bolt. Manners,” Onyx said coldly.

Bolt fell silent immediately, turning back to his potatoes.

Onyx cleared her throat. “Look, you pulled off something most ponies couldn’t. Soldier or not, you can handle yourself out there. Right now, my colts can’t. Bolt and I aren’t fit for duty. He’s got a hole in his left flank, and I’ve got some nasty energy burns. We could limp our way to Tenpony, but we need to stay here and make sure the rest of our squad recovers.”

I nodded and sat up in my chair. “I think I know where this is going. You have orders to return the Water Talisman to Tenpony, right?”

Onyx sighed and leaned back in her chair, making it creak. “Yeah… The brass don’t care that we’re almost dead. They want it secured as soon as possible. If the rainbow raiders want it bad enough to wipe out a town… It has to be someplace fortified. Tenpony’s the best place for it. But, we can’t move it.”

The mare turned towards me, her face filled halfway with admiration and half with trust. I wasn't sure how to feel about being given a look like that… All I’d done was barely survive stopping a war robot with tools meant for the job at hoof… Even if they weren’t working right in the rain. “I believe I can trust you. Would you be willing to do me a personal favor and deliver the talisman to the security chief at Tenpony Tower?”

Wander flashed them a look, then sighed.

I turned towards her and asked “Is there a problem with us going to Tenpony Tower?”

Wander nodded then sighed and shook her head. “No… And also yes. I— I have a history with the place. Can’t let anypony there see me… I— I knew we’d have to go there eventually. There’s an old club near the tower I can wait for you in. Also, they have a no ghoul policy.”

I made a mental note to ask what she’d done to be unwelcome at a town. That had to be a good story!

Onyx’s eyes widened in surprise. She turned and stared at Wander for a moment then shook her head. “Woah! I thought you were just half-starved! You’re a lucky mare, you know that?”

“I don’t get as lucky as you’d think,” Wander muttered to herself.

“I'd be happy to deliver the talisman for you,” I said clearing my throat as I put on my best business face. “I’m a Royal Courier, delivering the mail is my job, and that Water Talisman and I are heading the same way.”

Onyx turned back to me and raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you’re actually a mailmare?”

“Courier,” I corrected. “Mailmares distribute mail to homes. I take the mail between post offices, or deliver important packages directly to the recipient.”

I turned and opened my delivery saddle bag. “Since it's for the safety of your community, and I’m going that way already, I’ll take it at no charge,” I said as I held out my hoof to accept the Talisman.

Onyx hesitated for a moment then reached under her duster and handed me a small locked aluminum box with the NCR’s emblem painted on in in white via the use of a crude stencil. She placed the box into my hoof slowly, looking into my eyes the entire time to emphasize its importance.

“Be careful with this… Not only because my job’s on the line, but also because this is the only talisman we can spare. If it never gets to Two Bits, every ghoul left in the NCR will stay on their exported rad rations forever, and the Herd will get to keep waving their ‘NCR is anti-ghoul’ flag.”

I nodded in perfect understanding. With a talisman to create water and a big pit of irradiated rocks hauled in from the mountains mass production of Aqua Cura in Two Bits would be a breeze!

“It will be safe in my bag,” I promised. “Nopony other than myself, my boss, and Her Majesty can open this delivery bag, and they are a few weeks hike over mountains away.”

Onyx frowned slightly. “Are you implying you’re not from Equestria?”

“Well, technically no,” I admitted with a bashful flick of my ears. “The Crystal Empire was a crown colony… So, it was kind of its own nation, but also not really?”

I stowed the talisman away in my bag and locked the clasp. No way was I going to let something that important get stolen… Well, unless somepony took my whole bag. But at least they would never be able to get into it!

Unless they cut it open with magic...

Onyx and Bolt sat upright. Wander smirked, seemingly enjoying their reactions. “Yeah, turns out they survived and rebuilt up there. I’m helping her deliver diplomatic stuff. There’s a whole kingdom up there that wants to trade.”

Onyx looked over to Bolt, then turned her attention back to me. “Are you allowed to like, talk about that? Or are those docs eyes only?”

Of course a soldier would be interested in what could be a national security matter. I smiled apologetically and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I can't let anyone other than the recipient or a direct subordinate of theirs examine their mail. I can tell you that Her Majesty's standing offer is manufactured goods for food.”

Bolt nodded slowly. “It would be hard to grow food up in that ice box.”

I frowned as I realized how long it had been since I’d woken up. The dim light of the Sterling Cat had a timeless quality to it. It was almost time for me to go to the mayor’s office. I cleared my throat and bowed my head politely as I stood up. “Thank you for reminding me of my appointment with the Mayor. I need to go now. I’ll have somepony tell you the talisman is safely in the security chief’s hooves.”

Onyx nodded understandingly. “Just be sure to have DJ Pon3 make an announcement when you get there. That way the raiders will know the Water Talisman is back in a fortress and not a farm town that… That could become Magebridge part two if they have another ultra-sentinel.”

“Good idea,” I said with a nod before turning to Wander. “Meet me at the town gate in… Half an hour. We need to get the talisman away from here as fast as possible.”

Wander stood up and slipped her half-empty bottle of wine under her cloak. “Good idea. See you in a while.”

Onyx reached under her duster again and took out a small wooden card. It had a lot of writing on it in very fine print, but I could make out the words Contracted Delivery Writ in the middle of the card at a glance.

“Take this too. It’s a courrior’s pass. It will let Tenpony’s security team know you’re supposed to be let in there,” Onyx informed.

“Thank you,” I said taking the card from her and tucking it into my personal saddlebag. “I promise it will be safely in their hooves as soon as possible.”

“Hey, if The Machine delivers mail half as well as she kills war-bots, it will be there in an hour,” Onyx joked with a grin.

I smiled and shrugged, not really knowing what to say. For whatever reason, I settled on the one Griffon phrase I knew. “Ya mashina!”

I turned around and made my way through the dissipating crowd to the door. Hopefully this mayor wouldn’t be as bad as the last one.

Also, hopefully, somepony could tell me why I thought a random Griffon phrase was appropriate for this conversation. Or even where I’d picked it up to begin with...

☢★★◯★★☢

Five minutes later I arrived at Sire’s Hollow’s town hall. The hall was very close to the Sterling Cat, hardly a five minute walk. I’d spent most of the time cleaning myself up and quickly making my courior’s robes look presentable.

Sire’s Hollow was such a nice looking town. Every last building carefully repaired, or built to resemble the old world styling as closely as possible. The ponies here all dressed in what was presumably their best all day, presumably every day. Sire’s Hollow cared about appearances.

Sire’s Hollow cared about appearances a lot. Like, a lot a lot.

They had cobbled streets, and a pony sweeping them! I’d never even seen that kind of community decadence before.

So I’d taken the time to polish up my courior’s pin, comb my mane properly, wish I could style it into something without it just poofing back into my brushy mohawk in defiance of my will, physics, and common courtesy, and even borrowed a hot iron to quickly press my robes.

Sure, I didn’t look good enough for royalty, or even a Lord Mayor’s court, but at least I looked better than I had traipsing around the wasteland as I walked into the town hall.

I liked this town hall. Unlike the last one, this one had all the proper architectural flourishes you expected to see in an official building. The hall was built in a large rectangular building with a nice little courtyard containing two functional fountains. The hall itself had a lovely peaked roof with clay tiles, which made it stand out from the other buildings, which were all wooden slat roofed.

There was even a nice overhang supported by large decorative wooden pillars, big double doors with nice polished brass handles, and a freshly painted sign. It felt proper, it felt official, it felt old-world.

In a way, it perfectly symbolized the entirety of Sire’s Hollow. A desperate attempt to return to the way things had been before the war. A desperate attempt which had found a little success.

The hall’s interior was not as nicely decorated as the outside. The waiting room was fairly bare, with just a few benches to sit on and a small metal office desk for the secretary. I’d been hoping to see another alicorn, if only to help me refine my tallness hypothesis, but she was an earth pony.

A very old one. Her once ocher coat was nearly colorless, and her mane had turned a bright platinum in her old age. In spite of her venerable body, she was very energetic, welcoming me the second I came inside, walking me through the paperwork required to get an audience with the mayor as only a seasoned bureaucrat could, and even turning on the radio and bringing me a cup of tea while I waited for my appointment.

Unfortunately for Wander, I had a twenty minute wait… I was definitely going to take more than half an hour to finish this delivery. Fortunately for me, I was able to listen to music for most of the wait. Extra fortunately, that included another song by Velvet Remedy!

I’d have to see if anypony had her on holotape. Odonata would love to hear Velvet’s music. I’ll bet she could write the most amazing melody to go with the vocals.

So could Wander, come to think of it. Their skill level was almost the same, only Odonata preferred slower more classical styled music, and of course lacked Wander’s sound spells. I was starting to picture the distilled awesomeness a duet between Wander and Odonata would be when the music faded out and the same DJ from earlier cut in.

“Ladies and Gentlecolts, hold onto your hats, your coats, your plots, whatever you got because it’s time for some news!”

I blinked and turned to face the radio. A silly thing to do since it was a radio, not the stallion speaking through it, but it still felt like the right thing to do.

“I have an update for you on Stable 88, fresh from the airwaves. That’s right, you get to hear some of what’s going on there for yourself. You can thank a certain pony who won’t be named for providing today’s extra special newstime treat!” DJ Pon3 announced just a little too enthusiastically.

”What is this DJ’s show called? Exposition Express?” Imaginary dad chuckled from the back of my mind.

It seems like her reports on things almost as they happen. I agreed.

”Remember what I taught you about playing spy, dear.”

If it seems like magic, it’s probably not.

”Exactly. We’re probably looking at a news organization with a lot of little helpers.”

Maybe, just maybe, some sort of dedicated reporting network existed. If that was true, there would be a fortune to be made in two-way radios!

I focused my attention on the radio, wondering what might be so important that the DJ would call it a treat.

“Our mares in brown are still trying to make contact with the stable dwellers, and managed to get them to talk again. This time, they managed to record a bit of the Overmare’s saber-rattling. Now, don’t worry too much. Like I said before, these ponies let raiders in last time they opened up. Of course they’ll be worried about opening their doors again. Listen closely to the background. I’m sure you’ll hear it… If your ears are still good that is.”

The radio hissed for a moment, not with static, but with the warbled electronic clicking of holotape being aligned to the correct point to play back a file. Then, a quavering, high pitched, somewhat echoey mare’s voice came through.

“I am Overmare Platinum Vein. This is my vault. I am asking you nicely one more time to leave,” the mare’s voice hissed and crackled, as if the microphone she was using couldn’t quite pick up all of her voice. “My vault does not wish to have any contact with the outside world. I understand that we are located beneath your territory, but let’s be honest. You have no business underground. The skies and soil are yours. The stone beneath is mine.

“We do not need to trade. We do not wish to exchange cultural elements. I ask you now to please leave us in peace. Our Stable contains military training programs and Dream Chambers. We are not the same Stable we were when we last opened our doors. Many of our young ponies since then have chosen to use these chambers to become warriors. While antithetical to our values, they stand ready to defend our Stable with violence, if need be.”

A high pitched squeak assaulted my ears. For a moment I thought the radio broke, but then another different squeak answered the first one. The second one had an odd pitch modulation unlike anything a technical malfunction would produce. The squeak was recorded by the microphone…

Had the Overmare been attacked by a pair of giant mice? That would be so cool!

The Overmare’s voice came back, sadly not shrieking about an attack by giant mice people. “You need to repeat that in Outsider… I doubt they speak our language.”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am! Master Gunnery Sergeant Speed Run, reporting as requested, ma’am!” An excited and eager young mare’s voice instantly replaced.

“Can you tell them your qualifications and how you obtained them, Miss Run?”

“Yes, ma’am! I was promoted via the Dream system’s automated merit system, rank by rank, via completing all available special training dream sequences, ma’am! I have completed training programs for, and qualified as a: Pathfinder, Sniper, Artillery Crewmare, Cavalry Forces, Special Forces, MoA Ops, Basic Recon, Pararescue, Counter-Magic Operations, Infantry, Mobile Infantry, Asymmetric Warfare operations, Combat Engineering, Aquatic Operations, Avionic Operations, Armored Cavalry, Power Armor training, all twenty two available CQC courses, and Shock Trooper training! I also passed the program to be transferred to Star Drop HQ for further training… But uh… I can’t do that training remotely. And it’s not like anypony will come by to pick me up to go do it... Sorry, Overmare! I’ve done everything I can do.”

”Luna’s engorged tits!” Imaginary dad sputtered.

What?

”Well, for starters, if she did all of that, she’s done nothing but train for war her entire life. Secondly, if those Dream Chambers are working correctly, she’d be the deadliest mare I’ve ever heard of!”

“And why did you do all of that?” The Overmare asked.

“It’s fun! Besides, mom told me if I was going to get access to the military programs I should learn all I could. Which is everything available, obviously. Also it really helped me dominate the Omen leaderboards!” Speed answered matter of factly.

“And if I asked you to go into the tunnel and remove the trespassers, would you?” The Overmare asked while the other pony beat-boxed out a rather energetic tune.

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” She exclaimed, immediately stopping her rendition. Whatever that song had been.

The Overmare’s tone shifted, becoming a little sinister, but only enough to indicate she was showing a card she didn’t really intend to play. Her Majesty used that same tone enough for me to recognise it. “Would you feel bad about killing anypony who didn’t retreat from your assault?”

“Of course not,” Speed said with terrifying honesty... And a whole heap of confusion. “Why would you ask that? I know my file mentions— Oh! They don’t know! Duh! Sorry, ma’am!”

I felt the fur on the back of my neck stand up. There was no way to take Speed’s reply as anything other than ‘I’m a psychopath’.

“If you don’t fall back fifty meters up the tunnel, I will send Speed and a squad of ponies like her out the door,” the Overmare said with chilling honesty.

“Uh, ma’am? I mean, sure, I could take care of them myself, but why lie about there being other sold—”

The recording abruptly cut off with a sharp click. Then with a hiss, DJ Pon3 returned. “Did you hear that, children? That squeaking in the middle there? If you’ve ever had the rare chance of bumping into a certain Canterlot Ghoul who used to be a part of the Lunar Guard, you might recognise that as… A language! Thestril, specifically. To them, and forgive my accent, it’s called Eeee. Yes, like the letter.

“Now, I don’t speak it, because I can’t speak it. Heck, nopony can. At least, nopony who doesn't happen to be a subterranean pegasus, or a mutant. If you’re listening to us, Overmare Platinum, things up here aren't so good. You know that well enough. We’re trying to rebuild, we’re doing a good job, but there’s still a lot of work for soldiers to do. Maybe you don’t need anything from us, but if your great-great-grandparents could see you, do you think they would be happy with you letting Equestria suffer when you could lend a hoof?

“And now, some music,” DJ Pon3 concluded as the radio faded in a rather rousing patriotic rendition of the old Equestrian Solar Anthem.

I smiled. I see what you did there, DJ. Maybe it will work, Celestia willing. Or Luna willing, in this case.

The radio clicked off. I looked up to see Bluegrass, dressed in old, well worn, but clean silk vest with a bright red tie. He’d just flicked the radio off. “Nice to see you again, Miss Gears,” he greeted.

I smiled. “Hello! Is the mayor ready to see me yet?”

Bluegrass blinked, closed his eyes, and visibly resisted facehooving. He gestured to the secretary, and that’s when I realized I was a complete idiot.

“Mister Bluegrass is currently serving his third term as our mare, Miss Gears,” she informed.

I blushed brightly. “I… I realized it… As I said… Yeah…”

My ears drooped down as far as their servos allowed. It didn’t feel like they permitted enough droop. A clear design flaw…

Bluegrass chuckled. “It’s alright. You did take that rather nasty hit. I’m certain you'll be a little out of it for at least the rest of the day. Come on in,” he said as he turned and walked through a door not into a hallway, but directly into his office.

I trotted after him into a very clean and functional office. Much like the waiting room, the decor was as austere as could be. I frowned, not understanding why the mayor's office wouldn’t be the town’s best hoof forward for visiting dignitaries, when it hit me.

That was why Sire’s Hollow was so well repaired. It was a statement. A way to say “This pony isn’t important. The town is what you need to care about. This pony merely represents it.”

Brilliant!

Bluegrass trotted around his slightly rusted, dented, and scuffed old salvaged office desk and took a seat in a creaky old wooden chair. He gestured to the stool across from his desk, and I took a seat on it.

As soon as I sat down, Bluegrass chuckled and flashed a playful smirk in my direction. “Well,” he intoned. “Fancy seeing you here! I sure hope you don’t mind me listening into my own conversation. Boy, think of all the time we could have saved… No, scratch that. I needed the nap.”

I groaned, facehooved, and realized I must never let him know I thought he was the mayor’s husband. “Sorry… I—”

He raised his hoof to tell me to stop. “No need for that, miss. I’m only teasing. I find it’s best to start these things off informally,” he explained as he leaned back in his seat. “That said, I’d like to thank you on behalf of Sire’s Hollow for your help this morning. Half my security force was off chasing down a criminal who’d stolen our town’s set of power armor. Without your guns, I can’t tell ya how many ponies we’d be burying.”

I nodded solemnly. “I may not be a soldier, but dad taught me to help if I can.”

Bluegrass nodded solemnly. “He sounds like a wise zebra.”

“Pony,” I corrected.

“Adopted?”

“Yes,” I said with a proud smile.

“Well, I’m still mighty interested in those guns of yours,” Bluegrass admitted. “I got a good look at them this morning, and seeing as how matrix-tech is something of a hobby of mine, I’d like to know what those are.”

“Of course,” I replied politely, glad he was making conversation to move us away from my lapse of wit. “These are LAERs. Uh, sorry, Laser Assisted Electro-Rifles.”

Bluegrass’ eyes focused in on my saddle’s remaining LAER “Lasers assist what now?”

“Think of them as a laser pointer that guides lightning bolts into your target,” I said after a moment’s thought. “It’s weaponized pegasus magic. Like how laser weapons are weaponized unicorn magic, and plasma is a weaponized version of the charm in old toasters.”

“Oh!” Bluegrass said with a smile. “An ionized electro-static weapon? I thought those only existed on airships.”

“Yes! We were able to miniaturize them. I wrote a paper for school on—” I blushed and kicked my rear hooves slightly. There was no need to nerd out on the job. Sadly.

“Sorry. I’m getting off topic. I am afraid I can’t sell you these particular ones, but I can certainly ensure you get a few in trade. They are very effective against robots and ponies in power armor. They’re best suited to emplacements where they can be powered directly.”

Bluegrass nodded sagely. “I reckon they would be effective against any sort of matrix tech. Well, if it wasn't’ hardened.”

“Even if it’s hardened,” I corrected. “Well, assuming you can find a ‘hole’ in the armor. That’s how I took down the sentinel.”

“Good thinking. May I ask what your pistol is for? Organic targets?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s for ammunition capacity. LAERs are pretty power hungry. I can drain their power cells really quickly if I’m not careful.”

Bluegrass hummed and looked me over. I gathered he was using this conversation to get a better picture of what kind of a person I was. “Then your pistol is basically a spare energy cell?”

“No. It’s a recharger pistol. It belonged to my father,” I explained.

Bluegrass shook his head slowly. “You’ve got a lot of high-end tech on display there miss. I don't blame you for packing that much firepower to visit the NCR one bit, but it’s still quite the sight to see a little mare carrying that much of a punch with her.”

I put a hoof over my mouth to stifle a laugh. “My dad would come back from the grave and lecture me for days if I didn’t.”

”Damn straight.”

Bluegrass chuckled and shook his head, smiling wistfully smile. “Sounds like you were raised by a good father. Celestia knows the wasteland is… Especially hard on mares. I’m just glad you’re here now and not fourteen years ago. The old wave of raiders were a plague,” he shifted in his seat and leaned towards me. “I don't’ suppose there’s a chance you’d part with the broken rifle, is there? I may be able to repair it. Our town could use a good anti-robot defense.”

I shook my head firmly. “I’m sorry, but no. It’s not mine to sell, I was issued them for my mission.”

“Mission?” Bluegrass frowned, seemingly genuinely confused for a split second before nodding to himself. “Ah! Of course. A Queen gave you an errand to run. I suppose I’d call that a mission too, in my youth. Would you please give me the details as if I knew nothing about you or your mission? I’d like the full story, as it were.”

I nodded, fully understanding the need to make things crystal clear for a poor pony who was short on sleep.

“Of course I will, sir,” I said with a polite bow as I shifted into full formal mode. “I represent the Kingdom of Lith, who has recently become aware of organized nationstates in the Equestrian Heartland and wishes to initiate diplomatic relations for the purpose of facilitating trade. We are capable of manufacturing limited quantities of industrial goods thanks to our skilled artisans and technicians, and can also provide infrastructure-related assistance to you and your community. For example, if you would like LAERs, we can manufacture them and I am certain my Queen is not above selling arms to a community under threat by bandits.”

Bluegrass hummed at me uncertainty.

“You can manufacture energy weapons? Are you joking?” Bluegrass asked with a mostly blank look accompanied by a raised eyebrow. “There’s an old saying about things that look too good to be true… Then again, there’s also the old saying about refusing unexpected generosity.”

I shook my head firmly and opened my bag to take out one of the letters and a radio. “I am not joking, sir,” I said as I set both items on his desk. “I have here a radio and instructions for contacting her Majesty for the purposes of arranging diplomatic meetings. In order to avoid the distrust I was shown by the previous mayor I presented with this offer, please inspect the radio. Feel free to remove the casing.”

Bluegrass stood up, trotted over to a coat rack in the corner of his office where his tool-studded vest hung, and brought it over to his desk. I watched as he quickly examined the small radio’s metal housing, located the four screws holding the cover on, and with expert speed opened the radio’s case.

He bent over the radio for several long moments, turning it this way and that as he examined the interior component by component. I knew he was an expert in pre-war technology, which meant it would be blindingly obvious to him that this radio hadn’t been built back then.

“No logos… No manufacturing marks… Hoof and mouth tool marks. Hoof done solder,” Bluegrass nodded to himself and set the radio’s cover back atop it. “This radio was definitely made post-war, and while not on an assembly line it’s clearly a standardized design. Well done! Though I am afraid there is little market for luxury goods like this in Equestria these days.”

I smiled across the desk and nodded to the radio. “Her majesty can offer more than radios, sir. However, radios such as these are not luxury items, sir. You have mass broadcasting capabilities, your soldiers use them. Certainly it’s a good idea to have a means of replacing lost and or damaged radios?”

Bluegrass gave me a proud look, like the ones dad used to give me when I did something especially well.

“It is! That was a test, miss Gears,” he said while playing with his screwdriver in his hooves, turning it this way and that at random. “If you were here merely offering luxury, there’s nothing I would be willing to accept… Luxury is a Tenpony thing. Here, we value practicality. What can you provide in the way of infrastructure, tools, weapons, armor, and so on?”

YES! He was taking me seriously! Let’s finish the sell so he calls Her Majesty soon.

“Plenty!” I exclaimed with a wide smile. “We have a Corps of Engineers as well as craftsponies. We can offer infrastructure projects and the skilled labor to perform them in addition to manufactured goods. All of our settlements have power, water, heat, and environmental protection. ”

Bluegrass looked at me in shock. His screwdriver clattered across his desk as it fell from his grasp. “You have power? How?”

“We constructed power plants,” I answered with a slight frown at how obvious that answer was.

Bluegrass cleared his throat and regained his composure. “We do not have working power plants, Miss Gears. Here in the NCR we have a small collection of absurdly powerful weapon power cells known as Star Batteries. We’ve been using that limited supply for over a decade now… We are beginning to run out of them.”

Now where was a nice apple for me to bite into. “Perhaps you should first direct your requests towards engineering challenges involved in charging those batteries. Our capitol city contains a library where pre-war texts were safehoused. We—”

“No!” Bluegrass exclaimed, his ears standing upright. “Sorry to interrupt, but I want to know how you are generating your power. What’s the source?”

Mmm, maybe it was silly of me to suggest replenishing a depletable power supply. Okay, change tactics again!

I cleared my throat and recalled what I could from school to the best of my ability. “Oh! Well, we use a variety of power sources. Our Queen refused to allow coal power on the grounds that it sparked the war, and while we do have some coal, we hardly have enough for long term power generation. Her Majesty had us focus instead on the alternative sources which were in development before the war.

“We gain much of our power through thaumaturgic collectors, as well as hydroelectric dynamos. Uh, that is fairly limited by the availability of liquid water in the North, of course! We have some radiation based power plants as well... Pomare is primarily supplied power through a geothermal tap. We could of course construct most other power plant designs. We have the blueprints.”

“You can build hydroelectric dams?” Bluegrass asked quietly, with a dire seriousness in his voice. “Could you repair a broken one?”

I nodded, frowning slightly. Our hydro dam had been repaired too, not built from scratch. We’d gotten lucky on that one. But I’m certain we could find a way to fix an eve more broken one now. We had far more resources to use now than we had on hoof a hundred years ago.

“Yes,” I answered. “But, a project of such scale would take several years to finish. We could supply you thaumaturgic collectors immediately. We maintain a stockpile of them to replace failing units.”

Bluegrass cleared his throat and stood up behind his desk, his posture conveying a rather serious aura. “Miss Gears, I believe your offer is genuine. I can see how most people won't believe you, but I do. You have cybernetics and weapons I’ve never seen, and I have seen plenty of both. You are presenting yourself with a dignity and genuine nature the Herd would not, Los Pegasus has no reason to trick us, and this radio does appear to be new. You also saved my town from those bandits. I trust you. Sad fact of the matter is, well, others won't. It’s not like you’ll get to save every town from a death machine.”

I winced. “To be honest, I’d rather not have to.”

Bluegrass chuckled. “You and me both, missy!” He returned to his serious expression before continuing. “Most folks round here will see your offer as too good to be true. Would you like a brief explanation of how our nation works, Miss?”

“Yes, please!” I smiled happily, eager to get a better rundown than what little Wander had told me.

She never stayed in one town very long. It made her a bad source of knowledge when it came to settlement-based issues like politics...

“We are what the old world referred to as a Federal Republic,” Bluegrass informed as he walked across the room to return his tool vest to the coat rack. “Each settlement in our republic may be lead in the fashion it chooses, be that by a single individual, a group, or democratic charter. However, each settlement must choose a single representative who serves the community as a part of the Council. The Council votes on laws which apply to all our settlements, ensures that the needs of their settlement or region are met as needed, and help vote on decisions for which the entire nation’s resources will be required.”

“Then I need to talk to each community’s Representative?” I asked for clarity's sake.

“Correct… Unfortunately you won't find the Representatives in their settlements,” Bluegrass sighed, as if that fact was a personal issue for him as well. “They spend their time in the capitol, er, that’s Junction Town. They stay there for the sake of quick communication with one another. You’ll need to speak to them there. Unfortunately, they will not have the time to hear someone who simply claims to be a representative of a power we’ve never heard of before.”

I sighed and closed my eyes tightly. “Of course not...”

“I’m afraid politics is always a little inefficient, Miss Gears,” Bluegrass said with a sigh equally weary as my own. “As the leader of a single settlement, one whose power is limited by a Town Charter in addition to the NCR’s Constitution, there is little I could do to help a nation-state. I simply do not have the power to commit large amounts of goods in a trade deal. My role here is largely arbitration and hearing complaints.

“That said, as I implied, I can send some small amounts of goods north. I will be talking with your Queen to at the very least confirm there is a kingdom up north and it wishes to trade. Even still, I cannot recommend speaking to the leaders of the major cities enough. Sire’s Hollow is a small community. We grow corn, wheat, hops, and some grapes, and make alcohol, that is our purpose. If not for the fertile soil in this valley, our town would not exist.

“Now, Tenpony Tower, Fillydelphia, Baltimore, New Appaloosa… Those are places worth visiting for more specialized things. If you can make radios, you need copper, crystal, and other odds and ends. They can provide them. What’s more, if they think ya’ll can assist them, you’ll have an easier time convincing the Council to take you seriously. It would also be a good idea to get the backing of our President, too. They oversee the council as the individual responsible for choosing the overall direction of our nation as an Executive Officer.

“The president holds a good deal of power, but the Council must still approve their non-military decisions. If you can get the backing of the leaders from a few of the major cities and the approval of the president, the Council is sure to be willing to at the very least hear you out. That’s the best advice I can give you… Other than wait for raiders to attack each community and swing in like Swordmare herself to save the day.”

I chuckled to hide my embarrassment at being compared to that fictional character yet again. “Please, don’t jinx it for me, mister mayor.”

Bluegrass smiled and gave me a wink. “It’s fine. I don't believe in superstition, so it wont work on things I say. That’s how it works. Tell you what I’ll do for you, miss Gears. I will write a letter to the President telling her about our meeting and my impression of you. It should take around a week to arrive in her talons with my seal on it. I recommend you wait here for a few days, then head right to Junction Town. That way you arrive at her office with an outside source to confirm your story.

“You’re something of a hero to my little town. If you want to stay put, for at least wait a little while, I’ll have you put up at the Cat for as long as you like. No charge. Then, when you’re ready, you can head to Junction Town to meet with President Regina and get the kind of deal your Queen seems to be after.”

I nodded and thought his suggestion through for a moment. It was a nice idea, and I did like Sire’s Hollow… But my Queen had given me a job to do, and as they say, “Be there acid rain, bloodice, Windigo, or ghoul, we will deliver the mail.”

Bluegrass frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand what you mean by that.”

“It’s the Royal Courior’s Oath, sir,” I explained as I stood up. “As much as I like your town, I have mail to deliver. I took the job, so I have to finish it. I also agreed to take the Water Talisman the Tainted were after to Tenpony Tower for safe keeping, and to make sure they know it’s not in your town anymore.”

Bluegrass went a little pale, clearly envisioning a second, less improvised attack on his town. “That’s… Good idea. I’m sorry to see you go back out there when those rainbow raiders are seemingly everywhere, it’s like they can teleport. All of them! But, I understand. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I nodded and fished my map out of my saddlebag. “Yes, can you show me where Junction Town is?”

Bluegrass took one look at my map and scoffed. “Not on that scrap paper I can’t. Wait here, we have a small supply of maps for trade caravans. I’ll get you one of those.”

☢★★◯★★☢

After leaving Bluegrass’ office behind, he took me to his shop to check for a hydro-pump that would fit in me. Unfortunately, nothing he had would fit. Bluegrass promised to send word to me if he ever found a part in my size and that I could have it whenever he got it. A nice gesture, but I expected I’d be back home and mom would just make one before he stumbled onto one.

With that taken care of, I set out to do the one thing I knew I should do before leaving, even though I’d already made poor Wander wait extra long. Buy some armor.

Fortunately, Sire’s Hollow had an armorer who not only made armor to order, but had a small stock for sale.

Unfortunately, the town armorer couldn’t accept my voucher as payment. Caps only. Even worse, nopony in town could legally cash an NCR caps voucher.

Fortunately, the armorer decided to give me a set of armor on the house as a gift for saving the town!

Unfortunately, my flanks didn’t fit in anything he had on the racks… So he gave me some armored socks, nice little cream colored linen socks with armor plates covered in super soft black leather. They felt nice, and at least my legs would be a bit better protected. They also made it look like i had thigh high boots on, which made me feel cute.

With my new socks, a nice new high quality map, a new cloak wrapped around my shoulders (A nice traveler’s cloak made from a blue tarp I had seen in a show window and liked so much the old mare who owned it gave it to me), and a small note from the mayor to use in conjunction with my Courior’s pass at Tenpony, I finally met up with Wander at the town gate.

As I approached her, Wander looked up, and levitated a jet black object out from under her cloak. Confused by this, I forgot to say hello as I trotted up to her, instead fixing my gaze on the…

Decapitated head of the ultra-sentinel I’d killed. Huh?

“What's with the head?” I asked with a slight wince as Wander floated it towards me.

“You know the barkeeper?” Wander asked.

I nodded. “Yes. His name is Conan.”

“Fitting,” Wander remarked without skipping a beat. “He came out here, asked where you were. I said with the mayor. He didn’t want to disturb you… So, he walked over to the sentinel, sliced the head off with his claws, ripped the matrix guts out and… Well… Look.”

I looked down at the severed robot head, or should I say helmet. The front had been carved out so I would have a good field of view looking out through the place the single sensor had been. Slots had been cut for my ears too, and the entire head had been squished slightly so it was more rounded and would fit on a pony’s head.

He’d just squished it into a helmet… Dang! I wish exercising improved my strength. I’d work out however he did!

“He told me that ‘A warrior should always keep trophies.’ and ‘a pretty zebra should protect her face’. And then, well, told me to give this to you,” Wander said, shaking the helmet slightly.

I took it and tucked it away in my saddlebag. It was definitely a cool keepsake, but I didn’t exactly need to protect my head right now. I turned and looked back at the bar. “I should go say thank you…”

Wander shook her head. “He knows we’re taking the Talisman away, and he was proud of that. Let’s not upset the freakishly strong Hellhound who seems happy to just make ponies drinks… I— I don’t wanna end up on that wall. It would take me weeks to die, you know,” Wander said with a full body shudder that convey exactly how terrified of Conan she truly was.

“Fair point,” I said with an understanding smile. I guess she had trouble seeing the adorable fuzzy puppy in him.

I turned and began to walk down the road, heading east towards where my new map had said Tenpony Tower was. Right in the middle of Manehattan.

“Come on,” I said cheerfully. “I know the way for a change!”

Wander rolled her eyes and trotted in front of me. “You’re six degrees too far south. You’d wind up in Applewood. You don’t want to wind up in Applewood… Even though it’s better post-war than pre-war. Come on. Let your guide be the guide.”

I smiled and trotted after her.

As we walked towards Manehattan, I wondered if the ponies of Tenpony would be as nice as the ones who lived here.

10 - Highs and Loves

Mom and I had been to Manehattan before. Unlike most of my early memories, I remembered the city clearly. Buckled and broken streets underneath my hooves, small patches of molten asphalt sill bubbling from especially persistent patches of balefire. Dust, rubble, bodies, and toppled buildings covering most of what was left of the once elegant network of roads.

If I closed my eyes, I could see the towering columns of brick and glass which had once reached up to the clouds. Many of them were simply gone, most of those which remained were skeletal fragments of buildings with a scattering of intact rooms. The newer steel and crystal towers had held up better. Many of them stood tall, proud, and full of holes, casting long shadows across the smouldering remains of everything built from lesser materials.

Even back then, with my mind barely more developed than a Mister Handy’s crude programming, I had felt like my family was plundering a tomb. Before walking through the city again today, I’d hoped ponies had rebuilt the once bustling metropolis. I couldn’t have possibly been more wrong.

There was even less of Manehattan standing after all these years than there was just after the war. Of course I’d expected weather and time to topple some of the ruins. I also expected some of the old to be demolished to make way for the new. What I didn’t expect was for the city to look like a second apocalypse hit it with a flying elbow tackle just as it was starting to get back up.

There were some craters in the ground I knew were not from balefire bombs. Most were too small, the others were almost perfectly cylindrical, and ringed by ash, char, and soot. Many towers were covered in black marks which showed the city had burned. Energy weapon craters pockmarked many of the remaining walls, roofs, window frames, everywhere a pony might have taken cover.

It was as if a group of complete monsters had suddenly invaded an old folks home, destroyed all their belongings, and subjected nearly all of the old ponies living there to summary executions. Then, another completely unrelated group came along and did the exact same thing all over again.

It had to be the Battle of Manehattan Wander had mentioned in Pip’s Ballad. But… But those cylindrical holes, and the fires. Those had to have been made by megaspells. There was only one pony I knew of with even a vague idea of how to make a single, individual component of a megaspell, and she certainly hadn’t done so in the last two centuries.

As Wander and I passed yet another of the craters, this one having completely burned through the center of a toppled skyscraper, I had to ask.

I cleared my throat, making Wander turn her head. “What’s up?”

“What made these holes?” I asked, pointing to the charred, nearly perfectly round hole scorched through the skyscraper above us on the right, then the matching circular pit half filled with rainwater seared into the ground to our left.

“Celestia Prime,” Wander answered immediately.

Then she didn’t say anything else. As if I should know what that was.

I slowly moved my hoof in a circle to prompt her to continue.

Wander facehooved. “Oh. Right! Sorry. Old Equestrian missile defense system. Opens a portal into the sun to blast whatever you point it at with solar fire or something. It was used as artillery in the Battle of Manehattan by the Twilight Society.”

Wander raised an eyebrow before I could reply. “Wait, doesn't your mom have all the old blueprints? Shouldn’t you know about like, every megaspell we had?”

I shook my head. “Mom didn’t get to everything, remember? I told you about how we couldn’t access some places at all, and the ones we did hardly had complete records. The hub in Trottingham was half vaporized, and half burnt to ash. If she did recover any megaspell plans, I haven't seen them, and they would be in the Meganeuropsis vault.”

Wander tilted her head to one side. “The what?”

“The Meganeuropsis,” I repeated, giving Wander a strange look before fachooving myself. “And now it’s my turn to forget you're not from where I’m from! Argh!”

Wander smirked, giggled, then laughed and shook her head. “Haha… You remind me of Bonb—” she froze, cleared her throat and wiped the smile from her face. “So uh, what is the Meganeurowhatsits?”

“Queen Chrysalis’ flagship. Her Majesty uses it as her home,” I answered.

Wander resumed leading me deeper into the dessicated corpse of a city. “You have coast line? That should make trade easier.”

“Oh, no. It’s an airship, a really big one… Imagine the kind of ship you might design if you were an egomaniac who wanted a battlecruiser-carrier-shipyard-airship and it had to be bug themed.”

Wander snorted. “Changelings are weird… There's no way that thing would have been effective in combat.”

“Probably not,” I agreed, then blushed a little. “But she’s got great guns!”

Wander took a deep breath. “I’m going to ignore the fact that you said that like ‘but he has great abs’ and keep leading you to Tenpony.”

I fell quiet again, still blushing, and trotted along after her.

☢★★◯★★☢

Deep within the heart of the ruins, civilization found its niche, and managed to thrive. One nearly-intact artpiece of a skyscraper, designed as a homage to Reneighssance Equestrian architecture soared upwards so high that it’s topmost spire had been behatted with an airship dock. An airship dock which had been itself behatted by a massive radio antenne.

So this is where DJ Pon3 broadcast from. I doubted there was any other transmitter that powerful with an intact tower left in the Heartland.

The intactness of the radio tower extended to Tenpony Tower itself. Aside from the tower’s eastern wall, which was covered in recently applied patchwork repairs, the building was perfectly fine. If her Majesty was so persuaded, we could easily supply the concrete and marble needed to fully repair the tower’s facade. Which was good, since it was obviously a major city for the NCR.

The tower itself sat in the center of a town. The skyscrapers around the monorail tracks leading up to Tenpony had been repaired to livable conditions. The streets had been cleared of rubble. Defensive walls had been built between the buildings. I could see small hoof bridges connecting many of the renovated towers, though none of them ran from the outer towers to Tenpony. It remained visibly isolated, with a full block radius of empty space between its walls and the rest of the city.

The restored part of Manehattan was alive. There were tenements, markets, and restaurants. I could hear ponies going about their day. Adults, children, even foals. Just living. Having a good time.

Wander and I passed through the gatehouse built into the road we were walking down with no trouble. I couldn’t help but notice that the ponies guarding it were definitely NCR soldiers, based on their brown uniforms. But they didn’t have the overcoats, helmets, or maks. They had simple cloth fatigues, and a single old Equestrian infantry carbine each.

Hardly the sort of soldiers you wanted protecting a major city! Heck, Pomare was protected by six of our twenty power-armored infantry ponies, three platoons of mobile infantry, and even a few tanks! Why was this bustling community defended by pudgy stallions with cloth and popguns? It made, no, bucking, sense!

Wander gently tugged on my scarf to get my attention. She looked at me with a half disappointed half amused look. “Gears, if you stare at that poor guard any longer he’s going to think you’re in heat and want him.”

EXECUTING STARE_AT_PONY.CMD!

He was kind of young, and a little bit fat. But that was okay! His mane was truly glorious! Long locks of deep imperial purple which flowed in the wind like—

“Gears!” Wander snapped, managing to wrest my attention away from my future coltfriend.

“Huh?” I asked blinking a few times.

“He’s maybe twenty!” She hissed.

“So what?” I demanded, my brow furrowing. “That’s an adult!”

“Yesss, but he grew up here. You can tell, because he's overweight,” Wander took a deep breath. “You’re making him very uncomfortable!”

I frowned and looked back to the guard. He did look fidgety and kept throwing clearly nervous glances in my direction… Why would—

“Oh! Manehattan has a high percentage of gay ponies?” I asked with a little smile.

Maybe he could help me pretty myself up and find somepony else in town!

Wander looked at me like I’d just said the sky was pink. “What?! No!” She said before pointing upwards. “He’s lived under that his whole life!”

I tilted my head upwards, and for the first time I saw an intact billboard. A billboard still covered in pre-war propaganda.

It was minimalist. It was oddly striking. A simple white background. A gold Ministry of Image logo in the center. An overlay of bold black text, sized to be readable at any distance you could see the billboard from.

Ponies love laughter. Zebras do not understand joy and fear it.
Ponies are honest. Zebras tell only lies.
Ponies are loyal. Zebras will knife you in the back.
Ponies are generous. Zebras are selfish and greedy.
Ponies care about each other. Zebras care only about themselves.

My core dropped by five degrees. “Oh…”

I looked at the ground in front of me, not sure how to feel.

Wander wrapped her left foreleg around my shoulders. “Hey… If it’s any consolation, a lot of ponies have been fighting to get that taken down.”

“It isn’t,” I muttered quietly. “Thanks for the hug… Lets… Let’s get to the stupid tower already.”

Stupid clam jamming racist billboards…

☢★★◯★★☢

It took a surprising amount of time to make our way through the Tenpony suburbs. A surprising, frustrating, emotionally grating, and also long time.

MoI propaganda was everywhere. Everywhere! Every pony Wander or I tried to talk to was curt at best, hostile at worst, but most often just ignored us.

All I wanted was to see if any of the armories had anything that might fit my barrel. I still had those breached plates to worry about…

When we passed the electronics shop that was selling pre war salvaged parts and restored items of all kinds, I hadn’t even wanted to look inside to see if they had a spare pump, or fresh diodes to get rid of the everpresent throbbing in my side. I knew the shopkeeper would just yell at me to get out of his store.

I just wanted to deliver my package and leave.

Wander trotted up to the base of the monorail ramp and stopped. “This is as far as I go.”

I frowned slightly and stopped at her side. “I know you weren't going in with me, but I thought you’d at least walk me to the gates.”

Wander shook her head. “Sorry, but Manehattan is sort of where I was a big deal. There’s no way somepony in there hasn’t managed to keep their great-great grandma's memorabilia collection intact all these years, and with my luck they’re just happening to look out a window as I walk up… Seeing as how I still look like the old me, just kind of ill…”

I sighed and gave Wander a gentle hug. “I understand… Keep safe okay? I heard those charming townsponies muttering things about you, too… How can they even tell you’re a ghoul?”

Wander smiled. “Because in spite of my best efforts, I’m still famous. Come on, I’m a ghoul that’s been roaming around playing music for ponies for centuries! Kind of hard to not be well known about after that.”

“Ah… Makes sense,” I said with an understanding nod.

I turned and looked up at the massive tower looming overhead. No way ponies who refused to be connected to their city’s own suburbs would be less racist.

“I really wish you could come with me,” I said just for the record. “Where will we meet when I’m done?”

Wander pointed to a short six story building to our left. It was slightly burned, but most of its brickwork was intact, even if the paint, signage, and most windows were not. “See that building?”

I nodded.

Wander pointed to the third floor, at a large windowless section of the building. “That, right there, is Hoofbeats. It used to be the most awesome above-ground underground nightclub in all of Equestria.”

It seemed a little odd to me that Wander would want to wait for me in a place that used to mean so much to her. Maybe, just maybe, that was a sign that our unacknowledged friendship was helping her heal!

I’ll get you to say the f-word yet, you silly filly! Muahahaha!

“Is that your old stomping grounds?” I asked playfully.

Wander nodded. “Literally. I... Have something I need to do there. There’s no way anyone’s gotten inside. We, uh…”She blushed and giggled. “We used to do stuff in there the MoI hated! You’d need plastic explosives to break into the club. The code for the door is six-nine-six-nine, just in case it locks behind me. Trust me, I won't hear you knocking.”

I nodded then paused and gave Wander a blank look. “Sixty-nine sixty-nine?”

She nodded. “Yep. Don’t look at me. I didn’t set the code.”

“Who did?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Rainbow Dash. She co-owned the club, sourced all of the security hardware for me,” Wander said as she began to trot towards the old ruin. “See you later… If it takes more than a day or so, send a message.”

I nodded, turned to walk up the ramp, then froze, and wheeled back around. “A day?!”

Wander suddenly spun around and reared up to make her cloak billow dramatically. With an especially theatrical flourish, she pointed to the tower with both hooves like the ringleader of a circus. “Welcome, my dear zeeb, to Bureaucracy Park!”

I felt my burnt-out diodes throb in fear.

Wander smiled, turn around, and trotted off whistling a rather upbeat tune.

I took a deep breath in an attempt to steel myself, spent a few minutes realizing that expression didn’t work for me, as steel is a downgrade from titanium, and therefore I’d be making myself more vulnerable and sluggish, distracted myself for a good two minutes trying to come up with a proper idiom, gave up, donned my courier’s robe, and finally trotted up the ramp towards the tower.

I could see the old sign on the monorail track informing passengers this was the stop for the Manehattan Ministry of Arcane Science Hub up ahead. I frowned, more than a little confused.

Hadn’t we gone to an underground MAS facility in Manehattan? I remembered this trip very well, but I did not remember this tower.

”We did,” dad’s voice confirmed for me. ”Swan must not have known about the tower. It’s publicly visible, after all. Doctor Silver couldn't have kept your mother’s captivity a secret if she was seen by hundred of civilians walking into a huge place like that every day.”

Good point, dad. Everywhere we went was definitely out of the public’s eye…

The monorail ramp lead to a train station built right into Tenpony Tower, up around the tenth floor. I’d gotten a look at the ground floor entrance on my way up. It had been completely filled in by rubble which looked a little too orderly to have simply fallen as it lay. The train station was the only way in or out of the tower.

It gave me flashbacks to how well defended I thought Magebridge had been.

Flashbacks which abated the minute I got inside the station itself. The station was, like most train stations, a large room for people to wait in, with many back rooms. The choke point for the tower wasn’t the big hole the monorail cars would pass through. It was the little service doorway that maybe a large cart could pass through, and then whatever lay beyond that.

I started to trot to the door, making my way past dozens of old marque boards where old advertisement posters would have once been displayed within the formerly enchanted cases. Then, I stopped. Two of the poster-cases were occupied, by oil paintings of all things!

One of the two had clearly been placed there before the war. The edges of the painting were singed, the varnish was starting to discolor, and the protective enchantments the marquee board provided flickered and shimmered as their ancient crystal components struggled to provide the enchantments with enough juice to soldier on.

The painting itself was of a lavender coated unicorn mare I believed everypony would recognize, even now. Even without the nameplate, everypony would know Twilight Sparkle.

This had been her building, once upon a time. Perhaps that’s why nopony had looted the gems protecting her portrait. If any pony's legacy was as strong and well remembered as the Princess’, it was hers.

The other painting was new. The paints were not the best in quality, they had definitely smeared more than the artist wanted, run a little, and were quite grainy once dried… But the painter had been a master of their craft. They had managed to work with the sub-par materials to create a gorgeous rendition of a wiry gray unicorn mare, with a lovely brown mane.

The painting depicted her in a ray of sunlight, hovering in the sky, prying a bank of clouds apart with her magic, which surrounded her full body in an aura of holy light. This was no mere mare, this was a goddess given flesh. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d ever seen even one of the Princesses depicted with such divine beauty, and such obvious reverence in their iconography.

Then again, it wasn’t like I’d ever been to Canterlot before the war.

I looked down at the marquee board for a name plate. I had my suspicions, but I wanted to be sure.

Her Divine Grace, Our Salvation, Littlepip the Lightbringer.
Presented to Lady Homage by Deacon Indigo Pond on behalf of all Pipites.
In honor of her sacrifice.

Who the hay was Homage? Why did she put the painting out here? Where was a helpful ghoul with bardic lore when you needed culture explained?

I turned away from the paintings and walked through the archway into the tower. Or rather, I suddenly noticed, into the tower’s killbox! The room on the other side of the archway had been turned into a narrow single-cart hallway with steel walls. Steel walls festooned with gun ports and capped at one end by a huge metal gate.

The rusting gate had a message painted on it in large, faded red letters, with a newer message, also in red, painted beneath it in a smaller size.

No zombies!
Except Ditzy Doo.

And there was another name to learn. If there was an exception to a no ghoul policy, this Ditzy had to be a very powerful pony indeed.

I trotted forwards, doing my best to ignore the gun barrels pivoting after me through a dozen different weapon ports as I trotted up to the gate and knocked on it gently three times.

An armored window in the gate opened almost the instant I finished my third knock. A pony wearing a nearly intact set of SWAT armor stared back at me.

My eyes widened. I felt my core burn warmly. I almost jumped through the window to tackle the pony yelling “Daddy!” but then I realized that this was a mare.

She pushed up her shaded visor, revealing a pair of brightly glistening Persian-blue eyes, as well as a stern expression stamped on her statuesque face. I took a second to look down at her through the window. While she was dressed in a full set of SWAT armor, this earth pony was perfectly proportioned. She either lived at the gym and had good genes, or was the luckiest mare alive.

“State your business,” the mare said gruffly.

I cleared my throat and offered her a low bow, deciding it best to play things as formal and diplomatic as possible from the get go. “Good afternoon, ma’am. I am Whirling Gears, a courier here on behalf of multiple parties who have requested I deliver parcels to ponies who live under your superb protection.”

The mare blinked, her stern look turning to surprise. She clearly hadn’t expected me to flatter her.

Taking advantage of the moment of silence, I reached into my saddlebag and took out the courier's pass the sergeant had given me, and showed it to her, while also making sure she could see my courier’s pin… Even though she wouldn’t know a thing about my home country.

“I was told to present this to you, ma’am. I trust I will be allowed to make my rounds? I’m afraid I must do so in person to assure proper delivery.”

The guard took the pass and looked it over, holding it close to her face as she most definitely checked to see if it had been forged. “This… Actually seems to be in order… Hard to believe the Herd wants to send a letter to us. We’re all the way on the other side of the continent.”

“I’m not with the Herd, ma’am,” I corrected as swiftly as I could.

No need to walk face first into that lake of bad blood.

She raised an eyebrow. “Then who? I’ve never seen the crest on your bag before.”

“I’m from the north,” I explained with a smile. “Far across the mountains and the ice. Travel between out lands only recently became possible. I represent the Kingdom of Lith, on official business. I would appreciate being let through.”

The guard pursed her lips for a moment, looked back at the courier's pass, then nodded and handed it back to me. “Alright. Wherever you’re from, one of our boys in brown thought you were the best pony to deliver something and that’s enough for me,” she gestured to my battle saddle and cleared her throat.

I frowned. “Pardon?”

“Everypony who comes inside has to disarm,” she said adamantly. “Since you’re sporting energy weapons, that means they need to come off.”

I reached for my saddle’s strap, making sure I only unbuckled the weapon harness and not my bags. “Of course. I don’t intend to harm anypony.”

“And the pistol,” the mare added as I set my saddle on the ground.

I winced and looked her in the eyes. “It was my father’s… I trust you have a secure locker where these will stay for the duration of my stay?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“And they won't have mysteriously vanished by the time I am ready to leave your tower?” I added, perhaps a touch rudely.

With how clear it was the ponies here hated zebras, I felt like I needed to be just a little hostile in return to show them I wouldn’t be pushed around.

“Of course they will be. What do you take us for? Wastelanders? We’re not thieves. You’ll get your guns back,” she insisted, her face twisting up with outrage.

I see I had been a little too hostile… Oops.

I nodded politely, then took my pistol out of its holster and set it atop my saddle. “Thank you… I experienced a rather distressing time in your suburbs. My apologies for having been put on edge.”

The mare scoffed and closed the window. A moment later the gate began to squeak as she slid it open. “I think you’ll find that Tenpony citizens are not like those Friendship City refugees outside our walls, miss. Welcome to Tenpony Tower.”

A pale green aura enveloped my saddle and weapons as a second guard levitated them through the gate to a large hooflocker, which she opened with her hooves, set my guns inside, locked, then floated the locker’s key over to me. The key even had a little tag on it with the locker’s number.

I took the key and smiled. “Thank you, miss.”

She nodded back. “Courier.”

I began to trot inside when I heard the mare who had stored my gear whisper just a bit lower than necessary. “What about her hoof-to-hoof? Don’t we have leg irons or something?”

“Not all zebras are kung-fu masters,” the first guard replied quietly. “Besides, you really think a zebra couldn't slip cuffs if she wanted?”

“... True enough,” the other guard muttered.

I smirked. It would probably blow their minds if they knew that all I could do was box. The sporting version. Not the martial art.

Behind the gate was a pair of massive, ornate, bronze plated double doors. I pushed open the one on the left and stepped out of the Wasteland, and into pre-war Equestria.

I was in a palace!

Marble floors!

Gold chandeliers that worked!

Red velvet carpets!

Fluted marble columns! Not for supporting things, just because!

Tapestries!

Frescoes!

A massive three story high room containing a ginormous statue of a huge alicorn mare holding up the sun with her wings!

I stared at the statue, my mouth hanging open. Celestia! It could only be her. Rendered in bronze which glowed in the light of the chandeliers so it shimmered like the rising sun. The base of the statue was a fountain, powered by several water talismans, which had been carefully constructed to ensure the chandeliers would cast rainbows around the statue.

The artistry lovingly poured into the statue was easily on par with the painting of Littlepip outside. But more importantly…

“She was the tallest!” I gasped to myself.

Somepony next to me cleared their throat. “May I help you?”

I turned to see a tall, rail thin, older earth pony stallion with gray fur dressed in a worn but well fitting black suit complete with bowtie standing stiffly a short distance to my left. The look in his eyes gave me the distinct impression that he was ‘the help’ and in spite of this was still better than me.

Oh. Joy. Aristocratic Bureaucracy Park.

Wander, you macaroni! I need you for moral support!

”The hay kind of insult is macaroni?” dad laughed.

Shut up! I’m mad at her!

Dad just laughed harder.

I cleared my throat and wiped the stupid shocked expression off my face, then turned to face the older ‘gentleman’.

“Good afternoon, my name is Whirling Gears,” I said with a polite bow.

“Earl Gray,” he answered with a droll sigh. “Do you have business here, or are you just visiting?”

“I’m a courier. I have a delivery to make to your security chief, and also to your mayor or equivalent community leader,” I said as I took my courier’s pass out to show Earl.

He examined the pass for a moment then nodded to himself. “I see… May I ask what exactly are you delivering?”

“I was hired by an NCR Sergeant to return a water talisman they were transporting to your security chief,” I answered promptly.

Earl’s ears moved very slightly, but otherwise his mask of ‘better than thou butler’ remained. “Mmm, yes. You must be that zebra. Please, follow me. I will show you to the chief’s office.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Apparently, in Tenpony Speak, ‘I will show you to the chief’s office’ means ‘I’ll take you through a back route down a service elevator to a floor where only the security grunts go so you’re out of sight.’

Because that’s exactly what happened. In total silence. Earl Gray didn’t say another word to me until we were trotting down an unpainted concrete hallway and he suddenly stopped beside a thick metal door with ‘security’ painted on it in white.

“The chief’s office,” Earl announced, stepping aside and standing by the door.

I noticed he didn’t open it for me.

I cleared my throat. “After this will you take me to the mayor’s office?”

“We don’t have a mayor,” Earl drolled. “But I will take you to the Council’s Office, yes.”

Oh. Joy. This place was run by committee… Please don’t be a government descended from a pre-war Equestrian Homeowners Association! My not-brain would implode trying to deal with that level of horseapplery.

I opened the door, still annoyed that Earl hadn’t while being my guide to the tower, and stepped inside the office.

I’d expected a small waiting room. There wasn’t one. All there was to see was a small room that had at one point definitely been a janitor’s closet which was stuffed half full of filing cabinets. The other half was cluttered with a variety of storage boxes, two weapons lockers, a hooflocker, and a big old wooden office desk half covered with paperwork, a terminal, and at the moment, a big bowl of noodles and steak bits, and a Sparkle Cola. The desk also had a nameplate which read ‘Sky Chaser’.

Behind the desk sat a somewhat-young looking pegasus stallion with a burnt orange coat, and an azure mane cut down into a super-short mohawk, perhaps a quarter-hoof tall. He was wearing an old pale-brownish-orangish-sandish motorcycle jacket which almost looked like rawhide, but had enough shine to it to indicate it had been dyed. A silver police badge was pinned to his jacket on the left collar, and the strap of a rather nasty looking SMG ran across his barrel.

He looked up in surprise as I opened the door. “Um… Can I help you?” He asked with a mouthful of noodles, then cringed, swallowed, and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, you’re looking for the bathroom, aren't you? It’s two more doors down.”

I shook my head and trotted inside. “I’m not looking for the bathroom, sir. I’m here to deliver a package.”

“Oh,” he said with an uncertain smile. “Come in.”

I closed the door behind me and walked over to his desk, unbuckling my delivery bag as I went.

“I didn’t know we had any zebras living here. It’s nice to see there’s at least one!” Sky said with a polite smile. “I can't imagine how you put up with those stuffy elitists up there… Hard enough to be respected as a pony who got Tenpony citizenship.”

“I don’t live here, sir,” I informed as I reached into my bag and produced the box containing the water talisman. “I was hired to return this to you by a trooper in Sire’s Hollow.”

I set the box down on one of the few free spots on his desk. Sky stood up to reach the box to see exactly what was in it. As he stood up I saw both his cutiemarks had been burned off, leaving behind only bubbly, twisted, scars.

I flinched. He noticed.

“Don’t mind the scars,” he said as he picked up the box and opened it to make sure the talisman was inside. “They're just reminders that the Enclave were the bad guys.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Odd way to phrase that sentiment, if I may say so.”

“Trust me,” Sky said as he set the box back down on his side of the desk. “If you’d lived under them, it’s the only real way to put it.”

I frowned and nodded in silent agreement, not wanting to make a pony remember being intentionally disfigured.

Sky looked up at me and smiled. “Thank you for returning this… Were you paid in advance?”

My ears perked as I remembered that yes, I had been. Sort of. “Yes. She wrote a voucher for me.”

“Why don’t I cash that for you?” Sky offered as he opened first one drawer, then another, than a third before finally producing a small brass key.

He smiled at me sheepishly as I dug out the voucher. “I uh… I’m new to the job. The last guy left the place a mess when he died.”

I handed over my voucher, and Sky read it, then frowned. “This isn’t very much… Seeing as how you’ve returned an irreplaceable artifact safe and sound, I think I’ll cut you a little bonus.”

He stood up from his creaky wooden chair and unlocked the hooflocker with a key. I remained where I was, not wanting him to think I was going to assault and rob him. Which could easily have been his conclusion, thanks to the locker being entirely filled with small leather bags bulging with caps, as well as plenty of stray ones scattered about inside.

Sky took a total of ten bags out of the locker and set them aside muttering, “Two hundred,” then counted out four more bags, opened the last one,and removed ten caps, dropping them into the locker before closing and locking it.

He then picked up the bags and moved them over to me. “Here you are. Two hundred you were owed, with a bonus of seventy to make the price a bit more fair. I’d make it an even three hundred, but the Council has limits on bonus payments to outsiders.”

I bowed politely and put the caps into my personal bag. “Thank you very much, sir! I’m glad the talisman is in a secure location and won't cause any trouble for— OH! That’s right, I was asked to forward a special request from the Sergeant. Please have DJ Pon3 inform the wasteland in general the talisman has been secured, so the raiders wont hit Sire’s Hollow again looking for it.”

Sky nodded and sat back down, powering on his terminal. “I’ll send that to her right away. It’s a good idea, Sire’s Hollow makes a big chunk of our food. If it went down, the NCR would have to ration meals for a while.”

I frowned and titled my head. “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” Sky said with an uncertain look in his eyes and a flick of his ears.

Clearly he didn’t understand what I was confused by.

“You… called DJ Pon3 ‘her’,”I reminded, doing my best to be as polite as possible. “But their voice is distinctly male. Where I come from, we have had a small number of ponies who wish to be treated as the opposite sex, is that the case with—”

Sky snorted and grinned as he held in a laugh. “Oh gosh, no! Funny to see it the other way around for a change. No. DJ Pon3 is a title passed from one pony to another over the years. There’s always been a DJ Pon3, some even say the first one was around before the ministries ran public broadcasting! Uh, point is, there’s a spell that’s been passed down to change a pony’s voice, that way DJ Pon3’s always got the same voice.

“The current pony holding the title is a mare. The funny part is, until Pip broadcast her life story from the SPP, nopony knew about the title thing. A lot of wastelanders thought there was an immortal Alicorn of the Airwaves or other things like that. Your average pony out there is a little stupid, so they think since Homage uses the old title and voice, she wants to be a stallion. You got it the other way around, so, it’s funny.”

“Oh!” I said with a relieved smile and swish of my tail.

So that’s who Homage was. But why would a religion dedicated to Pip give her a painting of Pip? And why would she choose to hang it outside of the tower?

I cleared my throat and offered Sky another polite bow. “Thank you for your time and kindness, sir.”

“Not a problem! If you have any problems collecting anything my mares made you check at the gate, come on back and I’ll make sure you get your belongings back,” Sky said as he began to type at his terminal.

I frowned and pawed the floor uncertainty. “Is that likely?”

“No. But it is possible, and I won't stand for that kind of discrimination at my gate,” Sky said firmly.

“Thank you,” I said again as I turned to leave. “I hope you have a nice day.”

“I won't,” he sighed. “I have to deliver my two-week job-assumption report, and a general State of the Tower report today at five, then five fifteen… But, just for you, I’ll try to have a nice day tomorrow.”

I smiled at his joke then took my leave. Almost as soon as I’d set one hoof in the hallway, Earl Gray cleared his throat. “This way to the Council Room, miss,” Earl said as he began to trot back towards the service elevator.

I narrowed my eyes. Seriously?!

”Could be worse,” dad sighed.

Yeah, he could be calling me stripe…

”Oh no. I meant that if you were here pre-war he’d take that pistol out of his coat and shoot you on sight.”

I flinched, sure enough there was a slight lump in his breast pocket that had to be from a small pistol. Point taken.

“Is there any protocols for delivering a package to the Council?” I asked Earl as he fast-trotted me towards the elevator.

He stopped in his tracks, making me nearly run face first into his plot. Desperate for intimacy as I may be, that would have been gross…

Earl sighed and turned around. “It would have been prudent of you to mention it was a parcel and not a letter before we reached the chief’s office.”

I rolled my eyes as Earl turned around and moved past me, returning to Sky’s office door and knocking twice upon it.

“Come in.”

Earl opened the door and waved me over. “My apologies, sir, but this courier has a parcel for the Council as well and it must be inspected.”

I trotted over to the door just in time to see Sky stand up. “Of course. Won't take a minute. Can you hand it over to me, miss…?”

“Gears,” I answered.

He raised an eyebrow. “An Equestrian name? That’s a little rare for a Zebra. Even ones native to Equestria.”

“I was adopted by ponies, sir,” I replied as I opened my delivery bag, then the hardcase, and took out one of the radios. “I am to deliver this radio and contact instructions to your Council. Other radios in the set have been examined before. You’ll find nothing amiss.”

“Still, I’ve got to look,” Sky said as he took the radio from me and set it on his desk. “It’s my job. You know, since there isn’t a grunt around to do it for me.”

☢★★◯★★☢

A few minutes and a disorganized search for tools later, and the cover had been removed, no explosives or hexes had been found (obviously) and the radio was back in one piece, minus a single screw that, to quote Sky, had “bucked off to where nopony has gone before”.

I felt for him. We all encounter adventurous screws once in a while.

Hopefully delivering my other package wouldn’t be as impossible as locating an adventurous screw…

Earl led me and the now ‘green’ package back up the Elevator and through a series of servent’s passages through the fourth floor, with our ultimate destination being a room on the fifth floor. Much to my surprise, as we began climbing the stairs to the fifth floor, he actually spoke to me.

“I don’t know where you come from, but you must be on your best behavior when addressing the Council Pony you are allowed to see,” Earl said in a tone that was almost but not quite demanding. “Our Tower has persevered from the very day the bombs toppled Equestria, and never once have we faltered in ensuring our nation’s High Society and proper manners survive. Where you come from, it may not be important to speak and act with proper decorum, but here it most certainly is.

“That was true for the two-hundred years our community was ruled over by the House of Spur, and the direct descendants of Duke Silver Spur himself, and it is most certainly still true with the Twilight Society as our current ruling noble house. I am glad you are at the least dressed, even your drab garment is leagues above the nothing the last of your kind chose to speak to the Council in.”

I felt my eye laser start to charge of its own accord.

”Own accord my ponut!” imaginary dad scoffed.

Can I please shoot him?!

”No.”

Fine…

I did my best to put on a fake smile. “I am fully versed in all forms of etiquette relating to royalty and the courts, sir. For example, it is considered bad form to disrespect messengers. They have this tendency to report back to their Queens with assessments of the people they delivered messages to, in order to provide context for better understanding replies.”

Earl scoffed. “Indeed. It is also bad form to send a messenger of inferior stock, as your messenger is a representative of your house.”

”Okay, now you can shoot him!”

I really shouldn’t.

”Please?”

No.

”You don’t have to kill him. Just melt his ponut shut!”

Dad!

”What? I’d say laser his balls off but it’s clear he hasn’t got a pair to begin with.”

I managed to resist the urge to give Earl a structurally superfluous plot hole for the rest of the walk. Our route finally took out out of the drab servant’s corridors and back into the palatial splendor of the tower proper, but only for a few moments. Then we were in front of a pair of large oaken doors with brass handles and a silver plaque reading, ‘Ministry Mare’s Office’ over which somepony had painted ‘Council Office’.

That felt just a touch disrespectful…

Earl stood next to the door and cleared his throat. “You’ll have to wait your turn, of course… I suggest you try blinking before going inside. Your left eye is a little red.”

“It will clear up momentarily,” I promised as I did my best to smile as I left.

I opened the door and entered the past!

No, not the past, just a waiting room full of nearly a dozen ponies, all of whom were well dressed, well groomed, and definitely well-to-do. The room itself was immaculate, matching the ponies own splendor with upholstered sofas that matched, and a huge Griffon-made traditional plush rug which even my honest little heart wanted me to steal because my goodness was it pretty and soft and soft-pretty and soft!

Everypony looked up at me as I entered the room. Their reactions were mixed. Mostly surprise, with some distaste, some disinterest, and one pony who gave me a look which I didn’t remotely understand. It was like she was hungry, and wanted to eat me.

I took a seat as far away from the possible cannibal as I could and hoped that my red robes would look at least possibly nice in the sea of silk, silver, gold, velvet, and jewelry around me. A little voice in the back of my mind diverted my attention to the fact that while everypony here had nice clothing, it was not nice new clothing. It was all well maintained, but all 200 years old.

My robes, on the other hoof, had been tailored expressly for me and my big plot. They were new, like all couriers got. So at least I had that going for me.

Time began to slowly tick by. It was clear to me that each appointment with the Council took quite some time. Enough time where everypony in the room was talking to each other as if they were hanging out in a park, making a nice dull buzz of background noise that I felt I could meditate too.

I should do that. It had been some time since I had done basic self care. I had some spiritual power to gather. Damaged systems in need of a little magical influencing… I couldn't do much more than make sure my gears worked like they were new and well oiled, but dang it, my side hurt enough as is!

I closed my eyes and began to focus on myself, leaving the physical world as a blurred, background nothingness, simply letting myself attend to my own spirit, and the energy of the world around me.

It was… Distressing.

After getting to be in something approximating a body, something which let me experience the world like a mortal did… Even simply looking at the timeless and spaceless realm of thought and energy was more than a little discomforting. If I died, I’d be thrust back into the infinite yet infinitesimal sea of chaos. Just another mind among infinite others, forever seeing all of time and all of space, yet able to make sense of none of it, and nothing, not one thing, would ever allow me to return to the life I led now.

Nor would the thousands of other spirits who, like me, had been given a machine which served as a body. I would hear their screams and wails as they suffered just as I did in the endless-yet-limited overflowing void… I would despair with them there for the rest of eternity.

My eyes snapped open. It took every fiber of my being not to scream, but I managed.

I twitched my left hind leg. It moved smoothly, and felt a little better.

Good.

Not worth the fear. But good.

An elderly mare next to me placed a hoof on my foreleg. “Are you alright, dear? You seem as if you’ve seen a ghost… I’ve heard your kind can. Is there anything I should be worried about?”

I shook my head before looking over at her. “No. Everything is fine. I… Meditated too hard. That’s all.”

“I see,” she said with a polite inflection.

I turned toward her for the first time. She had once been a grass green earth pony, but now she was silver maned and snow white. The simple fact somepony so old could be not only seemingly in good health, but a little bit fat, rocked me to my core. I offered her a polite smile of my own.

“Sorry for forgetting where I was, ma’am,” I said with a little sitting bow.

“It’s quite alright, dear,” she dismissed with a smile. “Though if you’d like to make an old mare happy, would you mind telling me where you purchased such an elegantly understated gown? The minimalist look is going to be in this season and your tailor is certainly on top of the latest fashions already.”

Celestia’s fetlocks! These ponies cared about fashion?! Well, in that case, let’s just whip up a bunch of citizen demand for trade goods, it will be cake! Listening to Sassy’s marketing tips always paid off!

“Certainly,” I said raising my voice just a little, so I was speaking loud enough to be heard throughout the entire room, but not so loud as to be shouting. “It was made for me by—”

“It was made for you?” The mare interrupted. “That is to say it’s new? But it’s so well spun! All of the clothing I’ve seen the NCR trying to sell here has been rough spun natural fibers at best… Is there a silk farm up and running out there now?”

I shook my head. “No, this is fine-spun linen. It’s more robust than silk, the silk-like shine comes from the dye we use to color our fabrics. It always imparts a glossy shine,” I explained, deciding to skip over that the dye included changeling vomit as a fixative. “My hometown has a tailor, a very skilled old mare whose work is better displayed by my scarf than my robe, if I may say so.”

The mare smiled and reached for my scarf. “May I?”

I nodded and let her feel and inspect the fabric. “I haven't felt fabric this soft since I was a little filly… My grandmother had kept her wedding dress in a sealed chest… Thank you for the memory,” she said as she let go of my scarf. “Where ever are you from, darling? Would it be much trouble for me to get a catalogue? Surely your tailor sells their wares in many different towns.”

I smiled. This was it. I had them! Haha!

I nodded. “That’s actually why I am here!” I announced, still smiling. “I’m here to open trade deals between my Kingdom and your wonderful tower. We only just found a way to cross the northern mountains separating Equestria and the Crystal Empire, and my Queen is most eager to begin a mutually beneficial relationship with your nation. I cannot even begin to tell you how much of a relief it is to see there is at least one place of refinement and culture left in the Heartlands! I can tell you for a matter of fact it would be extremely distressing to many ponies in Lith if there was simply no market for artisan goods to be found.

“Why, our cities are quite full of such luxuries and our poor artisans are starting to put artistic flare into everything! Before coming down here, I saw a sculptor rearranging the street’s cobbles to be more ‘aesthetically pleasing’ if you can believe that! I’m certain our seamstresses would much rather be making ballroom gowns for you than designing ever more elaborate patches for our guard ponies.”

The room’s conversation almost immediately switched from a dull murmur to excited chatter, all of which was centered around the possibility of acquiring yet more ways to display their wealth. Success!

”If only you were that smooth in literally any other form of socializing,” Dad sighed.

Hey! I huffed in silent indigence.

The single oak door on the far side of the room opened with a gentle creek, allowing a rather flustered looking bright orange unicorn stallion to march his way out in a huff. As he passed by me, I heard him mutter something about getting them to paint his dresser drawer bottoms a different color sooner or later.

My jaw dropped.

That.

Took.

Twenty.

Bucking.

Minutes?!

The poor council ponies! They needed hugs, and coco, and blankets! And also probably a trauma therapist. And I was only barely exaggerating!

“Next, please,” A mare called from the other room, her voice sounding bitter, defeated, and broken.

The voice of a mare working in retail before the war. I knew it well from mom’s holotape collection.

I had the sudden feeling that I hadn’t exaggerated the council pony’s need for a trauma therapist in the slightest.

A tall, graying stallion dressed in a bright purple waistcoat who had been sitting near the door cleared his throat. “I propose we allow our zebra friend to take this opportunity to present her case to the Council,” he said loudly, his voice robust and clearly used to making great pronouncements in large rooms.

I blinked in surprise. Before I could decline the offer, another pony spoke up. “I agree! After all, if she can make that trade deal with the council, it benefits us all, and of course this is but step one in that process.”

“Indeed!” A mare agreed. “She’ll be here for three days before seeing somepony otherwise. Why, this arrangement is to all our benefits.”

“Yes, miss, go ahead,” a fourth pony called insistently.

I stood up slowly and offered the room a polite bow. “You have my utmost gratitude for your kindness. If you give me a list of names to take back to my Queen, I will see to it you each receive something for your generous assistance.”

I swore to Celestia the mare in the next room actually said, “The buck? They’re letting someone cut? How by Celestia’s gaping—” but that could have just been my ears playing tricks on me as I’m sure I didn’t hear a single word of what she said next.

I took a moment to straighten my robes and trotted up to the door, taking a look around to make sure nopony was objecting. Everything seemed to be fine, as I was met with nothing but approving or disinterested looks from the wealthy elites in the room, so I trotted into the Council Office.

It was a very nice room, as one would expect any room in this perfectly preserved patch of Equestria to be. Dark hardwood floors. Every single wall fully lined with ebony bookshelves, each laden with so many books the shelves bent under their weight. The only exception to the bookshelf-wall ratio was a single huge Gothic styled window which framed a massive, super comfy recliner chair set behind a horseshoe shaped desk made from a truly gorgeous wood which had all the colors of the rainbow swirling through it.

I couldn’t be sure, but I swore the colors weren't a stain or a paint, but the grain of the actual wood itself.

It suddenly hit me that I was standing in Twilight Sparkle’s personal office. I turned to look at the bookshelf to my left, wondering what the Ministry Mare’s taste in literature was. Much to my shock the first book to jump out at me was a copy of Daring Do and the Riddle of the Sphinx.

“What?” I gasped to myself. “She read those silly things?”

“Yeah, she’s got the whole set, and even an unfinished manuscript. All signed by A.K. Yearling herself, too,” a chipper mare said from somewhere in the room.

I spun back around, thoroughly embarrassed at my laps of professionalism. Facing the chair I bowed low. “My apologies, Councilmare. As a mare who grew up in a library I cannot help but wonder what books Miss Sparkle enjoyed.”

“Are you disappointed?” The mare asked.

“No, simply confused as to why a mare of her power and fame would enjoy escapist fantasy,” I said as I looked back up and saw a older filly sitting in the giant chair.

She was a little gray filly, with brown eyes, and a huge spiky poofball of dark blue mane with an electric blue streak running through it. She wasn’t dressed, which I liked. It reminded me of home. However, seemingly in lieu of clothes, she had a custom pipbuck. It had a lovely dusty-orange enameled finish, with a gemstone set in it which in an astonishing stroke of luck for her, matched her loudspeaker cutiemark precisely. That pipbuck must have cost somepony a fortune pre-war. The basic models were not cheap!

In addition to the pipbuck, the mare also had a custom sprite-bot floating next to her. It was a cute little thing. It had been given an integrated magical energy pistol, which protruded from the top of the spherical robot like a unicorn’s horn, and the barrel had even been painted with a horn spiral pattern. The bot itself had been painted gray and brown, with a cartoonish smiling mare’s face painted over the sensor grill.

I blinked twice.

“Excuse me, miss, but, how old are you?” I asked hesitantly.

She smiled, “Thirty two. I know, I’m an itty bitty not-a-filly. It’s fine, most ponies make the same mistake.”

Thank Celestia it’s not just me! I smiled and trotted up to her desk. Twilight’s Desk. I couldn’t help but notice there was no seat for guests.

“Never thought I’d see the day that bunch let a non-resident cut in line. Much less a zebra,” the mare remarked to herself as I trotted up to her desk.

I pursed my lips at her remark. “I noticed the sign about ghouls, and the um… Butler, was very rude. Is the distaste for zebras close to the point where a ban on our entry could be implemented?”

“Not a chance,” the mare said with a smirk and a wave of her hoof. “We may have to keep these old farts happy enough to not revolt, but things are slowly changing. You can't just take apart two hundred years of culture and tradition overnight. Even if it’s regressive as hell.”

I nodded and cleared my throat. “May I introduce myself? My name is Whirling Gears, I am a Royal Courier in service to the Kingdom of Lith.”

The mare sputtered, looking up at my face for what felt like the first time since we’d begun talking. I couldn’t blame her, I was about a head and a half taller than her while she was sitting.

“I’m sorry, where are my manners? My name is Homage,” she introduced holding out her hoof.

I reached out and shook her hoof, glad to have a face for the name.

”Ask her about the painting,” imaginary dad begged.

Later, I promised.

“Welcome to Tenpony Tower, I’m the on duty representative of the Twilight Society Council—” Homage trailed off as she looked up at a clock hung up on the boundary between two bookshelves. “... For the next hour. My shift ends after that. If this will take longer than an hour, somepony else will have to continue, or we could put a pin in it and pick things back up tomorrow. Is that acceptable?”

I nodded. “Of course. I do not think I’ll take more than ten minutes of your time, Miss Homage,” I said with a polite bow.

Homage gasped her pupils dilating with laser focus on my face as she smiled. “I love you!”

I looked back up, eyes wide. “W— What?!”

Homaged waved a hoof for me to carry on. “I just spent an hour and a half telling a stallion no repeatedly to getting the bottom sides of his dresser drawers repainted. That was a reflexive response to hearing a reasonable amount of time for a meeting. Please continue, don’t mind me.”

I blinked, unable to find my train of thought because, “But… You don’t even see the undersides of—”

“Yep! Please, let’s not talk about that,” Homage begged, giving me the most system-wrenching pair of Sweetie Eyes I’d ever seen.

I complied.

“As I said before, my name is Whirling Gears. I am here on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Katydid of Lith, a kingdom across the mountains on your northern border, born from the remains of the Crystal Empire among other nations and tribes. We recently discovered a traversable route to the Equestrian Heartlands and learned civilization had survived the war here as well. Her Majesty has sent me to deliver a ‘hello’ to every community within the Heartlands, as well as propose some basic trade deals.”

Homage nodded. “Sounds like we have more to talk about than you thought. That’s a heck of a claim, can you prove it?”

I smiled. “Of course I can! It would be easier if I was allowed to bring my weapons into your Tower. They are unique energy weapons we developed post-war… Er, it is. I lost one fighting a war robot at Sire's Hollow three days ago.”

Homage ears perked. “Woah, hold on, you’re The Machine!?”

I blushed deeply and coughed. “Well, I don’t have a nickname, but yes. That was me.”

“You have one now,” Homage said, making my bush deepen. “Nice work back there! I’ve heard the whole story, it takes a special kind of pony to face one of those things even with the right tools for the job. Heck, Pip was nearly killed by one and she was basically bulletproof in her prime.”

”The painting! The ask! The do!” Dad pleaded.

This time I couldn’t resist. “Wait, you’re Homage! There’s a painting given to you out in the tower’s entry… Why isn’t it inside?”

Homage closed her eyes tightly and sighed. “I want nothing to do with the Pipites. Pip herself told them to knock it off, and they didn’t. They constantly harass me to pass their prayers on to her, and worst of all, that painting of her isn’t even close to how she really looks!”

“Oh,” I began. “That’s quite reason—”

“She’s twice that hot!” Homage insisted thumping her hoof against the desk.

I had nothing to say. So I just stared at her in surprise as her face slowly split into a joking smile. “I’m kidding I’m kidding… Three times,” Homage said with a wink.

I smiled back. Ice thoroughly broken, I cleared my throat. “For proving my story, I could do what I’ve done for the last two mayors and show them a radio my people have made which will be yours to keep. Or, I could tell you the whole story and you could judge the evidence for yourself.”

Homage hummed and looked back up at the clock, then nodded to herself. “You know what? Let’s run out the clock. I’ve had enough snobs thinking that the Council Room is for clogged drains and I have the evening news to do later. I’d like to be relaxed before getting to it.”

Gears blinks. “Oh yes! You have mass-communication down here. Tell me, is it just radio or are you able to broadcast television as well?”

“Technically both,” Homage said. “But good luck finding a working TV or terminal out there in the Wasteland. How about you start by telling me about your homeland. What’s this Lith like?”

I took a moment to think of a good way to start, then began telling the story of my kingdom’s founding.

☢★★◯★★☢

“... so we split up so she wouldn’t have to come to the tower, and here I am,” I finished.

Homage hummed and shrugged. “Well, parts of that are a little incredible. Not more so than most of the wild things that can happen in the wasteland, but I’ve got a gut feeling about you,” she remarked.

“What’s that mean?” I asked with a worried frown.

“I’m means that I think I’ll have a look at that radio n—”

Homage’s sprite-bot chirped loudly, emitted a burst of static, then suddenly spoke in a mare’s voice. “Hi, love…”

Whoever that mare was, she sounded very, very ill. Not sick ill, dying ill. Her voice alone made me shiver and wince, remembering the time mom’s left lung and right kidney went offline for a week.

Homage’s eyes went wide as a heap of conflicting emotions ran across her face, eventually settling on joy. She flashed me a quick apologetic smile as she turned to face her robot. “Give me a minute, please? This is very, very important.”

“Of course,” I said, doing my best to step back with a bow to give her space.

Her highness reacted very poorly to being interrupted with unimportant news, and this sounded like it might be that poor mare’s last moments… I wasn’t about to interrupt them.

To my surprise, Homage reared up, hugged her robot, and then sat back down. “Hi, sweetie! How’s your day? Feeling any better?”

“No… Is it the same day this time?” The mare asked.

Homage shook her head slowly. “No. It’s been two days.”

“Oh… Did Dresser Drawer Stallion give you a hard time again this week?”

“Heh, yeah, he just left. I’m almost off duty… Think you can stay awake for,” homage paused to glance at the clock. “Ten minutes? We could go on a walk, I could show you this cool mystery vault in a skyscraper near the base of the tower. According to a trustworthy source, it hasn’t opened since the megaspells dropped. I can see you now, having a blast trying to pick your way in…”

The mare speaking through the sprite bot laughed, then coughed. Wet coughed. Poor thing.

“I— I don’t think I can… Sorry, love,” she apologized.

Homage looked down sadly then hugged her robot again. “I’ll go take a look later, tell you what’s in it. I'll make sure P!P stores video for you to see later.”

“Thanks, Homage,” the mare said quietly.

To my surprise the bot turned slightly, aiming its sensors at me only for the mare to exclaim, “Hey! I know you! You’re the mare who saved Sire’s Hollow. What’s she here for, hon?”

“Oh, uh, opening a trade deal,” Homage answered for me, her ears flicking in frustration. “Apparently there’s a kingdom up north that wants to trade with us.”

Horseapples! I interrupted their thing. Noooo! I’m sorry!

“Well, she took on an ultra-sentinel and eighteen bandits with just one other pony for backup, and all the backup was doing was sniping. She took the bot on by herself,” the bot zipped over the desk to move over to me. “I’d have given my left hind leg for a mare like you fourteen years ago! That was amazing!”

I blushed. “It was mostly luck…”

“Yeah she mentioned that,” Homage remarked, her ears perking back up. “You can confirm that this was her?”

“Um, yes? There’s no way two zebra mares have her, uh… Body type,” the mare said, laughing briefly before falling into a coughing fit.

I took another step back and turned the bot around to face Homage, mouthing ‘sorry’.

“Good to know… Have you seen her anywhere else? Like, coming down from the north?”

“Yep. She’s traveling with that one ghoul who keeps yelling things up into the cameras right when I look at them… It’s the weirdest thing!”

I snickered, having finally worked out who the mare was. “Hee! You really do notice all of her rants.”

”How did it take you this long?” dad asked with a laugh.

You’re supposed to support your filly! I protested.

”Dads get to laugh when their kids are silly fillies.”

“Yep!” Pip confirmed. “I don't know how or why, but yep!”

Homage cleared her throat. “So, important question, hon… Can I trust Gears?”

“Absolutely!” Pip said with enthusiasm.

I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry to remain the focus of what is definitely a limited time conversation, but, how do you see things out in the middle of nowhere?”

“I’m the Toaster Repair pony. It’s a job perk,” Pip said with a laugh which was followed by another rasping wet cough. “Ew… Sorry about that… I wish I could see over the northern mountains from here… It would be nice to know for certain if anypony is living up there.”

Oh! I could get her to confirm that Lith was real for Homage real quick! What was my emergency comm frequency? That’s right!

“If you can see the Spur Mountains, look for my airship atop one of the mountains,” I instructed quickly. “Tune a radio to 27.989 Mhz and broadcast at the ship. It will be relayed through to Lith.”

“You’ve set up a radio? I’ll give it a sho—” The bot pip was speaking through suddenly cracked hissed, then fell silent.

My ears fell. I’d soaked up most of their time… I felt horrible. Just... Thoroughly horrible.

Homage sighed and hung her head for a moment. “She’s getting worse…”

“May I ask what exactly happened?” I asked with an apologetic frown. “To put her in such a critical sounding condition, I mean.”

Homage looks at me for a long moment. Her brown eyes teared up slightly, then she looked away. “You really aren't from Equestria, are you?”

I paused then shrugged. “Uh, well… Kinda? I was born here, a long time ago. Then my family went north.”

Homage nodded and gave her bot a loving pat on the chassis. “So, before Pip then? Well… That was Littlepip, my wife. She’s entered in a stasis pod for medical reasons. I modified P-not-P so she could see, hear, and speak through it, so that we could talk while she was in the pod… Her— She— I…”

“Her health is failing in spite of the pod?” I asked incredulously. “How is that possible?”

Homage sighed and slumped in her seat. “Yeah. It's not like, an auto-doc. Or even a real stasis pod. It can’t be… The pony in it has to be able to see things happening in real time. It just sort of slows your body down.”

This begged the question of why she called it as stasis pod to begin with, but I wasn't about to bring that up to a mare on the verge of tears. Homage sighed and stared down at the desk. Knowing I was probably breaking professional conduct protocols, I trotted around her desk and have her a quick but firm hug.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I let go of the tiny mare. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling… I’ve never even had a lover, much less one some ponies think is a god, who is… In poor health. But, I do have a mother, and she is often very sick. I’ve taken care of her for a very very long time. So, I have an idea of how you feel, and I’m sorry.”

Homage sniffled and wiped her eyes clear before looking back up at me. She took a deep breath, let it out and began to just, unpack things.

“So, she really needs to be in the pod,” Homage began. “Short version: Pip did a lot for Equestria and got hurt so many times in just a few months that… Well, a mare’s body can only take so much, you know? Radiation. Taint. Bullets. Fire. Lasers. Plasma. She’s been hit by everything at least twice.

“Maybe a healthy mare could have taken that and pulled through with all the healing potions and surgery Pip got but… But her Stable was… Well, it was filled almost completely with the apple family at the start of the war. Pip doesn't exactly have healthy genes to work with. She is small, like me… A bit shorter, actually. Even a small bullet can do a lot of damage to a pony my size.”

Homage closed her eyes tightly. I hugged her again. She continued.

“I used to get to visit her. The first few years she could leave the pod for a few days, or even a week, whenever I had free time and we thought ponies could handle unmanaged weather, she’d come out for a date night. But every time she left… Her body would get worse and worse. We had to see each other less. At first just once a month. Then every other month. Then on my birthday and for a few hours here and there. Then just my birthday…

“That was… Almost okay. Now she hasn’t left in three years and sounds like she’s going to die any day now! We’re in an open relationship, and she’s begged me to find somepony to help me deal with her condition but… I… I can’t! I have my type and it’s rarer than raider mercy! I miss hugs!” Homage choked back a sob.

”Gears?” Dad asked.

Yes?

”Do not stop hugging that pony.”

Wasn’t planning on it.

“She could talk to me even though she couldn’t leave. We’d spend hours just talking. But over the last year…”

Gears winces. “She’s less and less responsive?”

“Yeah… I think she’s dying,” Homage said, slumping in her chair as her ears just fell flat.

”Luna’s tits! Gears, engage maximum hug!”

I made sure to maintain my hug levels at maximum. Or, at least, at max with my missing pump. “That is terrible. I remember losing my father. He was a good stallion, and my nation remembers him as a hero. If what I've heard of Pip’s exploits are true, he would barely be a blip on the radar—”

”I beg to differ! I made sure a crazy mare and her filly could save Equestria’s technological progress, and saved a whole kingdom by throwing myself into an exploding proto-megaspell! We’re at least on par with each other, thank you very much!”

Being diplomatic, dad!

”Oh… Sorry.”

“— I understand what it's like to lose a loved one who left big horseshoes to fill.”

Homage’s smile shakily returned, and I could sense she wanted to talk about anything else now.

“Who was your dad?” She asked curiously. “You said you were born here, and I’ve spent most of my life exploring the wasteland. You can't be much older than me. Maybe I know him?”

I blushed and coughed into my hoof. “I’m… Older than I look.”

Homage shrugged. “Looking great, then! I hope I age that well. Anyways, I still know a lot of stuff. I am DJ Pon3 after all.”

I blinked. “That’s right, you are! It’s easy to forget that when you have such a cute voice and the DJ Pon3 one is so distinct.”

Homage blushed and squirmed in my forelegs. “Yeah… Everypony knows who I am now but it used to be an alter-ego thing and, well, I keep it up. For tradition’s sake.”

I nodded and considered telling her dad’s name. Maybe some little bit of his pre-war legacy remained in his homeland? “Does the name Sargent Hydraulic “Jack” Lift mean anything to you?”

Homage’s ears perked, then dropped, and she shook her head. “Afraid not.”

I sighed and let go of Homage, realizing I’d been hugging her for over a full minute. That was probably awkward of me…

“Few outside Pomare would,” I said with a smile as I took a step back and Homage scooted her chair closer to me to make up the distance.

What? But, why?

“I thought there’d be a chance somepony might remember him here,” I continued “But that’s okay. He left his mark, and I still remember him. I know it hurts, but when Pip is gone, there’s apparently a whole religion that will remember her.”

Homage groaned and covered her eyes with her hooves. “Oh, Goddesses saggy teats! Them… We tried so hard to explain to them that she’s not a Goddess but that’s pretty hard to do when a seemingly immortal mare who sees all can control the weather with a thought.”

Oh. Right. She hated the Pipites… Oops.

I decided to swiftly change the subject. “I need to hear the whole story one of these days.”

Homage managed to put on a clearly fake smile for my sake. “Can you read? I have a copy of her book. If you can stay here for a while I’d be happy to let you read it.”

My ears perked. “I can read! I grew up in a library. I think I mentioned that.”

Suddenly three knocks came from the door. Homage cleared her throat and looked over to the door. “Come in!”

A taller white earth pony stallion wearing a silver vest opened the door and cleared his throat. “You shift is over Homage. I’ll pick things up from here with our… Visitor?” He asked looking at me with a frown.

Homage snapped out of her mild depression so fast it made me swear she had the ability to just choose to not be sad. “No. Pip just confirmed her story for me and everyone will want to hear this! Gears, would you mind waiting ‘til this evening after dinner? Then you can tell everyone else what you told me and we can bypass a whole bunch of red tape.”

There was a way around the bureaucracy?! ALL OF MY YES!

“I would be happy to, but I do have my companion waiting for me… She’s given me a day, I’m not sure if that means the daylight day, or twenty four hours. Could somepony bring her a message updating her on things?”

“Sure can,” Homage promised as she stood up and looked over to the stallion. “Seat’s all yours! Enjoy your daily chat with Insufficiently Polished Silverware Mare.”

“I will not,” he grumbled as he moved to take the chair.

Homage turned to look at me. “I’m hungry, you hungry? I’d like to buy you lunch,” she offered with a surprisingly cute smile.

I couldn't say no to that smile. “I don’t need to eat right now, but I would enjoy a drink. We could keep talking while you eat and I enjoy some wine, or perhaps an ale. I imagine there must be some alcohol in a place this posh, and I would thoroughly enjoy the treat.”

“Sounds like a date!” Homage said with a smile. “Come on, I know a great wine shop on the market floor.”

☢★★◯★★☢

When Homage had said wine shop I didn’t think she meant an actual dedicated store in a pre-war shopping mall with a full stock of wine bottles on display. This little shop had at least a dozen varieties of wine, but I couldn’t help but notice most of the bottles for sale were filled with the gross pink wine from Sire’s Hollow… And being sold at a huge markup.

Astonishingly, it seemed popular here. I saw three ponies leaving the store with a bottle of it as Homage and I came in.

Homage helped me pick out the strongest bottle they had and we went to the counter to pay, chatting as we had been the whole time.

“This is nice,” Homage said with a smile. “I haven’t gotten to go shopping with somepony like you in years.”

“You used to know a zebra?” I asked with a tilt of my head.

Homage just laughed. I guess I said something funny.

We reached the counter and I set my bottle on top. The clerk was a rather cute older stallion. Dark brown fur, gold rimmed glasses, a little floppy hat… Exactly the kind of pony you see in storybooks as the character who sells whimsical toys.

“Neighcardi Ice… A good choice!” The shopkeeper praised before smiling at homage. “Special evening planned?”

She shook her head. “No, just a nice lunch.”

The shopkeeper turned to look at me, then nodded in approval and turned back to the bottle, then snapped back to me and focused on my courior’s pin. “Pardon me,” he said lightning fast. “But is that a Changeling Imperial Crest laid over the Crystal Empire sigil?”

I smiled, impressed somepony recognized the heraldry of Lith. “Yes it is! How did you know?”

“I see both those crests all the time, miss!” He chuckled. “I’ve sold plenty of ancient wines, liquors, and meads from that part of the world. There used to be quite a bit of export. Say what you will about changelings, but they brewed some top quality beverages!”

They so did! I could go for a bottle of double distilled joy right now.

“Where did you find that pin?” The shopkeeper asked curiously.

“Oh, it’s my badge for work. I’m a courier for Lith, a kingdom from up north. We formed from the remains of the Changeling and Crystal Empires.”

Homage smiled and chimed in. “Best part is, she’s here on business! Looks like the north survived too. They've just been cut off for a few centuries by… What was it? Bloodice?”

“Among other things,” I confirmed.

“We just might be able to trade for bottles of Big O in a few months!” Hommage finished with an eager smile

The shopkeeper’s eyes lit up. “Those sell for so much!”

I blushed deeply. “I was always too shy to try those…”

Homage’s tail flagged… Understandable, given we were talking about a drink that is magically liquefied ‘great sex’ in a bottle.

“Y— you know how to make them?” She stammered

“Me? No. Our distillery? Yes. I’ll tell her majesty you have an interest in our alcoholic beverages,” I promised.

The shopkeeper beamed me a smile and looked over at Homage. “Tell you what, just for that ray of hope, we’ll take a quarter off the price of this bottle.”

Homage nodded took a small bag from a hidden pocket in her mane to pay for my drink, I remembered I was still wearing my robes, and realized I was running a little hot.

“Hold on, I’m getting a bit warm,” I said to her as I quickly shrugged out of my robes and began packing them away.

Homage took a sidelong glance at me undressing as she payed. A sidelong glance that turned into an intense stare that made me blush.

Homage turned away and finished paying while whispering to her sprite-bot. “P!P, record and send to Pip, ‘Hon, look! Some ponies actually do look like the mares in Swordmare! I didn’t think that was possible!”

I felt my left eye twitch.

AGAIN! With that comparison! It’s not my fault I was a dumb kid and have a mom who doesn't know much about sex and sex appeal! I—

I realized that Homage had been flirting with me. This entire time.

Oh.

Um…

Processing...

I felt my core humm happily. It was nice to be found attractive but… But the coin toss!

”Toss it again…” Dad pushed gently.

Homage took the bottle with her magic, and carried it at her side as she turned to leave. “There’s a great restaurant just down the hall!”

Quick! Say something so she knows you’re not on a date but are just hanging out.

“So, are you hoping to get me drunk so you can have your way with me?” I asked with a friendly smile and flick of my tail.

I hear imaginary dad slow clap in my head. I wasn't sure what that meant.

Homage giggled and shook her head. “If what they said you drank back in Sire’s Hollow is true, I don’t think you can get drunk… But I can!”

“I can’t,” I confessed, hoping to change the subject.

“Good. That means we only need to worry about me operating on drunk logic,” Homage said coyly.

Oh, Celestia, no! I bucked that up!

”Eeyup!”

Please, Celestia, a distraction, anything! Anything will do! I FLIPPED A COIN FOR BUCK’S SAKE!

”You are the only pony to ever take those seriously,” Dad said with a quiet laugh.

Homage blushed and looked away from me for a moment.

Nooo! Please! Distraction! Anything! I don’t know how to flirt with a mare! Help!

”Come to think of it, this is the only coin flip you take seriously. Why?”

Because they are prettier and way way way harder to talk to than stallions when I like them!

“HERETICS!” Somepony screamed at the top of their lungs.

Thank, Celestia!

Wait, what? Heretics?

Suddenly a mare screamed, then a stallion, then a stampede of ponies rushed past Homage and I, diving for cover and ducking into any available space which wasn’t the mall’s plaza. Their evacuation revealed a tall zebra stallion.

He looked much like any other zebra. Black with white stripes. No stripes on his belly or legs. A mane of dreadlocks. He was wearing a crude approximation of a stable jumpsuit made from post-war fabrics… Was he a Pipite? Is that what they dressed like? That would make sense.

Now that I thought about it, he reminded me vaguely of the stallion who’d taught me how to brew potions.

But that wasn’t important. What was important was he was wearing a pair of overstuffed saddlebags, and holding a small remote with his hoof ready to slam down on the button. The remote’s wires lead into the saddle bags…

Buck. Okay. Suicide bomber! Maybe we can make it to cover in time to— Wait...

Why were his bags flowing to my spiritual senses? What was in those? Some… Evocation… fire magic… necroman—

OH! BUCK! BALEFIRE! A LOT OF IT!

I had no choice. I had to do something, and I really only had one option.

The zebra glared around the plaza, right into all the nooks and crannies, then directly at Homage who was paralyzed in fear... Could she sense the balefire eggs too?

“You shall profane Her Love’s home with your racist ways no longer!” The zebra bellowed, and raised his hoof to slam it down on the detonator lone red button.

I focused all of my attention on the detonator, and fired my eye laser. The ruby ray lanced outwards, boiling away the surface of my eye and striking the zebra in his hoof. The low powered laser vaporized most of the flesh holding it onto his body, and his own pained shriek and jerk backwards ripped the rest of the hoof from his bones in a grisly spray of blood and broiled viscera.

If I had a stomach, it would have turned.

Suddenly, Homage threw the bottle she’d been carrying. It sailed through air and cracked the zebra across the skull, shattering in a spray of glass and pungent wine.

The zebra staggered backwards, screaming, bleeding from his leg-stump and forehead. To my horror he staggered back to a balanced stance and reared up to smash his remaining forehoof onto the detonator button.

I was still recharging. We were dead.

A pair of assault rifles opened up, their sharp reports echoed off the plaza’s walls as a pair of guards opened fire on the zebra, bludgeoning him into unconsciousness with what seemed like enough rubber bullets to KO a dragon.

Thank you, Celestia!

I raised a hoof to my eye to cover it, hoping nopony saw underneath… But Homage had. I could tell by how she was looking at my face and… Grinning?

“That was bucking awesome!” She exclaimed with a toothy grin.

She… Liked… Machines? Huh? But, why? How? Who?

”Seriously, Gears, she said open relationship and needs hugs! Re-flip that coin!”

My confusion was interrupted by one of the tow guards who pointed at me with her left hoof. “I told you they could shoot lasers from their eyes, Fifty! I bucking told you!”

The other guard aimed his rifle at me. “Ma’am? I’m afraid you need to come with me.”

I frowned. The fur on the back of Homage neck stood up.

“And why does she?” She demanded.

I knew why.

“Two zebras show up in the same day, one of them claims to be for a foreign land, then saves us from a Pipette attack of all things? Stinks to high heaven,” she said before looking at me… And training her rifle on my barrel. “Ma’am… I'm taking you in for questioning. You can come quietly, or be dragged.”

I felt my eye start to regenerate. “I’ll come quietly. I have nothing to hide, nor to do with that monster… You need to disconnect that detonator immediately! His bags contain balefire eggs. I can sense the necromancy from here!”

The other guard moved over to the stallion and carefully checked inside his left bag. “Yikes! She’s right, sir!”

“Shit! Cut those cables, Gauge!” The guard aiming at me insisted. He looked over to Homage. “See? Suspicious.”

“Not really? Zebras can sense spirits…” She muttered, knowing the guard wouldn’t listen.

I lowered my hoof as I felt my eye finish healing. “Lead the way sir,” I said politely.

He nodded, shouldered his rifle and turned to walk towards his partner, who lifted the unconscious zebra, but not his bags, with his magic.

As the two led me back into the servant's passages, once out of sight, I saw Fifty pass Gauge a bag. A bag exactly the same as the 20 cap bags Sky had given me before.

“You called the eye lasers… But there’s no way they heal wounds in seconds,” Fifty muttered to Gauge.

Even though I was under arrest, I couldn't help but smile at how I’d accidentally cemented a piece of ancient Equestrian propaganda…

11 - Swing, a miss, and another miss...

Mom would be very disappointed if she knew I’d been arrested again. The first time was when I had blown my turbo encabulator while sitting on a bench in a public park. The guards thought I was sleeping in it, and hauled me off to the barracks for processing. The second time was while trespassing because I confused a 3 with a 4 and entered the wrong engraver’s forge to deliver mail. The arrest was for presumed package theft, not trespassing. I’m allowed anywhere in Lith if it’s between me and a delivery.

Both of those times, mom had been quite understanding. This time I had been arrested under false pretenses… But I had still shot a pony.

Mom had no idea that I’ve killed before. She knew I delivered mail. She knew I sometimes had to fight off monsters, but I never had the heart to tell her sometimes I had to kill bandits, raiders, and once, a poor pony who I was very certain had just gone insane from cold and hunger and tried to eat me.

If he hadn’t succeeded in ripping my braincase open, I would likely have continued dragging him to town instead of shooting him. That’s the only one I really felt bad about. Well, more bad than the others.

Self defense is one thing. A very necessary thing. It’s different when your attacker is just beyond starving… But he did demonstrate sufficient strength to actually kill me.

On the other hoof, you had the zealot responsible for my visit to this interrogation cell. The only thing I felt bad about here is that my mother’s laser toaster didn’t have sufficient firepower to kill him. First and foremost, because now that zeebra had to live without a hoof and that’s cruel. Killing him would have been the merciful thing, because if he’s ever let go, he’ll just have to live as a burden on others.

Secondly, because if I hadn’t been able to do anything, and those guards had been a second later hundreds of ponies would have been vaporized, and goodness knows how many would have died if the explosion had collapsed part of the tower. Or the entire tower.

Tenpony Tower may have been a hardened building that doubled as a bomb shelter once before… But that was once before. Once. It had taken the hit it was designed to take. Two hundred years ago.

”Also, things meant to handle explosions outside them are not necessarily going to handle explosions inside them just as readily. Remember how you hunt blaidds with bait-mines? Same principle.” Dad added.

There was also that.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair. The old “stainless” steel creaked and groaned as rust flaked off it. With how easy it was to make steel that didn’t actually rust, you’d think that ponies would have less fake stainless laying around. Cheap metal under peeling paint was beginning to be my general impression of Heartland furniture. Another decent export opportunity, and this one would screw over Two Bits’ Mayor!

I looked down at the rust as it scattered down on the floor. The flakes of reddish-brown iron oxide were the only visually stimulating things in this room. It was a four by eight meter concrete box in the basement containing two chairs, a table, and an endless supply of boredom.

No paint on the walls. No power conduits. Nothing. A solid concrete box. Given the large metal door that locked from the outside, this had to be a pre-war holding cell. Why the tower had holding cells in the basement, I had no idea.

I didn’t think it had once doubled as a prison. There was no sign of a bed or toilet having ever been in here.

Of course, it could have always been an interrogation room.

Maybe there had been a small prison in the basement? A place to hold ponies afflicted by Wartime Stress Disorder, or detain criminals caught in the act until authorities could collect them? That would make sense for a public ministry hub.

I started to tap my hooves on the table. This was the fifth time I’d looped through this exact train of thought. It was getting a little old, but I was too nervous to think of anything else.

If they decided I was a conspirator, being down a pump meant I had the strength of a sickly zebra, not a healthy one. Escape would be very difficult. Especially if their prison cells had the same steel door and steel door frames set in concrete as this room. Forcing a door open was out of the question.

”This is why I had that hidden compartment built into my prosthetic leg,” Imaginary dad remarked.

Your Auto-9 wouldn’t be very handy right now though…

I started to tap a more intricate rhythm on the table. Then I leaned forwards. My chair squeaked. It squeaked at a nice F-sharp!

I leaned again. Another F-sharp… What if I scoot the chair across the floor?

I jerked my hips to make the chair slide, producing a slightly warbly C flat.

What about the other directions?

I wiggled more. I had twelve distinct notes!

It begins!

Tap tap-tap tap-squeak! Tap tap-tap tap-squeak! Tap tap-tap tap-squeak! Tap tap-tap tap-squeak! Tap-scoot squeak tap-scoot squeak tap-scoot squeak, and vocals!

“Legionnaires!”

Scoot-squeak-squeak-squeak-scoot-tap! Scoot-squeak-squeak-squeak-scoot-tap! Tap-tap tap scoot!

“Something evil’s watching you! Coming from the stars above, and there’s nothing you can do…”

☢★★◯★★☢

I was midway through my rendition of The Legionnaires in Chair Major when the room’s door flew open. Sky Chaser stood staring at me through the doorway, flanked by two guards. The same two who had escorted me me here.

He looked at me. I looked at him. He just looked back at me. I died of embarrassment.

Sky turned to the two guards with a blank look on his face and asked, “How do you mistake the most bored mare in the world playing with a chair for an escape attempt?”

“Well, she was singing an old war song and it sounded like she was attacking the door with her chair!” Fifty protested.

Sky raised his eyebrow. “War song? Really? I’ve heard recordings of the old Equestrian military songs. That wasn’t anything like them.”

“He means a Zebrican one, sir,” Gauge corrected while Fifty nodded in agreement.

Sky turned to me and asked, “Did the zebras use Mane Metal as their genera of choice for warsongs?”

“Not officially,” I said with a shaky smile and nervous twitch of my tail.

The crew I’d served with tended to rewrite the pieces for less boring instruments…

“Was that a war song?” He asked.

I shook my head. “N— no… Theme song for an old radio show my ca—” I cleared my throat to hide the word. “Old show my friend listened to on holotape religiously.”

Sky trotted into the room and sat down in the chair opposite the table. “It was nice. Well, the lyrics. If you know anypony who can record the music, and this whole incident hasn’t turned you off of our community, you might be able to sell a recording to Homage. She’s always looking for new music.”

“Also, if I’m not imprisoned,” I added, just so he knew I was on the same page as him.

Sky shook his head. “Oh no. We only imprison citizens. If you are guilty of conspiracy to destroy our tower, you’ll be shot.”

I winced. “Oh… Uh… C— Could we use a low caliber pistol for that?” I asked, trying to plead with my Sweetie Eyes.

Sky blinked and looked into my eyes. “Are you admitting guilt?”

I shook my head. “No, but, it feels like a foregone conclusion that you’ll find me guilty…”

Sky frowned and set his hooves on the table. “It is most certainly not! While I do need to investigate the theory in question, I do not think you’re guilty of anything other than smuggling a weapon into my tower.”

I winced. “I’m sorry… I don’t exactly have a mechanic on hoof to take my eye out and unplug it from my skull. Also, it’s technically, it’s a toaster.”

Sky blinked.

“Well, you see, a death-ray is just a toaster with a larger power supply,” I rambled nervously.

Sky clenched his teeth for a moment and made an odd noise. “Okay, look, you don’t need to play adorable to get on my good side. I’m only here because there does need to be an investigation, okay?”

I nodded, and did my best to remain calm. Which meant I teared up and began to shake.

Sky sighed and shook his head then looked me in the eyes. “Look, if you cooperate, we’ll let Naaji go.”

I frowned and wiped my eyes. “Who?”

“You know, Naaji,” Sky pressed.

I gave him a blank look. Sky nodded to himself very slightly. “The bomber.”

“Why?” I said frowning more.

“Well, a full confession seems to warrant a little mercy, and somepony has to let the Pipites know we foiled their plot. Your partner walking across the continent on three hooves is punishment enough,” Sky said casually.

“I thought you didn’t think I did it,” I said with a long sigh.

“Gauge, her bag,” Sky ordered.

I heard a soft thump and looked up to see my courior’s bag had been set on the table. It was nice to see it was in one piece.

“Can you open your bag? We can't get around the enchantments,” Sky ordered with an odd polite tone of voice.

I nodded and undid the clasp then pushed it back to him. Sky dug through my bag and took out the radio hardcase. He tried to open it then frowned. “Where is the key for this box?”

“In a pocket sewn into my scarf,” I answered honestly.

Sky nodded and one of the two guards magically tossed my scarf on to the table. It only took Sky a minute to find the key and open the radio case. He blinked as he looked inside, then whistled.

“Well, I didn’t expect you’d have eight of these… Where are the missing ones?” Sky asked.

“I gave one to the mayor’s secretary in Two Bits, and another to the mayor of Sire’s Hollow.”

Sky inspected the case inside and out. “This aluminum is new… No tarnishing, no scratches… You didn’t find these lying around, and nopony I know could make a custom case for ten radios. The fit would be exact…” He murmured.

My ears perked. I’d completely forgotten about the radio’s case. That would definitely help me prove my claims if I was let go… What was Sky doing, playing good cop bad cop by himself?

”It’s generally frowned upon for an officer to play with themselves on the job,” Imaginary dad remarked.

I’ll say… It’s just confusing and doesn't work.

I swore I heard an actual audible facehoof.

I looked up and frowned as I searched around. “Did somepony just facehoof?”

Sky blinked and looked up from the case. “Actually, I think I heard something too.”

“Yeah,” Gauge remarked, moving away form the door towards something in the outer hall as he slowly drew his shotgun. “Something’s moving…”

Fifty drew his assault rifle and looked around for a moment, then squinted into the distance. “Something’s not right…”

Sky turned around and drew a small pistol from within his jacket, then fired a single warning shot down the hallway. The very-much-not-rubber bullet bit into the concrete near an old fire extinguisher box. “De-cloak right now or I put five rounds into the middle of that shimmer!”

A silky sounding mare sighed. “Okay, fine, you caught me…”

Wait, I knew that voice… “Wait, Homage?”

The patch of wall under the extinguisher shimmered, rippled, and seemed to morph into the little gray mare. I felt my jaw drop as I saw she was wearing a nearly-form fitting black jumpsuit covered in hundreds of little shaped armored plates.

Or, more accurately, when I saw the spiritual energy contained within the small talisman located behind her armor’s breastplate. “WHAT?! They made a stealth suit?!”

I know they had made self-recharging stealth bucks. A suit integrating them would be the next logical step but… Why was it foal-ish sized? Did… Did Equestria manufacture body armor for fillies?

Sky kept his weapon drawn and aimed. “The buck are you doing here? And why the get up? You’re… Allowed to be here, ma’am.”

Homage tapped her hooves nervously. “W— Well, Pip vouched for her, and she’s a cyborg right?”

Sky nodded. “She seems to be… She at least has a laser in her left eye.”

Homage nodded firmly. “Yeah, and you can’t tell she has it! That either means her people can make, or have, cybernetic organs, and they can implant them properly. Buck, they can do it artfully! Which means they have access to actual surgeons. Not the wasteland cyberdocs, actual, proper, cybersurgeons!” Homage sighed and looked down. “You know about Pip’s condition, Sky. I couldn’t let you kill an innocent mare! Especially not one who could maybe find me a pony who could help Pip.”

Sky nodded and holstered his pistol. “Stallions, weapons down.”

“Sir?” Fifty said with a frown. “She was plotting to—”

“To help her dying wife who also controls the weather,” Sky finished. “Weapons down. If either of you report this, I’ll consider it insubordination.”

Fifty and Gauge nodded. “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

Sky looked back to homage. “Three questions. First, is this how you kept escaping the Enclave during the war?”

Homage nodded. “Yeah. Jokeblue and I picked this up back in the day.”

“Okay. Why didn’t you give it to Pip?” Sky asked.

Good question. It would fit her, right? She was smol too… I think.

“Because it’s personalized,” Homage said adamantly. “Also, she had a mark two Stealthbuck. Basically the same thing.”

There was something more to it than that… Likely sentimental in some way.

Sky nodded. “Alright. Now, how were you planning on getting Gears out of here?”

Homage bit her lip. “Uh, well… Gas you guys with a stun grenade, toss her a stealthbuck and get her out the gates before it wore off.”

Sky slowly raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh… And, she wouldn’t be knocked out because… ?”

“Cyborg powers, obviously,” Homage remarked as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I shot her a glare configuration. “Shhh!”

Sky turned around to look at me. “Her plan would have worked?”

“Well, the gas part, yes,” I admitted sheepishly. “Can we not talk about how much metal I have in me?”

Sky nodded the nod of a stallion who realized he was embarrassing a mare and turned back to Homage. “The only reason you get to keep all your old adventuring toys up in your room is because you’re on the council, isn’t it?”

Homage laughed nervously. “Uh, yeah, sure, council reasons! Let's go with that…”

“They have no idea you're not keeping it in the armory,” Sky said flatly, his face immediately entering a full deadpan stare.

“No…” Homage admitted, then sighed. “Look, I know you're going to tell me if I ever do something like this again, you won't let it go. I get that… But, please don’t tell them I keep my kit in my room. Most of it is irreplaceable, and you know stuff goes missing from that armory all the time! I’ll bet your two guys right here keep their favorite guns under their beds, don't you?”

Homage turned and looked at both guards, who sheepishly nodded.

“Yeah… I do,” Fifty admitted slowly.

Gauge cleared his throat. “Was waiting until you had a less busy day to bring up the armory security problem… Most of us are pretty sure the Quartermaster is selling the good stuff and pocketing the caps.”

Sky narrowed his eyes, and I felt a little twinge of fear for the quartermaster. “I’ll look into that,” he said firmly. “But, last question, did Pip really vouch for her?”

My heart soared. Homage was on the council. That’s probably why she was getting away with this. No, scratch that. Definitely! If she vouched for me it would probably work.

Wait. If that were true, why did she resort to going all Sturdy Slither to try and help me? Not that it wasn't the most flattering thing anypony had ever—

”You have coins in your bag. Flip one!”

I took a deep breath. Shut, up, dad!

Homage nodded. “Yeah. While we were talking Pip woke up, recognized her. She came from the north, she’s saved a whole town of ponies, she’s not the kind of pony who would conspire to kill hundreds, or even risk killing hundreds if those eggs went off.”

I nodded. “That’s why I shot for the detonator. If I went for the head or heart he could have fallen over onto the button and killed us all.”

Sky nodded again then stood up. “Miss Gears, you’re free to go.”

I blinked. “Just like that?”

Sky nodded. “Of course. Pip vouched for you. You obviously had no idea who the other Zebra was. If you’d known his name your micro expressions would have told me you were pretending not to know him. What’s more, while I could see finding a single intact, like-new condition radio and using it for a false flag operation. I can’t see finding ten, and even if you did, nopony or organization I know could make a new aluminum case for all ten. That’s more than enough evidence for me. You’re free to go. I’m sorry for the inconvenience and any embarrassment.”

I nodded and reached for my bags to strap them back on. Nopony seemed like they would stop me, so I repacked the radios, slid my bags onto my back, and buckled everything up.

I turned to Homage and offered her the most grateful smile I could. “Thanks. That was almost the nicest thing anypony’s ever done for me.”

Homage coughed and awkwardly smiled back. “Uh, well, I mean, it didn’t work, so…”

“Still, it was very romantic of you to risk everything for her like that,” I said, fully knowing I hadn’t been her primary motivation.

She blushed and wiggled her hips slightly. “It was nothing… I get the feeling you’d do the same for me if you knew I was innocent.”

Sky cleared his throat and pointed to the door. “Show’s over. You two don’t have to go home, but you can’t lez it up in here.”

My cheeks burned red.

Homage snorted. “I forgot you had a sense of humor!”

“Yeah, well, not counting today we’ve met what, twice?” Sky said with a smile. “No, but seriously. Please clear the interrogation room. We’ve got another zebra to talk to.”

Homage nodded and turned to walk down the hallway. “Come on… We should talk. We’ll take the servants passage to my room. I’d cloak again, but then you wouldn’t have somepony to follow. Also, I’d rather not let the whole tower know I have this…”

“That’s fair,” I agreed, trotting along behind her.

☢★★◯★★☢

Homage had a nice room. A council perk, probably. It was up near the top floor, and had definitely been a penthouse suite before the war. It had lovely oak wood panel-walls, and a plush mulberry carpet which smelled like Homage had actually cleaned it recently!

The furniture was also very well taken care of, though definitely old and in need of lots of TLC to keep them in use. Every scrap of cloth was patched or sewn back up. Wood was scuffed, dinged, and ‘fixed’ with whatever came to hoof that didn’t make it look too ugly.

She had everything arranged nicely too. Her suite’s living room had a couch, a table, a comfy chair, and a bookshelf! There was also a small kitchen (without any working appliances), a bedroom, bathroom, and a room she wouldn’t let me look in which was where Homage left her stealth suit once we arrived.

I so wanted a look in there! She had the door padlocked and everything! There had to be some cool things in it. Maybe she had a nice pony-portable cannon! We could go explode the billboard with it!

Homage sat down in the chair across from my spot on the couch and smiled. “I think you’re a little too big to try out my suit.”

I blushed. “Um, well… Why is it foal sized?”

“How well do you keep secrets?” Homage asked curiously, almost like she was deflecting the question.

“Perfectly,” I answered truthfully.

Homage raised an eyebrow.

I frowned. “What?”

“You don’t think it’s suspicious to answer “perfectly” to that question?” Homage asked with a raised eyebrow.

I shook my head. “No. Context makes it clear you want to know how good I am at keeping information private which isn’t anything I’d need to act on, just something I would know about. I would never willingly betray a friend’s confidence. Unless ordered to tell the information by my queen, tortured, or somepony hacks into my memory, anything I am asked to keep private, I keep private.

“Since I cannot be reasonably expected to disobey Her Majesty, endure all possible tortures forever, and/or magically become hack-proof, my ability to keep information private cannot be further improved. Therefore, my secret keeping is perfect.”

Homage smiled at me then laughed. “You’ve got a weird way of thinking there, Gears… But I like it. I’ll tell you the story of my suit, if you promise me you’ll tell me about your cybernetics, specifically how you got them.”

I frowned. Well, she already knew… And she seemed to think it was cool. Maybe she’d like the fact that I was a robot? I suppose there might be ponies who found that kinky or something.

”Annnd, tails!”

Shut, up, dad!

Homage stood up and trotted over to the living room window, and looked out through the cracked, filthy glass over the decaying ruins of Manehattan. “A long time ago, my friend Jokeblue and I were… Well, we’ll say we were adventurers. We had this little idea, that we could find a place where ponies of all tribes could come to start rebuilding. Back then, we thought the only problem was the danger out there in the Wasteland, so if we could make a safe place, an actually safe place, then everything could slowly go back to the way our great-grandmothers said it had been, you know?”

I nodded. “I assume you found a research lab?”

Homage shook her head. “No… We were way out west, in what’s now the Herd. I won't tell you where, just in case somepony else is listening. We found an old Equestrian Military base, and it seemed perfect.

“The place was huge, and the robots were still active. Rusty, breaking down, but active. That meant either ponies lived there, or nopony had set hoof behind that rusting fence in two hundred years and we had a whole military base ripe for the picking.”

Homage trotted back to the chair and sat down. “We staked the place out for a month and no pony came, went, or did anything in the whole compound. Totally abandoned, just robots. We’d hit the jackpot! See, I’m great with robots. If I hadn’t gotten my cutiemark for working with radios, it would have been for working with robots. Joke made a little distraction, I snuck up on a Mister Gutsy, hacked into its matrix, and suddenly Joke and I were two of the ponies it had last allowed into the base.”

I shifted to get a little more comfortable. It seemed like a long story. “I see. Are there more of these suits?”

Homage shook her head. “Nope. Well, there could be... But there’s just this one that I know of. See, the base was not a general Equestrian Military base. It was way smaller. As far as I can tell it was there for like, a single platoon troops and their support ponies. You know, their own dedicated engineers, janitors, cooks, medics, those guys. You don’t just put one platoon of normal infantry in a base in the middle of nowhere. That base design screamed special forces. Joke and I spent a lot of time making the place livable and reprogramming the security so we could bring new ponies in to live there.

“The place had a hydroponic garden, tons of stored ammo, construction supplies, the works! The perfect score… It also had something really interesting. We called it ‘the Forge’, capital ‘f’. It was like a closet in the armory. Once we got the main computer up and running, that thing switched on. Took awhile to figure out what it was. Turns out it made custom armor! Set up what you want on the terminal, walk into the booth, it scans you and it builds armor around you.

“We thought it was a miracle straight from Celestia. We could have a town with perfect tailored armor! Hell, we could have built new power armor if we wanted to use up that much raw material. It couldn't make stuff from nothing, obviously, but we could trade for more supplies. We could have made a town with guards decked out like Steel Rangers! Except…”

Homage laughed and shook her head. “The Wasteland is cruel…”

I winced. I knew how old pre-war computers being turned on in ancient inactive bases generally went… “Turning on the main computer undid your hack, didn’t it?”

Homage nodded and sighed. “Yep. It didn’t change anything for about an hour, but nothing else could have done it. “Unauthorized personnel detected. Exterminate with maximum prejudice.” In hindsight, shoulda been obvious. The base became a death-trap. Pop-up turrets everywhere, brand new, perfectly preserved robots in hidden compartments, the place even tried to call for reinforcements.”

Homage shivered and closed her eyes. “I still don’t really know how we got out of Star Drop HQ alive.”

I frowned. Why was that name familiar? “My mother and I had several similar encounters with mostly-intact pre-war bases. None of them were military, but Ministry Hubs tended to be just as well defended, from what we saw.”

Homage snorted and smiled. “Glad I don’t need to go into detail then… I can only imagine how much more suck dealing with that base would have been if it were all iced up.”

She leaned forward in her seat and looked me in the eye. Specifically, my left. “Your turn. Why does using your laser melt off your eye? For that matter, how's it growing back every time?”

Ah! I see what she wanted to know. I frowned and shook my head. “My healing talisman won’t be able to help Pip. It’s only for this specific zebra pelt, eyes, and uh… Bodily orifices.”

Homage frowned. “It’s not general purpose?”

I snorted and waved a hoof in dismissal.

“Of course not! You think if Lith had one of the like, hundred of those ever made, it would be given to one zeeb?” I actually laughed at the idea. “Her Majesty would put it on an airship and have it fly from village to village as a mobile hospital, obviously.”

Homage nodded understandingly. “Worth a shot… Still, I’ve seen a few other cyborgs with MEWs built into them. The barrel always shows. Why not with you? And can you use that eye? Most of them are blind in their gun-eye.”

“I can see just fine,” I answered truthfully. “If I had a high-powered laser in my eye then I would necessarily be blind to accommodate the hardware. But it’s a very small laser originally meant for toasting bread while slicing it—”

“... what?” Homage asked through puckered lips.

“My mom really likes toast,” I said with a grin. “I uh, I took it out and rebuilt it into a derringer-like weapon.”

Homage winced and slid closer to me… An odd combination, I thought. “Why would you do that? To win a badflank contest?”

“No, so I could be certain I always had a backup weapon.”

“Yeah, but, that had to hurt! Self surgery is not fun,” Homage countered, still wincing.

“Sure, it hurt, but it was more self-machining,” I said with an awkward blush. “The uh… The outer layers over my eye is all there is in terms of squishy-meat-pony-bits around my eye.”

Homage nodded understandingly, then a weirdly childlike mischievous look overtook her face. “All of the ‘meat-bits’ migrated to your flanks, right?”

I gave her my best deadpan stare.

She giggled. “Sorry… I can’t help it. Just who I am.”

”That was beautifully terrible. You have my permission to date her,” Imaginary dad informed.

Shut, up, dad!

I sighed. “No. My mom helped me resculpt my body when I was worried I wasn’t attractive and that’s why I’m still single… We used a comic book as the template because—”

“It was Swordmares, wasn’t it?” Homage asked with a toothy grin.

“No!” I huffed. “It was…” I thought back for a few moments then smiled as I remember the name. “Megamare! That was it.”

Homage sorted then almost fell out of her chair laughing. I felt my ears droop. “What’s so funny?”

“Same artist and author,” Homage said between laughs. “I bucking knew it!”

I crossed my forelegs over my barrel and sat there indignantly while Homage finished laughing. Once she was down she sat back up with a sigh then blinked. “Wait, resulpted… How cybernetic are you?”

I bit my lip nervously. “A lot cybernetic…”

She gave me a look which said ‘I know you’re holding something back’.

My ears drooped. “...e— entirely cybernetic…”

Homage’s eyes widened. She’d not expected that. “Wait, like… You’re nothing but replacement limbs and organs hooked into a brain with your old pelt wrapped around them?”

I took a deep breath and squirmed awkwardly. “No?”

Homage winced. “That's not your fur, is it?”

Yes, we’ll go with that angle!

“It is now…” I muttered quietly.

I really didn’t want to think about where my fur came from. Odds are good mom cloned it from a tissue sample. Or, at least, had somepony do that for her. She didn’t do biological science.

She shivered and gave her left foreleg a little rub, as if checking an old wound. “What the hay happened to you?”

I coughed, not wanting to lie or misdirect around a mare who clearly knew when somepony wasn’t being totally honest. “My mom made me.”

Homage tilted her head. “Wait, she, like, just augmented you to augment you?”

Well, that was not accurate, but it was correct.

“Pretty much,” I agreed with a nod.

“Let’s skip the why for now, since that’s definitely making you really uncomfortable,” Homage said with a kind smile. “Could you tell me exactly how many of your organs are mechanical? It’s important.”

Ohhh, she wanted to know if we could replace anything Pip might need replaced!

“This is about whether or not my mom could replace Pip’s heart, or lungs, or whatever else she might need, isn’t it?” I asked, deflecting things away from me before I had to explain that I was effectively a ghost in a shell and she got creaped out.

“Yeah…” Homage said with a sigh. “Also to learn about you. I like you.”

I blushed lightly. “... Even though I’m basically a pile of parts in the shape of a mare?”

“If it trots like a pony, acts like a pony, and talks like a pony, it’s a pony,” Homage said with sincerity. “If it trots like a sexy girl pony, acts like a sexy girl pony, talks like a sexy girl pony, goes around risking its life for others just because that’s the right thing to do, and my current sexy girl pony is okay with my polyamory for multiple reasons, then, I’m going to see if the sexy heroine pony is interested in me, Celestia dammit! Even if she’s got a metal heart or whatever.”

I squirmed and tapped my hooves together. “What if she doesn't have one of those?”

Homage rolled her eyes. “I don’t care what you’re heart’s made of. That was the entire point of that mini-rant, Gears.”

“I uh, I mean I don’t have a heart,” I explained. “Of any kind. The closest I get is the two coolant pumps for my reactor core.”

Homage ears perked up. “Wait, no heart. No need to circulate blood… Are— Are you a Robobrain?” She asked, her jaw dropping slightly before she jumped up. “You have to be! Only way to keep a brain alive without blood is bio-neural gel, and if you’re going that far that means your whole body is prosthetic!”

I bit my lip and nodded. “Y— yeah… I am the Robobrain Mark III Lab Prototype…”

And here’s where she stops liking m—

Homage zipped across the livingroom and hugged me tight for a moment before letting go. “Gears, you’re wonderful! It’s obvious you’ve had ponies turn you down because of what you are. I don’t care—”

Homage paused and frowned, letting go of me.

I frowned back. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably true…”

If she was like the other pony who almost went out with me, she just realized we’d never have foals together and that was going to be the deal breaker.

“You can have sex, right?” She asked seriously. “Like, if you wanted to. It’s not just cosmetic, is it?”

Oh!

I squirmed awkwardly. “I, uh… Theoretically? Mom’s superiors insisted my model be able to seduce the enemy if required. I know she finished that subsystem, but I’ve uh… I’ve never gotten to try.”

Homage’s ears perked up. “Awesome! Okay, here’s the plan. We get your mom to make Pip a new body and the three of us have just, the most awesome day ever, then the hottest evening ever. She liked the threesome we had before so…”

Homage trailed off again. This time she slowly slumped down onto the floor and stared silently at the carpet. My tail flicked nervously. “W— What’s wrong?”

“Your body was made for infiltrating Zebrica,” Homage said quietly.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“You’re two hundred years old,” she said equally quietly.

I nodded again.

“Your mother’s long dead… Isn’t she?” She asked quietly.

Oh! Yeah, that would definitely be an issue. I had to remember Homage was sharp witted. If she put together that much from one tiny slip of the tongue… Actually, buck it! At this point, just be fully honest with her.

“No,” I said with a smile as I stood up. “Mom’s still alive.”

Homage eyes widened. “She put herself into a synthetic body too! Of course she would, she was at the very least on the MAS team building them! Sorry, I can be stupid sometimes. Can you still make Mark Threes?”

I shook my head. “No. At least, not right now… If we had some military help to retake the Crystal City, then yes. I’ve been told that’s the only way I’ll ever get replacement parts for my unique systems. Which means if mom had access she could definitely build another Mark III.”

Homage nodded, and I could see the gears turning in her eyes as she began to plot. I frowned and squirmed a little then sat on the floor in front of her.

“Homage?”

She looked up. “Yes?”

“You’re… Not playing with my emotions so I’ll make sure Pip lives, are you?”

Homage’s face pulled into a shocked and hurt look that made my insides turn uncomfortably.

“NO! I genuinely think you’re a wonderful mare and would love to go on a date sometime! I understand it might look like that, but, I mean, you’ve literally given me a way to avoid my worst nightmare. Of course I’m also going to see if the synth-zebra made from unique technology can help somepony I love. That doesn't mean I don’t like you for you!”

I was tempted to say prove it, but chose not too. Instead I nodded. At the least I could pretend. After all, if it’s too good to be true… It probably is.

I took a deep breath and shifted gears. Let's be the better mare and give her what she wants. I wouldn’t let a pony die if I could help them. “We could trade cybernetics right now, but not in bulk. It is very difficult to source materials. I’ve had to go months without replacement parts if more than one other person needed augmentation or repairs. But we do stockpile basic synthetic organs and replacement limb parts so we can heal injured ponies. There will be something we can do for Pip. I’ll put you in touch with—”

Homage suddenly leaned forward, wrapped her forelegs around my shoulder and kissed me. Her touch felt warm, caring, and happy. I melted in her legs, sliding down into a happy pile of zebra on the carpet with a happy sigh.

Homage giggled and let go. “That help?”

”Sweetie, seriously! She’s into you! She has a thing for robots. Or heros. Robotheros. Herobots? No, that’s crap… Robros? No, wait. Lesbian… Lesbots!”

I nodded. “Yeah…”

“Trust me,” Homage said as she scooted up against my side to rest her head on my barrel. “Even if Pip were alive, well, and sitting next to me when we met, I’d still flirt with you. Hay, I’d still take you out if she didn’t mind. I don’t think she would. She had a major thing for Velvet the entire time we were able to freely date. She’d understand that when I ran into another mare who's my type I’d like her too. You’re a hero, Gears… And like, those flanks! Seriously! I don’t care that they’re artificial, I like silicone!”

I felt my cheeks turn the brightest pink. “One minute,” I said as I reached into my saddlebag for my coin purse.

Homage frowned curiously. “What is it? Wait, do you have a toy? Cuz while I’m not in the mood right now, I mean, I’ll get in it if you want to—”

I took out the little bag and fished a single bit out of it. Homage stopped talking and stared at me oddly as I flipped the coin, let it fall, then turned it over so it was tails.

“Uhhh…”

“Oh look, it’s tails!” I said to myself.

And also Dad.

”Good! Now, just don’t blow it with her and you’re all set to finally have your own family. I’mma leave you two alone for a bit. Cuz reasons.”

I stood up and put the coin away.

“What was the coin for?” Homage purred.

I blushed and swished my tail awkwardly. “Oh... Uh, well, you see, when I was little, I couldn’t figure out if I liked mares or stallions because both can be extremely attractive. So I asked my mom to help me figure out my orientation, and she said that lots of ponies had problems figuring themselves out and I should just pick one like she did.”

Homage gave me the same look Wander had. “W— wait, you flipped a coin… And you've spent at least two hundred years exclusively going for stallions, because, I assume, it came up heads?”

I nodded. “Right. I couldn’t pick, so I coin flipped. But you like me, so, uh… I changed the coin toss?”

Homage nodded slowly. “Okay… So, do you know what bisexual means?”

I frowned and tried to puzzle the meaning out by the root words. Bi, meaning two. Sexual, meaning relating to biological reproduction…

I gasped. “There are ponies with both sets of parts?! That’s awesome! I wouldn’t have to choose one!”

Homage closed her eyes and exhaled heavily. “Gears, no…”

My ears drooped. “There aren't? Oh…”

“Well, there are… Mutants… Dated one for a bit,” Homage said awkwardly.

“Then what was the no for?” I asked with a worried frown.

“Look, it’s okay to like both. That’s a thing lots of ponies do,” Homage said firmly.

I nodded. “I know.”

She blinked. “But… You exclusively went for stallions?”

“Right. Because I tossed a coin.”

“Oh! You meant to decide between ponies?”

“No, to see if I was straight or gay,” I replied.

Homage facehooved and groaned. I heard Imaginary dad join her. I blushed awkwardly and scooted away, feeling like I was being exceptionally stupid.

“I uh… I changed for you, since only mares seem to like me that way,” I murmured quietly.

“How sheltered were your parents?” Homage asked quietly.

“Well, my mom grew up in a MAS lab and didn’t meet my dad until after the war… He was a SWAT pony. He uh, he never gave me the talk though. He said that was mom’s job because I’m a mare.”

”Yeah… That was my B. Should’a done that myself.”

I agree. You had to have known way more than mom.

Homage took a deep breath and sat up. “Okay, so, Gears… It’s okay to uh… Change orientation any time you want. Just, make things match up to whomever you find sexy at the time. That's totally fine. Got it?”

I frowned. “It is?”

She nodded. “Yep!”

I crossed my forelegs and pouted. “Wish mom told me that… I’ve wasted so many chances… Possibly? I don’t know… Wasn’t paying attention to mares. Because, you know. Coin toss.”

Homage groaned for some reason.

“What's wrong?” I asked curiously.

“Just… Trying not to judge a fish by its ability to climb trees,” Homage applied through a long sigh.

I frowned, realizing that the awkwardness of our conversation probably put her out of the mood for cuddles. As nice as those thirty six seconds had been, and as eager as I was to get my second ever not-with-mom-or-dad cuddles, I decided I should probably change the subject and get things flowing like they had been before.

I did file away the question of why anypony would ever judge an aquatic life form by the standards of an arboreal creature for later though.

Imaginary Dad groaned for some reason. I ignored him.

I cleared my throat. “You’re DJ Pon3, right?”

Homage nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

“Can you access the broadcast relay?”

She nodded. “Yes… Why?”

“Well, we could call my Queen and ask what cybernetics we have in stock and what she’d trade for them. Maybe she’ll be willing to make a deal with you specifically to help prove we’re really out there and show off a little of what we can do for you!” I suggested.

Homage rolled over and hopped up onto her hooves. “That’s a great idea! Lets go!”

☢★★◯★★☢

To my surprise, Homage left P!P in her room. It made sense she hadn’t brought her robot friend with her to try to break me out, it would have been visible while she wasn’t. Since it was Pip’s lifeline to her, however, I couldn’t understand why we weren't bringing it with us in case she woke up while we had Her Highness on the radio to talk to.

I didn’t want to ask in public, in case their link through P!P was private, so I spent the short trip to the broadcast room in silence, just trotting behind Homage and wondering if she would enjoy stripypone back rides.

I mean, she was small enough to ride on my back, but only just barely, and it had been fun to carry the Hellhound pups around. Homage wasn’t too much bigger than their pups had been.

Homage led me through the tower proper. It was nice to get to see more of the old-world’s preserved remains. And even nicer to pass Earl Gray as the undressed zebra mare I was while flirting with his boss. The look on his face really warmed my core.

Cooled my core? Yeah! Cooled my core. That’s a good re-work of the phrase.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at a pair of double doors leading into an old M.A.S. Emergency Broadcast Station. As Homage unlocked the doors, I noticed the room’s sign had a second line of text below it. Authorized Unicorns Only.

I smiled, feeling the opportunity for a joke.

“Oh no…” I said with a fake frown.

Homage turned around with a worried look. “What’s wrong?”

I pointed to the sign. “I can’t go in, I’m not a unicorn!”

She stared at me for several seconds then started to tear up. “Please don’t be that dumb!”

I frowned and gave her a quick hug. “I’m sorry! I was trying to be silly… Wait, do you think I’m dumb?”

I felt my ears fall down all the way.

Homage shook her head firmly and gave me a hug. “No! I mean, if you had been serious just then it would be a deal breaker for me. I don’t think you’re dumb, Gears. You’re… a bit uneducated when it comes to adult relationships. But I’ve fixed that before!”

“Oh,” I sighed in relief and smiled. “Good!”

Homage flashed me an odd smile. “Better than good, if you ask me!”

“So… Great, then?” I asked, slightly confused.

Homage opened the doors and waved me inside… and showed me exactly how DJ Pon3 seemed to know everything in the Wasteland in real time!

The broadcast room was also the hub for a spy network! The entire room was little more than a big circular bank of computers, screens and terminals. There were hundreds of monitors, big and small, all of which showed birds eye views of the entire wasteland! Or at least, what felt like the entire wasteland.

I gasped. “This is how you knew about Magebridge!”

“Mhm. Pip’s brain’s jacked right into the central hub of this network too,” Homage commented as she shut the doors. “That’s why the Pipites think she’s omniscient. What they don’t know is she can only really pay attention to four cameras at once.”

I took a few more steps into the room. One of the terminals beeped, Prompting Homage to look at it in surprise as a synthesized voice greeted, “Good Evening, Doctor Swan.”

“Huh, okay… Either that’s broken or—”

“It’s just reading mom’s ID card. It’s in my head,” I mentioned, running a hoof through my mane.

“Y— you have a working MAS ID?!”

I nodded. “Mhm… Can I ask you something?”

“Sure!” Homage said with an eager smile.

“Why did you leave your robot at home?”

Homage smile faded slightly, then came back. “Is it okay if I say I did bring my robot?”

I sighed. Again with this… “Well, no? Technically I am a form of robot. Cyborg is more accurate since I incorporate organic parts.”

“But it’s not offensive?” Homage asked as she made her way to a broadcast control panel near a microphone.

“No. Just technically inaccurate,” I said with a diplomatic smile. “I meant… What did you call it? P-not-P?”

“Yeah! The terminal character for the math expression ‘not’ is an exclamation point, which looks like an upside down i. The name’s short for “Pip but not Pip” and can be abbreviated to something similar to her name,” Homage explained as she began to adjust the radio’s controls. “What frequency are we using?”

“In a minute, I’m still interested about why you left uh, her?” I repeated.

Homage took a deep breath. Her shoulders slumped.

“I left P!P behind because Pip can listen through her, even if she doesn't want to make herself known at the time. I'd rather ask forgiveness than permission when it comes to keeping the love of my life alive,” Homage said as she started to cry. “Even if she leaves me over it…”

I winced, starting to understand the issue here. “You must love her a lot.”

“I— I do. She always thinks of me… I mean that, you’ll see when you read her story. It’s basically a written record of a memory orb,” Homage murmured. “When she learned she couldn’t come out of the pod again, she told me it was okay if we divorced, so I wouldn’t be… alone. I told her I didn’t want to leave her. She said I didn’t have to. That she’d accept anypony I chose to be intimate with as a herd, so I’d have someone to help me through this.”

Homage stopped for a moment to cry, so I hugged her tightly, prompting her to continue and making me think for an instant she was one of those dolls that spoke when you squeezed them.

“Pip knows she dying. She wants me to be happy. She said I should find somepony else to be with. I know she wants me to have somepony to hold when she dies. But— No matter what it costs me, I will not let her wither away and die in that horrible machine!”

Up to and including losing her over Pip’s implied hatred of the idea of being part-machine.

”Damn… I’ll bet she could wield the Element of Loyalty if she wanted. Too bad there’s no way those survived the war,” Imaginary Dad remarked.

Good thing she has me to help her instead then.

I let go of Homage and pointed to the broadcast controller. “Let’s see what mom can do for her. A relay this big shouldn’t need to be pointed north to reach our airship-relay… Set the radio to transmit on 27.989 MHz using an APCO-25 encryption on channel 8.”

Homage nodded and made the adjustments, turned around and levitated the microphone to her. “Okay, here goes… Who am I calling?”

“Queen Katydid of Lith,” I answered immediately.

Homage took a quick breath then murmured, “Feels weird to use this without the DJ voice…” then pressed the transmission switch down.

“Good evening, my name is Homage. I’m trying to speak to Queen Katydid of Lith. Come in, over.”

Homage waited a good ten seconds before repeating herself. After another ten seconds and request for her Majesty, she looked over to me. “Are you sure that the frequency was correct?”

I nodded. “Mhm. We use directional antenna. They’re probably trying to aim one at us so they can reply.

“Oh!” Homage said with a knowing nod. “Homage to Lith airship, aim your antenna at Manehattan. Over.”

Six seconds later, the radio crackled. “Homage, this is the R.A.T. Sandfly. Standby for transmission relay to Pomare. Link will be two-way and continuous. Please do not cease transmission until your conversation has finished as doing so will necessitate a recalibration of our encryption equipment. Over.”

Homage’s ears perked. I sat down, knowing this might be a little lengthy. “They have fancy encryption boxes!” Homage hissed quietly.

I nodded in agreement.

A moment later the radio crackled again, and the pleasant voice of Queen Katydid’s unicorn form came through the speaker. “Hello, Homage. This is Queen Katydid of Lith. May I ask if that is the name of an organization or individual?”

“An individual, your Highness. My name is Homage. I am calling along with your Courier, Whirling Gears,” Homage said as politely as she could.

I decided I should follow the proper protocols. “Apologies for failing to introduce her, your highness. Miss Homage is a member of the Twilight Society, the ruling council of a city built in and around Tenpony Tower in Manehattan.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Councilmare,” Her Majesty greeted. “Thank you for allowing my Courier to use your radio. I’ve been hoping to hear a report from her since I was contacted by the Mayor of Sire’s Hollow two days ago.”

I smiled happy Bluegrass had actually called her. Then, I cleared my throat. “Your Majesty—”

Homage eeped and hissed, “You used highness a minute ago, which is it?”

“Both are correct,” Her Majesty informed casually. “I am a Canterlot Ghoul composed of a pony and a changeling. I told my people to use highness for my pony half, and majesty for my changeling half… It was a joke at the time, but that is how things are done now.”

“Oh,” Homage said with remarkable calm. “Good to know.”

I cleared my throat. “Miss Homage is not calling on official business. She would like to make a personal trade with us to help prove to her community that we can trade what we claim too, and also to solve a personal problem of hers.”

Her Majesty was silent for a moment. “I can see how that would be a good idea. Miss Homage, feel free to request anything reasonably of me.”

Homage looked over to me. I nodded and gestured to the microphone. “Ask! She’s really nice!”

“I would like to request the services of Doctor Swan, as a medical necessity for my wife, along with any artificial organs she may need to survive,” Homage asked slowly. “This… This may require a full conversion similar to Gears.”

Her Highness laughed. “That’s a nice joke, Gears. Please, Miss Homage, make your request now.”

Homage ears fell. Tears started to well up in her eyes. I glared at the microphone. “Your Highness, I’m afraid that this is no joke. Her wife has been trapped in a failing stasis pod for over a decade and is a person of extreme importance to the New Canterlot Republic who I can confirm is in terrible health at present.”

“My sincerest apologies, Homage!” You could practically hear Her Highness backpedaling. “A full body prosthesis is as ridiculous a request for us as asking for a chocolate cake. On several occasions Gears has asked if it would be possible to build her a coltfriend. I believed she was continuing that old joke we share between us.”

“That’s true,” I squeaked, looking away from Homage so I couldn’t see how she reacted to that.

Her Highness continued. “Miss Homage, maintaining Gears is all we can do. We simply lack the materials to make certain cybernetics. We can provide limbs, hearts, lungs, and spines, but livers, kidneys, and other organs are currently impossible for us to construct. Additionally, Robobrains of Gears’ generation are simply impossible to produce without access to facilities currently buried under crystal, bloodice, and windigos.

“I am willing to provide any organs we can, as well as Doctor Swan’s services in their installation and configuration, but if she is as ill as you imply by asking for a Robobrain Mark III for her, I’m afraid it’s unlikely that will be sufficient to save her life.”

Homage nodded and thought for a moment. “She is in very bad condition. She’s a Stable Dweller, from a Stable where inbreeding became a problem. She’s not all that hardy to begin with… Then she was wounded repeatedly and severely many times stopping a slaver king, killing a creature that was arguably a deity, and toppling the entire Enclave. She means a lot to everypony here… If there’s anything at all that could help aside from cybernetics… Wizards, surgeons, Wizard-surgeons, I’d happily give anything I can for it.”

I cleared my throat to make sure Her Majesty wouldn’t interrupt before I could clarify, “Her wife, Littlepip, is something of a local demigod and is currently in control of the weather, somehow.”

“You got those damn towers working?” Her Highness asked in surprise.

What did towers have to do with this? Aaaagh! I should have read the book Homage mentioned before suggesting we call!

Homage raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Why?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Old grudges… and bets,” her Highness audibly moved in her seat then called “Livery, please make a note to pretend not to know Bright Eyes if she happens to be alive still. I’m not paying the interest on that bet!”

Homage and I shared a look and a snicker before Her Majesty continued, with her composure restored. “It might be possible to send a medical team south for a short time… We have some issues up here to take care of which are occupying my air fleet, but I can probably spare a small ship. Can Littlepip be moved?”

Homage shrugged. “I don’t know? I’m not a doctor… But when you're not a doctor and you can tell someone is dying just by their voice…” She took a moment then added. “I have some medical data from the SPP. It sporadically transmits reports to my broadcast station. I can’t make heads or tails of it. I could transcribe the last one and have a courier deliver it to your airship.”

“The Single Pegasus Project had a very robust medical monitoring system,” Her Majesty remarked to herself. “The only better thing we could have a report from would be an auto-doc. If you get that to us, I can have my doctors tell you if she can be treated.”

Homage nodded and smiled a little, happy to make some progress but clearly sad it wasn’t very much.

“Sure thing. I’ll start writing it down right away,” Homage said as she started to look for a pencil and paper. “Gears? There’s got to be a pen or something somewhere in this broadcast station. Help me look!”

I turned to begin looking just as Her Highness asked, “Broadcast Station? My radio shows you in Manehattan… Tenpony Tower… You’re using the old MAS Emergency Broadcast station, correct?”

“Yes, why?” Homage asked. “Wait! You’re pre-war and apparently the heir to the Crystal Empire. Do you know what the big button on the broadcast panel shaped like the Crystal heart did?”

“Don’t push it,” her Highness said immediately.

“Can’t, it’s broken. That’s why I said ‘did’.”

“Good! What I meant is there’s no need to allow your special somepony to waste away in a tin can longer than necessary,” her Highness elaborated just as I found a pen. “That Broadcast Station isn’t just for radio and television, it can also send data to terminals.”

“That system’s broken,” Homage sighed. “We tried to set up a term-link network for the NCR but the whole thing is burnt out.”

“Oh we don’t need Term-link,” Her Highness said matter factly.

I blinked. “Wait, we don’t? How?”

“There is a working terminal there, it’s receiving data from the SPP Hub. That’s not done via term-link, that’s far too vulnerable to jamming and hacking. High priority data for Ministry facilities was sent too and from each other via low frequency FM radio pulses which were disguised to look like signal noise. I can walk you through how to send information from any terminal in that room to me.”

Homage galloped over to one of the terminals, pulling the microphone along with her arcane grip. She stopped in front of a small terminal set into the eastern wall and turned it on. “I’m at the terminal, what do I do?”

“First, this will take time and your radio must not transmit anything else once you start the process. I’ll tell you once you can use the mic again, understood?”

Homage nodded. “That’s fine with me, but what about your encryption thing?”

“Use the microphone mute switch. Flip that on now. I’ll continue giving you instructions in twenty seconds.”

Homage nodded and used her magic to press a button on the broadcast console. “Annnd, muted.”

“Okay. First, access the term-link protocol and set the terminal to ‘Demo Mode 3’. That will tell it to switch transmission protocols to a classified set… Next, open the command line interface…”

☢★★◯★★☢

Almost half an hour later, the radio crackled back to life. Homage and I jumped up, neither of us having done much but sit quietly and wait, not wanting to accidentally disrupt the transmission, which had turned out to only barely be possible thanks to the broadcast equipment’s damaged state.

“We’ve got the complete file now. You can broadcast again,” Her Majesty reported.

Homage quickly unmuted the microphone. “Thank you so much! How long until we can have that report analyzed?”

“At least 24 hours,” her Majesty said with a sigh. “Primarily because my best doctor is… A pain to work with.”

I felt the color drain from my face as I realized something. We could have been cuddling this whole time! “NOOOOOOO!”

Homage looked over at me in alarm, “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “Unrelated thing, don’t worry.”

She nodded. “Um… okay…” she said before turning back to the radio. “So, how did you know how to set that transmission up? Gears mentioned you were a young mare when the megaspells dropped.”

“The Crystal Empire dedicated the Crystal City to the war effort as Equestria’s primary Research and Development Hub. Everything not made there was backed up in it,” Her Majesty answered. “I have read everything available to us over the years to help preserve information as physical copies deteriorate. I also used that system to create an underground erotica sharing service along with my mother Princess Cadence after the MoI began to ban adult content.”

Homage giggled. “Oh! Well… This will be fun to tell Pip one day. ‘By the way, we saved you using an illegal porn sharing service!’ HA!”

I giggled. “It is a little funny, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s not. But her face will be!” Homage snickered.

Her Highness giggled. “It is a little funny in and of itself that I am potentially helping save a life using this old thing… Onto more serious matters, while we know plenty, and we are willing to help, that help is of course going to cost a fair price. Do understand that we are helping you for free up to the point of sending our surgeons, or transporting Pip. However, before they put scalpel to flesh, we will have to discuss payment. Preferably in food items.”

I winced. This felt like something we should do because it was right, not for money...

Homage nodded, clearly not seeing it that way. “I understand completely. Once you can tell me what you think is a fair price for what you’ll have to do, I’ll be happy to negotiate payment. Is there anything else we can do right now?”

“I’m afraid not,” Her Highness replied. “Other than wishing each other farewell, and to inform you that I am eagerly awaiting hearing from you in an official capacity.”

Homage smiled. “Any chance I can tuck the bill for this into a trade deal down the line?”

“Certainly.”

“In that case, thank you, and goodbye.”

“Keep near your radio tomorrow. I’ll be in touch,” her highness promised. “Goodbye for now, Gears. I’ll have to get that report form you another time. I have another inbound call.”

I nodded. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

The radio went silent. Homage turned and reset the transmission controls, then glanced up at the room’s clock. She winced. “We still have a good three hours to go before the meeting… Would you like to get dinner?”

I smiled. “Um, I don’t eat. But I would enjoy talking with you while you ate.”

Homage’s ears drooped sadly. “Are you saying you’re a strict top?”

Imaginary Dad laughed his plot off in my mind.

I blinked. “What?”

She giggled and flashed me an oddly eager smile. “Once you’re done delivering all of those radios, please come back here, so I can teach you enough about sex for you to get my jokes.”

I smiled. “I definitely will!”

Wait. Deliveries. Mission. Wander!

I frowned. “So uh… Maybe we should go tell Wander how much longer we’ll be? She’s been waiting all day and since there are a few hours left to go and I’m not under arrest, I’d like to tell her what’s up. Just to be nice.”

Homage smiled. “That sounds great, actually! I haven't left the tower in a while, and I’ve always wanted to meet the Wanderer! Let me get a spare holotape for my pipbuck, so I can record a potential interview or a song, or two. Then we can head out to say hello!"

“Sure! That sounds great. I know she was afraid to come here, but I think she’d love to hear her music on the radio,” I said with a smile.

☢★★◯★★☢

As we left Tenpony Tower, I couldn’t help but wonder what Sky had been worried about. I got my weapons back the very minute I asked for them. No fumbling for the keys, no comments other than ‘Of course, Miss Gears’. The gate guards were very nice!

It must have been since he was so used to the ponies inside the tower.

It felt great to have my LAER and pistol again. Especially with the attempted bombing… I would have to see if they would let me take my pistol back in for the council meeting. Just in case.

Homage had stopped by her room to pick up P!P and a large revolver for her own protection. It was quite the fancy gun, too; ivory grip, an apple-based cutiemark painted on it, and a top of the line scope! Somepony had paid a small fortune for that back before the war.

The two of us trotted down the ramp, casually chatting with one another. Nothing that important, just the little things like our favorite snacks. Once I explained my sense of taste was broken, Homage was much more accepting of what I found tasty.

I also asked her not to tell anypony I wasn’t just a normal zebra. I liked her response.

“Hey, as far as I care, you’re a cute Zeeb with the greatest flanks this side of the SPP’s shield! Besides, the news reports will be way more hilarious if nopony knows The Machine is an actual cyborg.”

We were in the middle of debating which genre of music was the best when we reached the bottom of the ramp and a pair of city guards nearly ran into us.

“Hey!” Homage exclaimed as she was almost knocked over.

The guard looked around then downwards, spotted Homage and gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Homage! Didn’t see you down there. You gotta go to that skyscraper over there! There’s a pair of ghouls in an old club partying like it’s 2069!”

I blinked. Homage blinked.

“Two?” we asked in unison.

The other guard nodded. “Yeah! There’s this kinda reclusive ghoul that lives in that old building. You might have seen her around. Pegasus, wears an old Shadowbolts flight uniform, has a fancy pipbuck?”

Homage shook her head. “Officially, no,” she said in a tone which suggested she knew her fairly well.

I blinked. That seems… odd. Oh, right. The no ghouls rule.

The guard shrugged. “Doesn't matter. She lives there. We saw the other ghoul just go into her place while patrolling, and ran into her coming up the stairs, told her that her friend let herself in. “What friend?” Oh! Shit, problem. We gotta sole that. So, we escorted her to her place in case there was trouble but no! It’s awesome!”

“What’s awesome?” I asked with a frown.

The other guard gave us the biggest grin. “So like, other ghoul knows how to make old audio equipment work, and turns out Shadowbolts been living in an old pre-war club! Other Ghoul got that shit working and was playing this really awesome music! Never heard anything like it before. Our ghoul did, and even recognized the other one as like, pre-war friends!”

“And you’re running… why? Sounds like a good time,” Homage asked wearily.

“Beer run!” The other guard informed. “Come on, dude! We’ll get Mint and pick up a few six packs.”

“We gotta tell Lemon too, she’ll love it!”

The guards ran off up the ramp towards the tower. Homage and I shared a look.

“So… Does Wander have any friends?” Homage asked.

I shook my head. “No. In fact, she’s got a neurosis about friends… This can’t be good.”

We ran across the street to the small tower. I drew my pistol as we ran up the stairs to the third floor. If somepony had recognized Wander, I didn’t know what she might do… But I did know that she was a Canterlot Ghoul, so I could put a few laser bolts into her if she were enraged without actually hurting her…

If only I had some kind of stun weapon! Or time to adjust my LAER's power setting!

Homage and I reached the door. It had to be the door. It was the first door next to the stairs, and unlike every other door in the dusty old hallway, it was solid metal, not wood, and had a keypad.

I raced for the keypad, quickly glanced over it, noticing it had a button marked ‘doorbell’ as well as a basic 10 digit keypad. I entered the code as fast as I could. The door chirped, hissed, and began to slid open.

The hallway instantly filled to maximum capacity with dull throbbing bass drums, pulsing sequences of higher notes, rays of multicolored light, and a creeping bank of fog.

My eyes widened. What the buck was happening in there?! A wizard duel?

Homage’s ears perked. “OH BUCK YES! This is trance! The MoI banned this. I need to record it!”

She started to fiddle with her pipbuck. I moved through the door into Hoofbeats.

The club was mostly occupied by a huge dance floor. There was a large bar on one side of the room, and a big stage opposite it. The main floor itself was made up of colored squares which pulsed and flashed in time to the music being played on stage.

The ghoul I didn’t know was on the dance floor. With the pulsing colored lights and fog all I could tell was she was an athletic build ghoul in an old Shadowbolts flight uniform who had her flight hood up and goggles on… And was tearing up the dancefloor like this was the best night of her life in two hundred years.

To be fair, it probably was. If only because Wander’s divine musical genius back in Two-Bits was raw sewage compared to what I was hearing her play now.

Wander stood between two massive speaker towers in front of some kind of console which had two turntables atop it. She looked like a goddess under the stage lights. Like she was born for this. The ever-shifting colors and strobing lights hid her ghoulish features, and that was with her hood down. I could see her whole mane for the first time.

It looked a lot like Homage’s, oddly enough. A big spiky ball of electric blue, bobbing her head along with to the beat of the music.

I didn’t see a ghoul on the stage at all. I saw her as a vibrant and healthy young mare, who was absolutely, positively, in love with life. And kinda cute! ... No! Really cute!

And her music. Oh, sweet Celestia, her music! I had not liked this genera much before, but if this is how it should sound then I hadn't liked it because everypony else who played it was terrible!

The song drew to a close, and Wander’s horn began to glow as she started to tweak the console’s settings. The other ghoul shook her head and spoke in a squeaky-scratchy voice. “Aww, come on! You said you’d play something live next!”

Wander was quiet for a moment. “Yeah… I guess I did, didn’t I?”

“Yep, sure did. Come on, hurry up before those stallions get back with the beer! Maybe after a good enough time, your music, some booze, and with these lights making the ghoul thing less visible, maybe we can get laid for the first time in two centuries!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Wander groaned as if in slight but real pain. “Look, I’ll do it, but if I turn into a big pile of sad for performing your favorite song live, you got to give me some of that top shelf vodka.”

“Deal!”

Homage trotted in and opened her mouth. I immediately covered it and shook my head. No way was our sudden arrival going to interrupt this!

Wander closed her eyes, stepped out into the large open area of the stage, took out her keyboard, and lit her horn as she cast a spell.

It was an illusion, or rather, three illusions. They faded in slowly, as if coming with the music.

Wander started, her hooves tapped out a simple melody on the keyboard, while singing, “What is love? Baby don't hurt me… Don't hurt me… No more…”

The first illusion faded in. It was colored blue, with flecks of white magic swirling around inside as if another unicorn were assisting her with the spell. It took the shape of a unicorn mare playing a sequencer and seemed to provide a second melody to go with Wanders.

The second came in. An Earth Pony mare playing a drum kit. Then the third, and other Earth Pony mare, this one with an electric Cello.

A cello!

I felt my core skip a cycle. Whoever this other ghoul was, she was able to persuade Wander into literally summoning the images of her friends…

Teach me this power of friendship, mystery mare!

Wander looked up, smiling for a moment, clearly about to start the first proper verse, and her eyes fell on me. They didn’t widen in fear, or narrow in anger. They softened. Her smile widened. She was happy! She wanted me to watch her perform.

Running into her old friend here was the best thing that could have happened to—

Then she caught sight of Homage. Wander’s eyes widened as pure terror flooded her face. Her spell stopped, the music literally screeched to a halt.

The mystery mare spun around and drew an energy pistol, but lowered it when Wander shouted, “YOU!”

Homage pointed to herself, her ears laying back in pure confusion. “M— Me?”

“HOW COULD YOU!” Wander yanked her hood over her head in an instant and sprinted across the floor, stopping a hoof from my face, her eyes narrowed in anger.

Eeep! I bucked up! How?!

Wander grabbed me by the shoulders as I backed up. “SHE KNOWS WHO I AM!” Wander shouted at me pointed at Homage with one hoof. “SHE’S WHY I KEEP AWAY FROM THE TOWER AND YOU BROUGHT HER HERE! THE ENTIRE WASTELAND WILL KNOW MY NAME NOW! YOU— YOU— TRAITOR!”

Oh…

I felt my ears slide down as far as they could go. “I— I’m sorry! You didn’t tell me any of that—”

Wander let go of my shoulders, took a step back, reached under her cloak and threw a grenade at my hooves!

I yelped and dove to the left. The grenade popped, releasing a thick cloud of white smoke with a loud hiss. I mumbled a curse to myself and tried to follow Wander’s movement, searching the mist for the spiritual energy from her necklace, but the grenade must have been designed to obscure a zebra’s senses because I couldn’t even tell which way was up.

I heard hooves galloping away. Two mares choking. I felt like I was going to vomit, and I didn’t even have a stomach!

Then the smoke cleared. The pegasus ghoul coughed a few more times and trotted up to me to glare at me through her goggles. “Nice one, zeeb… Get the buck out of my house! You too, Homage! I want to be alone.”

Homage nodded. “Sorry, I didn’t know. How could I have?”

“Yeah, I know. Just… Really miss her parties, you know?” The ghoul sighed, turning around to stare at the stage.

“Sorry,” I apologized, tearing up not just form the smoke, but from the realization I’d probably made Wander leave for good…

I took a few staggering steps towards the door. Homage, still coughing, gently took my shoulder and guided me through the door.

The moment we left, the ghoul closed it from the other side.

I sat down and blinked, trying to clear my eyes. Homage sat next to me and hugged me to her side.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to cause problems.”

I laughed bitterly. “I— I didn’t think you would.”

I swiveled my ears, hoping I’d hear Wander’s soft hoofsteps coming back. Hoping she’d be like ‘sorry, overreacted. Please don’t tell anypony my name, Homage. It’s a neurosis.’

Wait. She said Homage knew who she was.

I looked over into Homage’s eyes. “So… Who is she?”

Homage took a deep breath. “Well… Truth is… I have no bucking idea.”

I felt my eye twitch. “What?”

“It’s the truth! I don’t know. She was definitely a performer before the war. She probably thinks I have posters or some old albums of hers with intact cover art but, nope! No idea… I swear her voice is familiar though, so I know I’ve heard her sing before, but not like that!” Homage mused.

I took a deep breath. “She panicked and ran away for nothing… Great! Now how am I going to reach the other towns?”

Homage tightened her hug. “You did well against the sentinel. I'm sure you can make it.”

“I meant, like, finding them,” I said with a shaky smile.

Homage frowned. “Oh. Right. She was your guide.”

I nodded and stood up. “At least I know where the Tower is… Let's go… I… I need to do something. I liked her.”

Homage nodded and stood up with me. “I’ll draw the trade routes I know about on your map, okay? You’ll want to go to Fillydelphia, right?”

My ears perked. I was built there! Maybe, just maybe, there would be a spare pump in mom’s old lab. That wasn’t worth losing a friend to get it… But at least I knew that I could go to Fillydelphia now.

“Yes, I do,” I answered, trying not to sound distressed.

“Don’t worry. I know a good trade route. There’s a highway that goes from here through Applewood, to Fillydelphia. Wagons take it all the time. It’s a real quick route.”

“Wander mentioned Applewood,” I said with a frown, not quite remembering what she had said about it.

If it was part of a NCR trade route, she probably said we’d be passing through it. Yeah, that must be it.

Homage nodded. “I imagine she would. It’s on the road from here to Filly… Come on, let’s… Let's get dinner and make you smile.”

I nodded and followed Homage as we trotted back to the tower. Maybe… Maybe Wander and I would meet back up on the road after she cooled down? I hoped so…

Author's Note

Wander has left the party.

12 - Route 666

I left Tenpony and Manehattan behind the very next morning. I had this silly idea that if I left and walked south towards Fillydelphia, she’d meet up with me on the road. Yes, I’d made a mistake, but she had to know that I wasn’t entirely at fault. She never told me I couldn’t take ponies to see her, and she’d loved performing in the other towns!

Of course, I should have realized that if she was avoiding a place due to being recognized, that would extend to the ponies living there, too.

We were both at fault, and the damage had been done, as far as Wander knew. Homage couldn’t out her, and Wander didn’t use her Pipbuck much these days. She wouldn’t be listening to the news. She’d have no idea that all ‘DJ Pon3’ talked about that night was The Machine.

"Ladies and Gentleponies, Fillies and Colts of all ages, everypony not living under a rock, and everypony who can hear me under those rocks, we have a big bucking deal to talk about. That’s right, I swore. On the air. That’s how big a deal this is.

“Everyone recall that astonishingly curvy ball of righteous robot recycling, The Machine? Well, she payed yours truly a little visit, and I must say, ‘Ya Mashina,’ whatever that means! The rumors are true! The Machine really is just a mail-mare. She came to Tenpony with a letter, a package, and left with a certain DJ’s heart to continue her rounds. Don’t look at me like that. You know Pip and I are open, and let me tell you, The Machine has flanks for days!

“We need to talk about exactly what our friendly neighborhood mail-mare was delivering, but first, at her request, if any of you see the ghoul known as the Wanderer, please send her towards Fillydelphia, and tell her my assistant, who totally isn't me, has no, bucking, idea who she is. She’ll know what that means, and why I had to swear again, my good ponies.

“As for what The Machine’s delivering, the answer, is a future for us all! No, you didn’t mishear me. If you’ve ever been up north, you’ve seen the Spur Mountains. Big. Huge. Big-huge. Covered in ice, and lots of it. Turns out, there’s a whole nation on the other side of them, a Kingdom called Lith.

“They’ve just now found a way to cross the mountains safely, and are looking to trade. What do they have? Power, and the means to generate it.”

I’d bought a small wind-up radio before leaving Tenpony so that I could stay in contact with Homage. Sure, I could have talked back if I gave her my internal radio’s frequency, but I wasn’t about to do that. Not unless we became close, instead of just two ponies who liked each other.

I already hear more than enough voices in my head, what with my overactive imagination and all.

"I admit, I could use some company in here.”

My head isn’t empty, dad!

"Actually, sweetie, it is.” Dad chuckled.

I had no counterpoint to that, so I just kept walking.

The route Homage marked for me was an older country highway. One of the long windy, meandering ones built by private enterprises, before the Inter-Dutchy Highway network was completed. In spite of its ~~Wander~~ wandering, it was the most direct intact route between Filly and Tenpony. Given that they were the NCR’s two most populous settlements, and there was a road from Filly right to Canterlot, and from Canterlot to the NCR capital in Junction Town, this seemed like the best route to take.

As I walked down the crumbling, cracked, and buckling road, I realized that my fears about traveling alone in the Heartlands were silly. Sure, there was the risk from bandits, but the Gardens of Equestria had stripped away every threat I’d imagined from my youth. I remembered the pools of radioactive slime, how every shadow was crawling with some fresh horrific monstrosity, and that every other half-decent spot for a camp was filled with desperate ponies who were a coin’s toss away from deciding your life was worth a belly full of warm meat.

I made good time on my own, for a sick ‘zeeb’. The old highway signs were mostly intact enough to be readable. I could see the signs for Applewood ticking by, starting from 120 km. Based on the position of the sun, I was making a half decent 14 km/h or so with my careful jog. Even as damaged as I was, I could hold this pace, and it would mean I’d reach Applewood in about 8 hours.

Unfortunately, walking on my own through unfamiliar territory was still a pretty unsettling experience. I fell back onto my old technique of memorizing landmarks to help me keep an eye out, and also, so I’d remember the route forever. Just in case I had to run it again. Or, well, jog it again, since distance running was out of the question for now.

The first thing I made special note of was a pile up of eight cargo wagons. Big ones, the kind used to transport an entire farm’s worth of groceries. Most of them were burnt out, all of them had holes in them and only one of them had readable paint on the side. Ditzy Doo Deliveries.

I made a note of that. I was pretty sure that had been the name of the ghoul Tenpony would let in. Odds are pretty good her shipping company survived the war in some form. She might be behind the major caravan routes. I would have to tell Her Majesty about her next time we talked.

There was a train track running parallel to the old road. I took no note of it, until I saw that somepony had made a fort out of a train which had derailed long ago. The fort was little more than an armored section of a few cars with catwalks on top and some earthwork fortifications, but somepony had once tried to make a stand here. Recently, too.

When I took a look inside the train, I found the rotting bodies. I thought they were ghouls, at first, but they remained where they lay. They had been caravaners, that much was proven by their clothes, and the way the fort’s interior had been gutted and replaced with a lot of old beds. This place had been a rest stop not too long ago.

I wondered who’d attacked it while checking to see if they had left behind anything I could use. It felt a bit wrong to take things from a place which likely ran on a “take something leave something” policy when I had nothing to leave… But on the other hoof I really wanted that smoke grenade, and the coil of nylon rope.

I had no idea how the attackers had overlooked them when there was so little else of value left in the fort.

A long ways south from the fort I stumbled across an old roadside diner. One of the fancy ones which had at one point had the chrome trim and wainscoting. Now it was little more than a burnt out shell with a caved in roof, two centuries of water damage, and a parking lot full of old auto-wagons which had been thoroughly scrapped, leaving behind only the worthless sheet metal which had rusted to a thin layer of dust held in shape by pure force of will.

While not as memorable as other landmarks I added to the list, its sign was still very much visible from a long ways away: Ruby Collar’s Hayfries For Days. I’d seen the sign nearly two kilometers away thanks to its sheer size. Well, not the text portion. I’d seen the ancient fiberglass pegasus mare which stood nearly 4 meters tall, and was holding aloft a plate of hamburgers and fries as if receiving a gift from the heavens… Or giving a gift to the heavens.

While very old, weathered, riddled with holes, and in need of new paint, the sign was still very impressive.

Ruby must have been pretty ambitious about her restaurant. I was sad Ruby wasn’t around because I wanted to obey the sign and ask her about their new oatmeal-battered fries and their signature “Twilight size lunch platter.”

Had Ruby meant sized for Twilight, or the size of Twilight? The world would never know…

"Oatmeal, are they crazy?”

Next on my list of landmarks was perhaps, the strangest mundane thing I had ever seen in my life. A pile of auto-wagons, artfully arranged into a series of square arches to form a circle along the side of the road. Almost like the framework for a building. Sometimes, seemingly randomly, a single wagon would be buried halfway into the soil, the headlamps pointing skywards.

How? Why? I had no idea. But it was unmistakable as a thing to use for directions.

A good way after Wagonhenge, I stumbled upon a crashed airship! I recognized it from the Equestrian Air Force Operations Manual I’d read a long time ago. It was, or at least had been, a Raptor-class dropship. The weird thing is it didn’t look 200 years old. It sure didn’t look like it had crashed today, or the day before, but it wasn’t nearly as decayed as everything else along the road.

Naturally, I checked it out. A naive part of me hoped that if I hooked it to my power core it might turn back on and I’d have an airship to use for the rest of my route. Unfortunately, I never got to see if it would work. The first thing I discovered was that the ship’s clouds had been removed after the crash. Their pods were intact, but the access ports were open. Sabotage.

The ponies abroad had survived the crash, and made sure nopony else could use their ship. They’d also striped everything useful from the wreck, or somepony else had after them. Every useful bit of material had been taken. The ship was a shell.

A useful one for remembering how far you’d traveled, though!

As I exited the airship, I noticed another road sign.

Applewood 12 km

I squinted into the distance, hoping to see any sign of the town. Nothing. Not a thing. Just more of the endless rolling grassy hills which blurred together into one seamless pile of bleh. I mean, sure, grass was a nice change of pace. I liked green more than white. But, much like endless snowdrifts, endless grasslands all look the same.

I began to trot towards Applewood. There’s no way nopony had rebuilt a town right along the road they used to trade. I could probably pick up a few useful things. Tenpony wasn’t just for the snobby elites, it was for the RICH elites. My little radio had cost me 70 caps!

There was definitely things I’d forgotten to get while there, simply because I hadn’t wanted to debate what to buy when everything cost a leg and a leg! I just knew there had been something I wanted to get. It had been itching at the back of my mind since I gave Homage a goodbye kiss and—

And…

And I’d been so busy with the meeting and chatting with Homage till she fell asleep I'd forgotten to see if she wanted to buck!

I fell to my knees in the middle of the road, clamped my head in my hooves and screamed. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

I spun around and looked at the way I’d come. Eight hours. A long time… and I was on the clock…

I felt my left eye twitch. A few spikes of anger surged through my systems. “Katydid, your Majesty… If, when I get back to Tenpony, she’s not into me anymore, if that was my one and O̸҉NL͘͢Y̢̡͠ chance, then, by the Imperterritus's Cannons, by the Daughters of Roam, I shall be avenged!”

I turned, stamped my left-hind hoof as I was just a little absolutely livid with myself, and resumed walking to Applewood.

☢★★◯★★☢

Applewood had not been repopulated. It had no walls. I was upwind, and I couldn’t smell anypony, or any fires. Nor did I hear anypony talking, playing, or working. It was quiet. Dead silence.

I found that odd, since the town was oddly intact. I was able to walk right up to the edge of a bunch of old ranch-style houses. Before the war kicked off, a new style of home had become popular. Wood-panel walls, clay-tile roofs, large single-pane windows, and no exposed timbers. Neat, trim, tidy. Applewood had been built entirely in that style.

A whole town full of ‘new’ buildings, some of which had to be intact, given how little damage the town seemed to have taken, and they weren't using it at all.

Why?

The town’s abandonment set off alarm bells in my head. Something was wrong… Had the town been very heavily irradiated? Perhaps a dumping ground for toxic waste during the war? If so, that would have been cleared up by the gardens almost 15 years ago. Right?

So why not move in and at the very least salvage the tiles?

"Predators,” Imaginary dad remarked. "The only reason you’d see something like this is the place isn’t actually abandoned.”

But they use this road for trade... I said as I frowned and searched the ground around my hooves for any sign of wagon-ruts.

The road was dusty and muddy, and I’d seen plenty of wagon ruts and hoofprints in the dirt walking from Tenpony… but none went into town. In fact, I was about thirty meters from the closest set of tracks!

I backtracked immediately and turned to follow the tracks. A cart had come through recently. The wheel ruts were still sharp. It veered off east, off the road, to go around the town.

Ah, ha! Safe road, bad town. I’d found the safer path. Wander would be proud of me!

I still didn’t feel safe, so I drew my pistol and readied my LAER. Nothing was going to break my remaining hydraulic pump. Not if I had anything to say about it.

"You could just Machine Spirit your way into working properly. I’ve seen you do it plenty of times.”

You and I both know the last time I did that was more than seventy years ago. I’m so out of practice I’d probably break myself more while trying. I don't want to be a spirit, I want to be a zebra. Zebras can’t magic themselves into working better.

”That’s true… Keep it on the table as a last ditch effort to survive in spite of the risk, please.”

Well, yeah!

I began to follow the wagon ruts. They cut deeply through the slightly muddy earth, meaning the wagon was fully loaded. If a caravaneer was willing to take their cargo this close to the edge of town, it was probably safe. Whatever dangers lurked in Applewood must not approach the edge of town often.

I got the feeling that Applewood would have been a nice place to live before the war. The faded paint on each house was a nice cheerful color. Everypony who once lived within the town had once had a large yard. I could see the city streets were asphalt, not cobbled. A much nicer walking surface for certain!

There were even those nice street lamps which used crystal lamps. They stood above every street I could see between the buildings as I looked inwards, keeping an eye out for danger and admiring the spookily preserved pre-war ruin.

I was turning the corner around a fenced off yard containing a large Quonset hut when I saw the wagons. Three of them, each a crudely converted auto-wagon, just like the ones I saw leaving Two Bits. Aqua Cura wagons.

They were overturned, lying in a rough line where they had been knocked over, as an absolutely inconceivably numerous army of feral ghouls had swarmed them. Ghouls which even now where dining on the flesh of the poor caravaners… and the bottles upon bottles of irradiated water which they had been carrying.

I had exactly three processor cycles to take this all in before the ghouls turned towards me as one. As if the small army were in fact one singular creature composed of rotting flesh, pus-filled blisters, and exposed blackened, withering, bone.

Oh. Yes. That’s right. My core’s shielding is only 99.999% radiation proof. They sensed the radiation nearby. Strange, I knew for a matter of fact I put out a mere thousandth of what could be found in a single bottle of Aqua Cura.

Why would they even notice me? Oh well. Here comes a ghoul glomp. A bit gross, since they weren't a hoard of Wanders, but they’d forget about me eventually and I’d be on my—

"You’re covered in meat! They see radioactive meat Gears! RUN!” Dad screamed at me.

OH, SWEET CELESTIA, HE WAS RIGHT!!!

The ghouls began to screech. Hunting cries. I knew them well. I’d seen too many ponies running from packs of frostbitten ferals to not know that sound by heart.

They broke into a run, moving as a singular swarm. I couldn’t tell where one ghoul ended and another began.

There were too many to kill without explosives and formal training with such weapons. I needed to get out of their reach! Looking around frantically, I spotted a pile of wood leaning up against the side of the Quonset hut through a gap in the fence.

I turned and ran for it, sprinting as fast as I could on one hydro. It wasn’t quite fast enough the ghouls were gaining on me…

I reached the fence, jumped, caught the top with my hooves, and sacrificed momentum to sling myself up and over. I made it four steps before the ancient rotting cedar timbers shrieked, cracked, and groaned as the hoard splashed against it.

I spared a moment to glance over my shoulder. The ghouls which had hit the fence were being used as a ramp by the ones behind them! They were pouring over the fence like brahmin milk out of a bucket.

I put on every ounce of speed I could summon and raced for the wood pile. A few oil drums next to the woodpile provided me with an easy up. I clamored atop them, jumped onto the stacked firewood, and kicked the barrels over with my hind legs as I clamored up the wood.

Logs fell of the pile, the entire stack of wood shifted. Somehow, probably magically, I managed to keep my balance and race up the pile towards the hut’s roof as the pile mostly collapsed beneath me.

My forehooves touched the aging sheet-metal roof. I was safe! I just had to pull my—

Something bit into my left hind leg and wrenched me back down. For a moment, I hoped my armored sock would handle the bite, then I felt the sock slip down my leg. It was, after all, just a sock. I didn’t need to look to know I was doomed.

The swarm was on me before I knew it. Probably because as the first strip of flesh was ripped from my body my screams drowned out all conscious thought. The second was worse; by far, it was the worst pain I had felt in a long time. The way their teeth scraped against my armor. They way their decaying hooves slammed against me, threatening to rattle components loose, break solder-joints, and my broken diodes were points of screaming agony all down my left side.

The world started to fade, and I knew I would die here. My talisman would regenerate until its reserves of matter ran dry. My core would keep the ghouls on me. One day, a pony would find a rusted pile of armor plates, and the titanium/crystal skeleton, and wonder what kind of robot I was before tearing my corpse apart for caps at the scrap yard.

“NOOOOO!” I screeched around my pistol grip.

The world snapped back into focus. I fired my LAER. I heard a ghoul pop. Puss and necrotic blood splattered across my face.

I bit down on my pistol’s trigger. Green energy bolts flew every which way as I whipped my head around randomly, twisting and turning to get onto my hooves as I shot, not caring where the bolts went.

I was getting out of here, now! I needed to get up. Ferals are bad climbers. I needed another up!

I turned to start shooting a path to the old mechanic’s shop on the same lot as the hut. I shot left, right, and center, sprinting as I fired. I had no time to let my pistol recharge. I ran the reserve down and then fired every bolt as they generated. My LAER discharged nearly continuously, and screamed a few heat warnings at me through my link module.

I didn’t care.

While under the pile of ghouls, I had noticed these ferals were rail thin, bleeding from their skin, and had lost all color in their eyes. They were dying. Nearly dead. I was tasty rads and meat. Rads they needed desperately. They wouldn’t give up. They’d use every last ounce of energy they had to kill me and crack my core open.

I ran.

The mechanic’s shop didn’t have any way up that I could see.

I ran.

The swarm shrieked and howled at my tail.

They ran.

I caught a glimpse of myself in a somewhat shiny chrome mailbox as I ran into the street. I had an eye, a bit of fur around it, and one small strip of pelt around my saddlebag strap, and the fur under my socks. They’d torn me bare that quickly…

I ran.

I could hear the ghouls chasing me. Frenzied hooves thundering against ancient asphalt.

I ran.

I ran toward the ranch house on the opposite side of the street. I thought I could parkour up from a parked wagon onto the porch’s roof and—

Another impossibly large pack of ghouls surged out from around the house, heading right for me, drawn by the first’s shrieks and howls.

I started to cry in my remaining eye. I felt the other tear up as soon as my tear duct regrew.

I turned to move down the street, and I ran. I could feel my hydraulics starting to protest pushing them this hard without two working motors. I didn't have time for that. I had to get up! I had to get off the street.

I heard the two packs merge, their stamping hooves and howls melting together as the packs flowed into each other as they met in the middle of the street.

I wanted to look back and see if I had time to find an up, but I knew that would mean I wouldn’t find an up for certain.

I ran.

The ghoul’s shrieks sounded like they were coming right from the tip of my tail.

Then, suddenly, like a gift from Celestia, I saw a ladder leaning against a house with a mostly collapsed roof. A big stack of clay shingles lay at the base of the ladder, mostly broken.

I turned, and I ran.

I made it to the ladder and flew up it, pushing every ounce of power I could into my hydros, and even activating my emergency servos for a further boost.

The rungs flew under my hooves as I scrambled up the ladder, got onto the roof, and then kicked the ladder with my hind legs. I turned just in time to whip my tail out of the snapping jaws of a ghoul as the ladder toppled back onto the swarm of starving zombies below.

They screeched. They howled. They clawed at the rotting wall’s timbers. The house creaked, groaned, and swayed as they pounded at it... as yet more ferals came running towards the noise.

I remembered how they had made a ghoul-ramp to get over the fence. I wasn’t safe here. I had bought myself a minute, maybe two, at the most.

I let my hydros cool down for a moment while I tried to come up with a plan.

If I ran back out of town, the ghouls would follow me out, and on open ground, they were faster than me and I would be dead. My only option was to keep using vertical movement to my advantage. If I could jump from roof to roof, or at least, keep climbing roofs and making them try to get up them, I could eventually gain some ground, perhaps even lose them.

I turned and looked back the way I had come and found the road I had used to get into town. I could see it ran cleanly down the middle of town, and had an idea of where it would emerge on the other side.

I’d have to cut a bee-line for that point.

I ran across the roof, took aim at a dilapidated slanted-over woodshed, and jumped. I landed on its roof, one hoof punching through the rotting plywood. The ghouls heard the noise.

They ran.

I jumped.

I climbed over wagons, raced across a fallen street light, and scrambled up the side of a collapsing bookstore.

They ran.

I jumped between the roofs of two ranch houses, landed on an apartment building fire escape and slipped inside the large building.

It was full of ghouls! Ghouls as far as the eye could see. They filled every room, every corridor. If they hadn't been sleeping when I barged in, I would have been dragged under again.

I ran.

They ran too, and joined the others outside.

I raced up the fire escape, onto the apartment roof, and then down the side of a building which had collapsed into the apartment.

They swarmed around the building. Shrieking and howling as loud as ever. Maybe louder.

My hydros screamed at me, begging for mercy. Even being topped up on coolant couldn’t help if you were generating heat faster than it could be removed!

I looked back. I had made no ground at all. The apartment delay had helped things, but the ghouls were just too fast. I had a few seconds lead on the ever growing swarm of ravenous maws.

I sprinted down the side of the building, scrambled up the side of a dumpster and jumped up, catching the edge of a fast-food restaurants roof and hauled myself up.

The rooftop provided a view of a large open grassy area surrounded by a wide strip of road, with a fountain in the middle. A town square. It had to be.

The Town square made my already dire situation worse by containing yet more ghouls!

I felt a crushing despair grip me as I wondered if the entire bucking town had been turned into ghouls. Then, I saw evidence it may have actually done just that.

A HUGELY oversized cargo wagon was overturned on the far side of the square. A prewar one. Blue, gold, and red. Hippocampus Energy. One of their big-bulky hazardous waste transport wagons. A pile of dark-greenish-black rocks had flowed out from the top of the wagon when it had tipped over and split open.

The entire street surrounding town square was covered in a greasy black film. Industrial waste. Dried sludge from a mana-reactor. Nothing else looks quite like that.

They said it would take hundreds of years for the radiation in reactor waste to go away. Apparently, it was true.

The ghouls in the square were hunched over the rocks, moving slowly if at all, conserving energy. They'd fed off this waste for so long, and now there were only traces left. Whether the gardens had swept away almost all the filth, or they were so decayed when they fired that the gardens hadn't bothered, or the terraforming megaspell had a few blind spots in its targeting program.

Either way, I was doomed.

If the ghouls were used to feeding off the rocks which my instruments told me were putting out a tenth of what my core was, I was a big glowing beacon of food for them. They were used to looking for things far less bright than I. I couldn’t get away by running.

Not from ghouls who thought I was meat with a belly full of nice hot rocks. Not unless…

I winced. This. Would. Hurt. Bad.

I jumped off the roof and ran straight for the wagon. Ghouls screeched and shrieked at me. I shot every single one I could, blasting a path to the pile of reactor waste. I needed to look less like food.

I holstered my pistol, reached back, ripped off part of my pelt in my teeth, and flung it away from me as hard as I could. Then, I ripped off another, and another, and another.

The ghouls kept running towards me.

I kept skinning myself alive.

The pain was impossible to describe. Desperation pushed me past it. I had no other out. I had to not look like food!

I tore the last scrap of pelt from my frame and flung it aside just as I reached the pile of waste. The ghouls shrieks and howls suddenly turned into frenzied roars and frothing. I turned around, worried I’d only made them angry.

I had.

The swarm was fighting with each other over the scraps of my skin. Good.

I waited a moment to make sure none of the ferals cared about me anymore. They didn't seem to. The ferals had their meat.

I turned, jumped over the side of the wagon, and sprinted out of town, ripping every shred of flesh from my frame as it regrew, crying when I had eyes before I had to rip them off of my face.

As I ran out of Applewood and raced down the road south I couldn’t help but realize that Wander would have known about this feral ghoul town. About Applewood. She could have spared me this pain.

Wander, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to...

☢★★◯★★☢

I wasn’t able to use my landmarking technique as I ran south through the night. I ran until my body started throwing text alerts up into my vision demanding I stop immediately. I found a hole. I hid in it for the night and just cried, trying not to vomit up overheated coolant.

At least, I think that’s how my pressure release valve worked. I hoped that’s how it worked.

That was the worst feral attack I’d ever experienced. As soon as my body wasn’t screaming at me, I got out of my hole and jogged. Heading south. Heading away from Applewood.

I didn’t stop jogging until the sun came up. I only stopped then because the stresses on my healing talisman and what I’d forced myself to endure had the diodes in my left side screaming in agony. A dull ache no more, they made their state known by screaming, stabbing my insides, and seeming to shift and slide around.

I wasn’t a meat-zebra. I wasn’t supposed to have sloshy insides. It was psychologically distressing, on top of agonizing.

The best I could do was walk.

Walk straight down the road, ready to shoot anything that moved.

Straight down the road, well away from anything remotely big enough to hide a feral.

I kept walking until the sun started setting. The only reason I stopped was because of the sign. I’d been so terrified and checking my flanks and six so much I walked right into it. Nor had I noticed the small, sprawling little town the sign was for any time I’d crested the many hills I’d walked up and down that day.

Welcome to Suggerville!
Home of Equestria’s least expensive drawbridge.

“Heh…” I laughed, my ears laying back and my left eye widening. “Heh… hehehehehahahahaha! BUCK THAT!”

I turned and started to trot off the road to the east. I was going the buck around Feral Hell 2: Electric Booglaoo!

I made my way around the edge of the town, staying well away from the buildings, moving from bush to bush, rock to rock, and keeping low to the ground when I had no cover. I was going to make my way safely around this trap. I was going to survive. I was going to—

Run straight into a canal.

I didn’t fall into the 60-meter wide artificial river. No. I simply saw it from afar. I saw how it cut me off from safety like the vengeful horn of Celestia herself.

Sugarville was built on either side of the banks of an enormous river. I had no idea how far up river I’d need to walk to find a way to cross. It could be days. Or a week.

Sugarville had mentioned having a bridge.

NO!

NO TOWNS!

NEVER AGAIN!

I’LL CALL WANDER, AND HOMAGE, AND WE’LL LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BUCKING WOODS IN A BUCKING IGLOO!

"Gears, snap out of it!” Imaginary Dad shouted. "You have a package to deliver, young mare! They paid for postage! Are you going to let the Kingdom down?”

Dad’s ultimatum shook me out of my blind terror.

He was right.

I was a mail mare.

Not just that. I was a Royal Courier!

I had a package.

It needed delivering.

And by Celestia, I was the only mare around here qualified for the job.

“Be there acid rain, bloodice, Windigo, or ghoul, we will deliver the mail...” I muttered to myself to help steel my non-existent nerves.

I grit my teeth and turned to follow the canal into town.

"That’s my girl! You got this. One hoof at a time.”

Sugarville was quiet… Too quiet. But, by the time I’d moved through row after row of dilapidated, nearly identical traditional wattle and daub houses and returned to the main road, I was confident the town was deserted.

For starters, everything here had clearly been picked over. Most buildings showed signs of recent salvage work. Pulled nails scattered here and there. Patches of missing timbers which terminated in cut ends, not broken ones.

I also passed by a rum distillery. I’d peeked inside. All the brewing and distilling equipment was long, long gone. Ponies came here. Ponies worked here. They just didn’t live here.

That made a feral ghoul swarm unlikely… and they probably didn’t live here because a days’ walk up the road was actually hell.

Further hope of safety came to me as I reached the road and spotted hoof prints and wagon ruts in the dirt covering the road. More than just one set. Lots of them, old and new. A thing I should have been looking for back in hell.

Caravaners came through here! Not just one lost caravan from halfway across the continent. Lots of them. Regularly.

It. Was. Safe.

I hoped.

After a few more minutes of walking, I reached the drawbridge. It was one of the industrial kind meant for letting large boats pass under it. I fully believed it was the least expensive on in Equestria, as the sign had proclaimed.

The bridge had precisely one decorative feature. Four concrete pillars located at the corners of the hinges on either side of the bridge which had once been topped with lamps. The rest of the bridge was a flat bit of sheet metal, topped with wood, and some very, very insufficiently thick looking bits of square metal tubing welded into the approximation of a bridge.

It was in terrible shape when it had been new. Now it was in horrible... shape? Could this be adequately described as a ‘shape’ for a building to be in?

No. No it could not.

Fortunately, ponies had patched it up with materials gathered from the town itself. Including several large pillars which went down into the canal itself. The drawbridge bridge drew no more, it would seem.

I smiled in relief. I half expected to have to find six arbitrarily sized and inconveniently located gears, along with six fuses of a random proprietary make, and specifically a lever, not a stick, or a pipe, but an actual lever which is for some reason, detachable from the control panel, to be able to move the bridge.

"Sweetie… After the next delivery, please see a mechanic. I think you got knocked a little loopy by that Sentinel.”

That's… probably a good idea.

I looked across the bridge. Sixty meters. No cover. Not a so much as a tipped over trash can.

On the upside, that meant no feral ambush until I got to the other side of the bridge. On the downside, something about the big stretch of open territory, and all the tall buildings surrounding the canal made the fur on the back of my neck stand up.

Something wasn’t right here…

But I had a package to deliver.

I took a step forwards, and froze as I caught a faint whiff of tobacco. Laying on the bridge, not too far from me, was a cigarette butt. A new one. The end was still smoldering. Somepony had been here very, very recently!

Maybe they would be willing to travel with me. There was safety in numbers and I clearly had no idea how to avoid the dangers here, even if I was good at that back home.

On the other hoof… The general stink of the whole bridge situation became that much more potent.

I took a deep breath, readied my LAER just in case, and started to cross the bridge.

My hooves clicked on the old timbers, and tinked against the odd metal plate patching the deck as I trotted across the bridge. Slowly. One hoof at time. Ears up and alert, scanning for danger, just as Dad taught me.

As I reached the middle of the bridge, I winced, waiting for a sniper’s bullet to split my head.

Nothing happened.

As I reached the three quarters mark, I started to relax. I was just still worked up from the ghouls. I’d passed the obvious ambush spot, and nothing bad had happened. All I had to worry about now was the old auto-wagons rusting on the sides of the road on the far side of the bridge. If a bunch of puss-bleeding ferals didn’t explode out of them like clown cars when I got off the bridge, I’d be okay.

I trotted forwards, keeping my eyes on the wagons. They were the biggest threat. They obscured a lot of the sidewalks. There could be so many ghouls in them, under them, and behind them.

So many…

My left forehoof clicked against the metal hinge on the far side of the bridge. I was across… Now, to sneak past the wagon and—

A rifle cracked!

I, bucking, called it!

My left foreleg exploded in pain as a bullet sliced through it, punching cleanly through my light armor and cutting a hydraulic line. My still agonizingly painful diodes decided they would attempt to transcend their mortal forms and become elementals of pure pain.

They succeeded.

I fell forward, my mostly-useless leg folding under me as I couldn't keep it pressurized. The rifle cracked again, and I felt a bullet whizz over my head, then heard it thunk into the bridge, splintering wood.

The concrete pillar! Decorative, but still concrete!

I pushed myself up on my three working legs and limped to the pillar, taking shelter behind it just as a third bullet punched a hole through the bridge’s deck.

Dad! Help! How counter-snipe? I silently begged, knowing that at some point he’d taught me how to handle gunfights.

If I wasn’t in extreme pain, I’d probably not have to try so hard just to think about—

A chunk of concrete exploded above my head as the sniper tried to shoot me through my cover. He’d almost succeeded.

Makes sense. Cheapest bridge, cheapest concrete.

“Don’t listen to me, don’t think, do what I say as I say it.”

I nodded and took a deep breath to calm myself.

"First: Locate the sniper’s position. Listen to the shots and the sound of bullet impacts. Use them to draw a line to the sniper.”

I did my best to think back at the shots. Their direction, how they had hit and come and—

Another shot rang out, the bullet whistled past my ear, almost cutting a groove in it.

And there were two shooters! They were probably on the same building, but there had to be two.

I peeked out from behind cover, looking up where the bullet had come from, and there they were. Two stallions with high-powered hunting rifles perched atop a large balcony in front of a clothing store.

A pegasus and an earth pony. Both wearing the olive green vest of the Tainted.

Great! I was on the road they were hitting today!

”Second: Isolate the target. Use suppressing fire, or have your partner cut off escape routes.”

I couldn’t do any of that. But, I could return fire now that I knew where they were. I imagined the rules were different for counter sniping when you were the target rather than responding to a sniper as a SWAT pony.

I shifted position to take a shot at the sniper farthest from me while he reloaded his bolt action rifle and—

A third pony, a mare clad in remarkably new looking equestrian heavy infantry armor, jumped out from behind one of the auto-wagons. She’d been standing just behind the rear wheel base, making sure her hooves weren’t visible from the bridge.

I had just enough time to take note of her battle saddle’s large fuel-tank before the twin heavy-flamers on her flanks plunged me back into hell.

I shrieked, feeling every fleck of hide as it caught fire. Every little armor plate as it began to smoke. I could smell myself cooking even before my vision started to drown in heat warnings.

I fired my LAER into the fire. Once, twice, three times. The flame subsided. I felt the comparatively freeing breeze blow across my bare plates. The flamer-mare’s eyes widened as she saw my armored endoskeleton. She shrieked.

One of the snipers yelled something. I couldn’t hear him, my mind was still screaming in agony.

"BUCKING ANAL SEEPAGE ON A SANDWICH! KILL THE BASTARD BEFORE YOU BURN!”

Dad’s order snapped me out of it, and I fired everything I had at the flamer mare. My LAER struck her twice in the chest. Energy bolts crackled and sparked, sliding off her armor or scorching small pits into the energy-resistant plating.

No good, I needed something bet—

She opened up with her flamers once more. I screamed again. My clothing burst into flames, everything but my scarf and saddlebags were fully ablaze within seconds. Critical heat warnings began to scream in my vision and ears. This was it. I was dead.

"DON’T YOU DARE DIE UNTIL THAT PACKAGE IS DELIVERED, YOUNG LADY!”

I fired my eyelaser.

Something exploded, and even more fire washed over me in a single pulse. A wall of fire, scorching my armor pates black and triggering a thermal-shutdown warning. This one was audible.

“Gears! Stop what this instant and get your butt home! Honestly! If you want attention you don’t need to parboil your cpu!” Mom’s recorded voice scolded in my ears.

The fire vanished. I saw the blackened halves of the flamer-mare’s corpse. I’d nailed her fuel tank. That was lucky. Maybe I could—

“WERE OUT OF FIRE! KILL IT WITH BULLETS!” One of the snipers screamed in terror.

Rifles cracked, I felt a bullet punch through my briancase.

Thank Celestia that’s empty.

I knew I couldn’t aim my LAER up with three legs. Taking my only chance I dropped to the ground and bent to draw my pistol from its leg holster.

A bullet punched a crater into the asphalt in front of my nose.

My pistol came out of its holster.

A bullet put a second hole through my leg, thankfully hitting nothing new.

I fired a barrage of green bolts at the balcony, peppering it as best I could with only my neck to aim.

My systems were still blisteringly hot. I felt something beyond sluggish. My movements were glacial.

The first sniper would have survived if he hadn’t popped up to take a shot. My green bolt burnt a hole through his head, and the pegasus dropped, falling back down to where he had poped up form in the first place.

I missed the second sniper. He popped up, vaulted over the side of the balcony, dropped to the ground, drew a sawed off shotgun, and gave me both barrels.

I shrieked in agony as the buckshot thunked against my definitely-unhardened armor. It didn’t punch through but it hurt on the same scale as the constant pain in my diodes.

So much pain… So hot… can’t move… gonna die...

"PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY!” Dad bellowed in a commanding voice.

The bandit turned his head and yelled something. There were more. Even if I could move, there were more…

"STAND UP! THERE IS GLORY IN YOUR PAIN!”

Not a soldier, imaginary dad… sorry… for letting you down…

"YOUR WOUNDS MEAN NOTHING! STAND!”

The bandit drew two slugs. I could tell by the little stripes on the shell casings. This was it… I couldn’t stand up to a slug when my armor was new, and its temper had just been shot to Tartarus and back.

I guess I’ll get to see you now…

"YOU’RE LETTING THEM STEAL YOUR PACKAGE! STAND! FIGHT!”

I truly, honestly, couldn’t move.

"YOUR MOTHER NEEDS YOU!”

Something deep in me, deeper than I had reached for ages, snapped. It was a tiny, little, itty, bitty, speck of power, but it was pissed!

I turned my head and shot the bandit twice in the heart.

I turned over and pushed myself up. The little spark… my spiritual power. Neglected. Underutilized for so long. If I hadn’t focused so much on being a zebra, I could make myself work like I was new. Instead, even with all my will channeling my magic through my systems, I could barely stand.

I heard three voices speaking indistinctly. Hoof steps. Running. Three more. They were coming around the auto-wagon the flamer-mare had used for cover.

"MAKE THEM TREMBLE! VICTORY IS YOURS TO TAKE! FORWARD!”

I staggered forwards, moving to the side of the wagon, resting my right flank against it, pistol aimed high, LAER aimed at chest level.

The first came around the wagon. I fired, my LAER’s raw power at this range made his barrel pop like a meat balloon as he took the lightning bolt point-blank.

The second one stumbled over the corpse. I bent down and fired my pistol. Three bolts burned through his flak vest, and he fell atop his friend’s corpse.

“SHIT!” The third squeaked, skidding to a stop and pulling an impressively fast 180.

I staggered out of cover. He needed to die. He was going to move around to flank me and kill me. He needed to die.

The bandit sprinted across the street. I fired my LAER, sending three lightning bolts streaking after her long braided blond tail. None of them hit. Even with my magic bracing my foreleg, it wouldn’t move enough for me to aim properly.

I brought my pistol to bear on the retreating bandit and fired. She ducked, seemingly on instinct, and the bolt streaked over her head.

“I GIVE UP! I’M SORRY! DON’T KILL ME!” She screamed, throwing a combat knife and a pistol to the ground as she continued to run, vanishing into an alleyway.

Oh. Retreating.

I don’t have the energy to chase her…

”She may come back. Ears sharp. New priority, see if they had some duct tape, patch your hydraulic line before you run out of spirit-power, sweetie.”

Imaginary Dad has the best advice about being a ghost in a machine, somehow...

But, I could one-up it. I checked to make sure my Link Module was still working properly and able to access my Stilt Strider. Everything was green. Impressive, considering the Strider had definitely taken a fire bath just now.

The slender metal legs deployed just as I exhausted my meager supply of spiritual energy. I dangled limply from the pack, barely able to direct it towards the two bandits I had just shot.

It took me nearly ten minutes to check their packs for tape. Nothing. Not a single one of them had tape. In fact, not a one of them had sufficient supplies to last even a night out in the wilderness. I could believe the Tainted had a camp to the far north. They had to have a few ghoul members who would need food, and I swore those bandits had said something about a fort… but I wasn’t in a thinking mood.

All I knew is these ponies didn’t have any duct tape. They had guns though, so I took them. And their bullets. Those had to be worth selling, and I didn’t want the mare who got away to come back, pick up a high-powered rifle and go on a quest for revenge against me.

So, I collected every, single, weapon, the Tainted soldiers had on them.

While searching the sniper who had jumped down from the balcony, I did find something which, I felt, in a more stable mindset, would have worried me a lot more. A letter, containing orders.

I want the zebra taken out. She’s already done enough damage by delivering a few of those radios. Merrang’s crew completely dropped the ball by letting Lith’s messenger walk by them. They had her bound, we missed our only chance to stop the damage. Contain it, or it will be your head.

She took down one of our Ultra-Sentinels on her own, and somehow smuggled an energy weapon into Tenpony. Make no mistake, that mare isn’t a mail mare. She’s definitely Lith Special Forces. Our agents tell us she’s heading to Filly. Find a good spot along the road and take care of her.

Don’t make me send Gale to do the job. We can’t afford another Magebridge yet and every time we wake him up we risk blowing the entire operation.

G.C.

This was important. Letters are Important.

I tucked it into my saddlebag with the letters. I’d find some nice Tainted to deliver the orders to. You always deliver lost mail. It’s common court—

Wait. No. Bad Gears! Those were orders to kill me! The Tainted were after ME! What if they torched Magebridge to try to get rid of me?

“Shit…” I mumbled, unable to react any more than that.

The worst thing about this was that the letter hadn’t even been sealed with a single centimeter of duck tape. They’d used cheap wax. No. Not wax. Raw sap.

Savages!

I made my way up to the bandit who died on the balcony and collected his weapon. He had a medical kit on him. It had no duck tape, but I took it anyways. He also had a few strips of dried Rad Hog meat.

I ate them.

I could tell my healing talisman’s matter reserves were almost empty. I’d have to graze or something. How long had it been since I’d had to eat?

I frowned to myself. I don’t think that January first, 1970 is correct… Dad? Have I eaten since then?

"Yes, you most certainly have, dear. Please, find tape, fix yourself up, then find a mechanic.”

Maybe there’s some in the store?

"It’s worth a shot.”

I climbed down the storefront and just shot the window to break it and enter. I felt dumb, because once I was inside I saw the door next to the window was open. In my defense. I was almost dead… And I was probably still dying.

The store was a bust. Totally empty. Not even clothing racks were left. Just some wires and hooks too rusty to be worth salvaging hanging from the ceiling. Even the place where the store’s wooden counter had once been was just a bare spot on the floor. I wouldn't have known a counter had been there if not for the bare floorboards being a tiny bit less dark there than anywhere else in the store.

I was about to leave and check anywhere else when I saw a closed door at the back of the store. A closed door. Meaning it might not be looted.

I trotted towards it, taking note of a sign on the door which read:

Specialty Items. No foals!

Below that was a separate sign, this one had a pony’s signature on it. Not graffiti, an actual intentional signature. I couldn't read it, but the rest of the sign read:

This facility approved for sale of Type C and F restricted items by the MoI and MoM on 06/9/2069

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I hoped it meant “this room contains your mom, her workshop, hugs, and a special somepony or three.”

I reached out and tried the door knob. Locked.

I shot the door knob until it was molten slag and pushed the door open.

I had no time for such obsolete and pretentious things as lockpicking. I had tape to find.

Celestia, my diodes… Why were they still killing me?

I looked through the open door, peering through the dimness. I frowned. “Oh.”

I’d just found the store’s erotic clothing section.

Boo! Not tape.

I looked down and blinked back tears. “Poop…”

"Hon, look up and to the left.”

I turned my head and saw a rack of black silk panties. For a minute, I had no idea why Imaginary Dad directed me to look at underwear, but then I saw it. Each pair came bundled with a roll of duct tape for reasons I couldn’t even begin to fathom!

They were the little tiny rolls of tape, not the big construction ones, but they were tape!

“YES!” I raced forward and snatched the first roll I could find.

I quickly dug my screwdriver out from my pack and began taking apart my leg to patch the hydraulic line. It was a long, tedious, and difficult job, but, just as the moon began to rise, I managed to get my hydro-line to stop leaking.

The patch even stood up to full pressurization! Well, as fully pressurized as I could make it, having lost a good amount of hydraulic fluid thanks to the cut line. Fortunately, I could move at a slow walking speed. Just fast enough to save my Strider’s battery for when I needed it for difficult terrain.

I did check the adult section to see if they happened to bundle ethylene glycol with socks, or some hydraulic fluid with the weirdly-big dog collars. After all, if they had bundled one kind of robot medical supply with fetish clothing, why not others?

Unfortunately, they had not.

They did have a lot of faded magazines, but I didn’t think micarta would be a good patch for the holes in my chassis, so I ignored them.

On the upside, I left the room with about thirty rolls of duct tape, a few pairs of hoofcuffs they were selling for Celestia knows why, a large irregularly shaped silicone rod that might be useful for patching a leak or plugging something, and one nice full body multi-piece outfit.

It consisted of thigh high boots with socks, some kind of skin tight vest thingy which appeared to adjust for maternity purposes, a little hood that could zip to cover the face (great for blizzards!), a short pleated skirt, a paler pink body glove which didn’t cover the flanks (for… reasons?), and some straps that looked like the fashion equivalent of tactical webbing. It was made from supple black leather trimmed with a lovely purple lace and matching purple cotton accessories, with decorative silver studs on the leather.

Well, Homage might like it, and it was exactly my size! I never find clothes my size, and romance sometimes required special clothing. Or, at least, so I’d been told.

I had no idea what the outfit was called, but it seemed special! And if Homage didn’t like it, I bet Wander would. If I ever saw her again. Talking with Homage made me realize I had felt the same way about Wander as I had Homage, but more so, because of all the time we’d spent together…

Though, if Wander had been here, I probably wouldn't have found the back room and gotten the outfit so… Mixed feelings there. Mostly bad.

There was no sense waiting around. I didn’t need to sleep. I needed to find help, and there might be some help in Fillydelphia.

I left the store, turned south, and walked down the road in the moonlight as quickly as my battered body would allow.

☢★★◯★★☢

Around noon the next day it started to rain. Normally I like the rain. Not today. I didn't have enough biomass to generate all of my skin. Of course my hurt leg was the one thing that didn’t get regenerated… And of course grass wouldn’t work. I’d have to find some meat somewhere.

The rain kept leaking into my leg and making the tape come off my broken line. It was on the fifth time today for patching it back up. I should have eaten half of a bandit… Maybe with some motor oil to get the gross meaty taste out of it.

I was making horrible progress. I could see Fillydelphia on the horizon, but it felt like I wasn't even moving.

Actually, it felt like I had been punched in the side by that Ultra-Sentinel again, if my side was made entirely of testicles. Only my desperate need for repairs and knowing I needed to deliver my packages kept me going through the pain.

Step. Sob. Step. Sob. Step. Sob.

That was life now. Cold, slimy, oily rain and diode pain as I hobbled towards a city I’d never reach.

Step. Sob. Step. Sob. Step. Sob.

Something was making an odd wooshy rushy noise. I decided not to look. It was just going to be more pain, right?

Step. Sob. Step. Sob. Step. Sob.

The sound got louder, and louder, and louder. I grit my teeth, knowing something horrible was about to happen.

Step. Sob. Step. Sob. Step. Sob.

Then, it hit me. The rain.

The oily drizzling down pore turned into a full-blown monsoon made from pure hatred and throwing down literal golf ball sized raindrops. For a moment I swore I’d just stepped into a lake, but no! There was actual air between some of the raindrops. Imagine that.

I only barely had time to appreciate this new level of suck the rain had aspired to before a wall of water twice my height smashed into me from the side, and I was swept away in a flash flood!

It felt like it literally came out of nowhere. It had to have! I was on level ground! There was no water anywhere! And the dirt was dirt! It should have absorbed all the rain.

And yet, I was tumbling head over hooves, smashing into rocks, logs, and floating debris inside a massive ball of water that just swept across the ground in a total buck you to physics, reason, logic, and common decency!

I slammed into something big, heavy and unyielding. I heard a crunch and all of my senses went offline. I knew I was awake still, thanks to one of mom’s recordings going off in my mind.

“Primary sensory relay is offline. Please stand by! Literally. Stand by. Do not move while systems reboot.”

Followed by a more angry-but caring-motherly. “What did you do, young lady!?”

Without the ability to tell time, everything seemed to last forever. Blackness. Nothing. Isolation. Darkness. That was my world for an eternity.

When the eternity was over, I was laying on my head and neck splattered against the side of an old train car. I whimpered and slowly picked myself up, whimpering as my vision flickered and went spotty.

I’d broken something VERY important… Mom was going to fix me, angrily bap my nose so hard it would bend, feel horrible about that, and then fix me again!

I wiped the tears and water out of my eyes with my good leg and sniffled before glaring up at the sky. Only one thing could have caused a flood like that… A weather machine.

“Well buck you too, Pip!” I screamed into the sky. “Homage and I didn’t even cuddle! I blew my one bucking chance! You didn’t have to try to drown me. By the way, I DON’T BREATHE!”

A warning popped up in my vision as my diagnostic system came back online. I was completely out of coolant.

“Shi…” I mumbled to myself, unable to finish swearing thanks to the absolute ball of misery I was at that moment.

I quickly checked my belongings. Fortunately, my packs enchantments had ensured everything stayed inside. I’d been worried the fire had destroyed the enchantments, but, ironically, the bags and my scarf were the only clothing I had which survived the ghouls, flamethrower, and the flood.

How the floodwaters removed what remained of my armored socks, I’ll never know.

I still had that outfit I picked up in the clothing shop, but I didn’t want to leak hydraulic fluid all over it. I wasn't putting it on until I was fixed. I had to wear something after all. Heartland ponies dressed. That was the custom.

When in Roam, do as Roamanes do. Figuring out how to put on my new outfit was a concern for later. Right now I had a new idiom to focus on, one I just came up with myself.

When waterlogged, burnt, and boiling yourself to death, proceed quickly and efficiently to the nearest mechanic.

I turned, oriented myself towards the city on the horizon, and limped my way towards it.

Step. Sob. Step. Sob. Step. Sob…

Author's Note

LEVEL UP!

+1 Endurance

Level Perk: Celestial Aid - Looks like some higher power has taken a liking to you! Once per session, you have the option of re-rolling a failed roll, but you must accept the results of the re-roll.

Quest Perk: Iron Within - You’ve been burned. You’ve been bled. You’ve been beaten. You’ve been broken. That’s all behind you now. Any time there would be a penalty caused by pain or damage, the penalty is halved.

13 - In the Line of Fire

The sun was setting. It took me six hours to move three kilometers. The distance between me and Fillydelphia had looked longer than that. The fact that I was seeing my legs as being longer than I knew they were meant something was majorly broken in my visual processors, or worse yet, my Sweetie Eyes. Yay…

I had my gaze clamped on the gate in the wall around the city. I wasn’t sure how they’d found enough auto-wagons to stack up and make a wall around the whole city out of, or if there were any non-wagon segments of wall. That didn’t matter. What mattered was there would be a mechanic in there.

The would help me. They had to help me. I’d thought about radioing the Sandfly for an emergency evac… but I couldn’t. My internal radio was down. I couldn’t use the radios I was delivering for that. They weren't mine.

Opening another ponies mail is treason. Like, actually treason. I’d be shot.

I’d survive, but that would hurt. I had enough hurt going on right now, so no thank you.

I needed to get to those gates, and at the very least, get access to a radio. Or get mine fixed.

I could do it at the gates. Gates. The final frontier. These are the voyages, of a very very hurt zeeb. Her current mission, get to the gates which are closer than they appear.

It was back to the same routine I’d been using for the last six hours.

Step. Sob. Step. Sob. Step. Sob.

I found myself one and a half tents into a small NCR camp set up in front of the gates before even noticing it was there. It was truly tiny. The camp consisted of two whole tents and a single defensive trench dug between it and the gates.

I looked at the trench with a mixture of contempt and despair. Obstruction detected! Shallow pit consistent with bronze age earthwork fortification. Probability of mission hindrance… One hundred percent!

Wait. No. I can just go around. It’s as tiny as the tiny camp.

I turned to go around it, and a lightly accented voice yelled something at me. It took me a moment to realize it was, “Uh, miss? Miss? Hey! Miss! HALT!”

It took me another moment to realize the voice hadn’t come from thin air, but had in fact come from a griffon. A tall one, dressed in battered armor which didn’t match the NCR’s gear. Black polymer plating over a thin Kevlar body glove. It had a little white talon painted on the shoulder plates.

I started into the griffon’s green eyes for a few seconds, trying to figure out what to do.

Oh. Yeah. Say something in Griffon! Ummm…

I blinked. “Ya machina.”

His eyes widened slightly. “Excuse me?” his voice held a hint of amusement and laughter.

Did I mispronounce it? Better repeat. “Ya machina.”

The griffon turned to his left put a talon up to his beak and yelled, “Medic!”

I frowned. Medic? No. I’m a postmare.

…

Should I tell him he’s wrong, or—

The griffon turned to a shorter earth pony-stallion who was dressed in a white jacket. “I think she’s concussed. Give her a checkup.”

“Are you sure she’s not with the enemy, sir?” the jacketed stallion asked.

“If she is, she’s too out of it to attack us,” the griffon said, sitting down and looking me over.

The stallion stepped over to me and took out a stethoscope from a black bag he wore around his neck and shoulder.

Oh! He was the medic. I didn’t need one of those.

I slowly raised a leg, my damaged one. “N— No… thanks…”

The Medic frowned and shook his head. “Yea, sorry, but no. You need some help.”

I nodded. “Yes, but not from—”

The pony pressed his stethoscope up to my barrel and made the weirdest face. “Wut?”

He reached up and wiped some of the much off my barrel then put the stethoscope back.

“I really don’t need—” I began.

He cut me off with a raised hoof. “Miss, you’re clearly injured and—”

I stared at him with what I felt was the most tired expression I ever had in my life.

“I don’t need a doctor. I need…” I was about to say mechanic when I noticed another pony in the camp.

They had a bottle of something. It was alcoholic. I could smell it! Coolant! Sweet delicious coolant. Give! Need!

“... a stiff drink,” I finished.

The medic gave me a deadpan stare. “You don’t need alcohol. Sir, I can't find her heartbeat or any sign of breathing. I do hear something mechanical and it’s straining hard. Given her leg, we can assume she’s got other hardware, and I’m pretty certain it’s broken, given how strained that artificial organ sounded.”

The griffon nodded slowly. “I see… So you’re saying she’s—”

“A cyberpony… Erm, cyberzebra, sir,” the medic finished, carefully touching their stethoscope away. “She’s hurt, bad.”

I heard a mare’s voice from behind me. “Sir! Given her lack of a flak vest and obvious energy weapons, I doubt she’s with the enemy. The enemy has a clear uniform, and even their heavily armored ponies and officers are using ballistic weapons. More likely she ran into them on the road and they left her for dead… and she fell in a river? They didn’t loot her weapons, so something had to have prevented them from taking it.”

The griffon stood up and walked towards me. “Good theory, corporal,” he said before looking me in the eyes. “Where are you from?”

“North… Over the mountains… I need a mechanic. Also alcohol. Please,” I begged, giving the pony with the bottle a look.

He frowned and looked between the bottle and me, but the griffon spoke up again before I could try to give him Sweetie Eyes.

“Ah, civilian… That’s a damn shame,” He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “Miss, this is an active combat zone. We have no reinforcements, and are short supplies. I can’t offer you any medical attention, and Fillydelphia is currently occupied by a gang calling themselves the Tainted. We’re warning people away until the 501st arrive to retake the city.”

I blinked slowly. Processed what he said, the groaned. “Oh…” I paused to think of an appropriate curse word. “Expletive!”

Shit! I bucked it up!

The pony with the bottle winced. “Luna’s fetlocks… Sarge, come on, we can spare one dose of Pot-X for her. She can have mine.”

The griffon turned around to shake his head at his subordinate. “She can’t, Rust. We don’t have one for anyone.”

The medic cleared his throat. “One of the gang made off with my saddlebags. We’re limited to my field kit and Private Cream’s trauma pack.”

Rust’s face went pale. “I… Not even a—”

Suddenly it clicked with me what was going on. The Tainted had moved to cut me off at the pass! If they took the city and/or killed the town’s leaders I couldn’t deliver to one of the major cities. That couldn’t be the entire reason for a full scale attack… Especially not when the note said they couldn’t do that. Something had to have drawn their atten—

The moment of clarity struck twice.

Mom’s old lab!

She’d done a lot of work in the Crystal City MAS Production Facility, but her private lab had been in the MAS Prototyping Facility here in Filly. It was located beneath a donut shop downtown. Technically most of downtown... It was fairly deep underground, as it had to be below the subway system and the supporting stonework for that. Practically a Stable unto itself, thanks to the sheer amount of rock between it and the surfice.

It was still intact, as far as I knew.

Intact and filled with who knows what! If my coming here coincided with them learning about mom’s old lab… I had to get there! I had to stop them. I had mom’s ID, I could activate the lockdown mode. Or the self destruct. This Tainted gang couldn’t get their hooves on whatever advanced weapons, armor, or machines were down there!

I couldn’t let them take it. I had to try to stop them. Also, Homage used the old MAS broadcasting center! I could message her for help via the HUB Radio network. Probably.

ALSO! These soldiers were bucked and I was carrying a ton of medical supplies I literally had absolutely no use for at all. Those who can, do.

I opened up my saddlebag and took out the medical kit I’d looted off the Tainted assassin I’d killed… Yesterday? Today?

When am I?

Clearing my throat I held it out to the medic. “I took some of them down before the river existed on me into a wall,” I managed to say mostly coherently.

The medic blinked. “And you… managed to unbuckle that bag form one of their vests during a firefight?”

“No, I killed him,” I murmured. “And his friends. Flamer exploded… That helped a lot. They didn’t have any duct tape on them, or anything useful. Not even a beer. Just this junk!”

The medic took the bag and opened it. His eyes popped out of his head. “Holy Celestia! Sarge! There’s twelve stimpacks in here! Blue stripes! That means healing potions!”

The griffon squawked, making a sound which reminded me of a surprised raven. “And you’re just giving them to us?!” He asked looking me in the eyes, then frowned. “You don’t look concussed. You know we can’t pay the Princess’s ransom for those, right?”

“It’s war, isn't it?” I asked with a confused frown. “You need them. I don’t. Take them.”

Rust trotted over to me and pushed the bottle into my hoof. “Sound like you value this more than those. Take it.”

I looked at him with the most loving, eye watering gaze I’d ever had. “Thank you!”

He smiled. “You’re wel—”

I tipped my head back and drained the remaining liter of liquid. Whisky, I think. It wasn’t too potent, but I heard my coolant pump and core make a little happy humm as I stopped running entirely on damp air and sadness.

I was running the whisky straight as coolant. No synthesis. I’m so low I’m in emergency mode. Poop!

I handed the bottle back and looked at him hopefully. “More?”

The griffon looked at me for several seconds, wings flared in alarm. The medic looked white as a sheet, as if he expected me to drop dead. Rust reached under his uniform’s trench coat and brought out a second bottle.

I drank it all.

My systems gave me the green light and began to process… the very last cup or so into coolant. Oh wow. I’d been out out!

The entire squad of six ponies and one griffon were staring at me like I was Celestia herself. Why? All I did was drink down some spoiled wheat juice.

Hoping a joke would diffuse the situation, I smiled a little. “So uh… I don’t suppose the bandits have some Ultra-Sentinels I could punch?”

The Griffon Sargent facetaloned. “You’re that Zeeb! That’s why you said you were The Machine! Right! Okay. So, no. They don't. But they’ve got a big-ass brute of a pegasus in some hot rodded power armor with too many guns, and about a hundred infantry mares that I know of. Probably more! I had no idea the Tainted were that numerous!”

He stepped over to me and bent down to look me in the eye. “You may be a bad enough mare to beat down a Sentinel, and I respect that, but there’s an army in there pressing the locals for recruitment. Their number could have exploded, for all we know. Filly’s always been inhabited by ponies who value personal freedom. Spending years as slaves tends to do that. They aren’t exactly loyal to the NCR.

“You’re not going in there. No one is going in there. Not till the 501st gets here with AJ’s Rangers.”

I frowned. “What makes you think I’m going in?”

“You look like a mare who thinks she’s a one-pony-army, but isn’t,” he answered honestly.

I snorted and smiled at his comment. “Hahahahaaaaaaaagh!”

I almost fell over as laughing sent a massive wave of pain through my shot diodes. I heard the squad hiss in sympathetic pain.

“I’m just the mail mare,” I said once I was able to speak again.

The medic winced. “Miss, please lay down. The 501st will have medics with them. If you don't die from… Look, just… lay down. Be still. Wait.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. I lived here before Redeye… I was hoping to see if my mother left anything in our old home. And I need to deliver the mail.”

The griffon clenched his beak and huffed. “I don’t recommend going in there. Especially not in your condition.”

I smiled faintly. “I’ll be better if I can have another whisky.”

The medic winced. “Please don’t! I can smell your liver’s fear from here.”

“She drank Conan’s Brew and lived,” the griffon pointed out. “At least, that’s what DJ Pon3 said.”

He turned and looked at me. “I can’t let you in… but will another drink really help you?”

I nodded. “I… have a few tricks,” I said with a sheepish smile.

The medic frowned for a moment hen his ears perked up. “Of course! Zebra magic! Are you converting alcohol into a healing potion?”

“Kinda?” I said with a frown.

I mean, it wasn’t exactly a lie but—

The griffon looked over to his squad. “Well? I know you six looted the bar on the way out of the city!”

A sheepish looking mare with a violently green mane handed me a bottle of vodka.

“Anypony have some salt?” I asked looking around hopefully.

Rust produced a small brick of salt. It appeared to have soaked up some kid of liquid then dried again, as it was yellow and a bit blobby. Everyone looked at him like he was an idiot.

“What?” he asked sheepishly. “Pork flavored salt is good!”

Preserving salt. Whatever. It would work.

I took it from Rust, opened the vodka, popped the salt into my mouth, and dissolved it on my tongue with the vodka.

I felt my systems perk right up! I could move at more than a slow plod now. Yay for half-walking speed! WOOO!

I winced. The fact this felt so much better than a minute ago was more than a little distressing… It was still more damage than most auto-wagons were when they got listed as totaled…

I looked back into Rust’s eyes just in time to watch him shudder. “Okay, not even I’d do that.”

“Feeling better?” the sergeant asked, less in concern and more as a statement of stunned disbelief.

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Aaannny chance that healing potion will work for us?” The mare who gave me the vodka asked hesitantly.

I shook my head. “No. You can’t do that kind of magic.”

Unless of course she was a Robobrain III I didn’t know about. Not very likely.

“Shame,” the sergeant sighed stroking his beak. “We could use a healing ritual easy as that one.”

Healing ritual… healing… magical healing… Oh, my, Celestia, I am a bucking, idiot!

I facehooved and moaned. “I actually know one of those… Like, a proper one.”

The griffon snorted and shook his head. “Mare, you have to be really banged up if you forgot to use your own magic… Legally, I can’t stop you from heading inside. You're not a citizen, but we have a Freedom of Travel law enshrined in the constitution. But please, I beg you, don’t go in there.”

He bend down to look me in the eyes with all due seriousness as he said slowly. “Their leader’s wielding quad autocannons! You don't stand a chance.”

My eyes narrowed. Him! My eye twitched. “I have a bone to pick with him…”

“Whatever magic you have—” The sergeant began with a sigh.

The nice Vodka Dispensing Mare interrupted by talking to the sergeant. “Sir! I—” She paused, took a breath, and shifted to a less formal tone of voice. “Sviatoslav, off the record… Might I suggest asking her what she can do? Maybe trade more hooch for some magic? I don't think any of us know what zebras can do for real. Maybe she does have something that can help. Couldn’t they all turn invisible, pre-war?”

“Er, well, I suppose…” the sergeant said with a flutter of his wings.

The squad looked at me. Feeling a bit put on the spot, I decided a short lecture was do. “Um… Zebra magic is similar to Earth Pony magic. Rather than preternatural physical prowess, our magic is more focused on the bond with nature. We can sense the spirits which live all around us, inside of seemingly mundane objects.

“These spirits can be bargained with, and each has a particular variety of things it can do for you. Anyone with any natural talent in perceiving spirits can be a Shaman with the right training, not just zebra. It’s just that all zebras have the potential to become Shamen, while the talent is very rare in other species… We also have better luck interacting with spirits. We’re more likely to be successful, and they ‘charge’ us less. Uh, personally though, I’m really really bad at doing anything other than knowing if the rock I am standing on is spiritually or magically significant.”

“But, you could heal yourself?” The sergeant asked with an odd tilt to his head that made him totally look like a normal hungry birb.

Hehehe!

I nodded. “Yes. At least, for a little bit.”

“In that case, walking for, what? Hours in that condition? All without using your powers to get to help as quickly as possible is a sign of head trauma…” He said matter of factly before turning to the medic. “Gauze? Can we hold her on medical grounds?”

“Only if she agrees to be trea—”

“I don’t want treatment,” I said firmly.

“We cannot, sir,” the medic finished with a sigh.

“The real reason is that I uh… I'm really bad at it. Last time I tried to enchant something, I ripped all of my skin off,” I said with a blush and a tail droop.

I also made every changeling in a 30 meter radius involuntarily shapeshift into the opposite sex. But they didn’t need to know that.

Magical Vodka Mare laughed. I turned and gave her a hurt look. She winced. “Nothing personal! Just, it’s funny to see a zebra who isn’t all ancient, wise, mystical, and way more skilled than I’ll ever be.”

I nodded. That made sense. Most of us spend every minute of every day honing our trades to perfection. That’s why I took delivering the mail so seriously.

By Celestia! The mail! If they killed the town leaders before I delivered the radios to them, I’d have to wait for an election!

I narrowed my Sweetie Eyes, and based on the way everyone took a step back from me, radiated pure determination as I said. “I’m going in.”

The sergeant sighed loudly. “Okay… Look, if your old keepsakes mean so much to you, go ahead. It’s your grave… Odds are good they were stolen or vaporized over the years. Just FYI. Also… your best bet is the old sewers. Redeye did a good job clearing them out. Most are passable, and easier to move through than the streets, even if they were not currently occupied.

“I don't think the bandits know about them. Find the first one, duck in, follow the maps, and by Luna, if you’re in there when we move to retake the city, keep your flanks behind cover and your head down!”

“Ya machina,” I smiled and gave him a wink. “I’ll be fine.”

I didn’t really think so, but I had the feeling if I told him ‘I’ll probably keel over if I take so much as a BB’ he would have forced me to stay, laws be damned...

☢★★◯★★☢

Filly was exactly the way I remembered it. A completely bucked over ruin composed of endless rows of red-brick apartment buildings and stubby tan-brick skyscrapers that looked like it had exploded, or been exploded on. Twice.

It was nice to feel at home! Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to look around and be nostalgic.

I pried open the first mare-hole cover I found and slipped down into the sewer. Fortunately not literally. The ladder down into the dark, half-ellipse cobblestone tunnel was sturdy enough to hold me the entire way down without even a squeak to betray my presence.

As my hooves touched the dry, brown, crumbly dirt lining the bottom of the ancient sewer, I was super glad the place was a good two centuries out of commission. Given the almost solid flooring of ‘dirt’ that looked to be at least two hooves deep…

Well, I was just happy enough time had passed for the stuff to decay into proper soil.

”Uh, hon? Poop doesn't work that—”

Shut. Up. Dad! I thought hard, my left eye twitching. That’s. How. It. Works. Today. Understand?

”... Yeah, okay. Just… if you get into a fight like this, you’re dead. Please, Machine Spirit up. At the very least, it will help you get there quicker. You know you’ll take all night at this rate, and you’re right. The Tainted definitely want something in your mom’s old lab.”

Those were a set of points I really couldn’t refute.

I nodded, took a deep breath, and steadied myself. I hadn’t done this properly in a long time. I think I pulled a bit of it in the ambush, but I wasn’t quite sure if that was desperation or proper spirit magic.

I shivered. In my current state, if I bucked this up—

”Gears, sweety, you’ve never hurt yourself when you made mistakes. Only others, and nopony is nearby. You won’t make mom slough off one of her robotic limbs again. Just do it.”

“Okay dad,” I said out loud. “Let's go.”

I focused inwards, looking for myself. With the blinding pain in my side, and my core, and my leg, it was almost impossible to slip into a proper meditative trance, but I managed to get there with a little bit of determination and a few minutes. I reached into the veil, seeking the ethereal font of power within my spirit.

Ah. There it was. Not so much a font as a small cup. After so many years of ignoring my power aside from putting on a show to scare off the occasional windigo, and without anypony or zeeb making sacrifices to me, I didn’t have too much power not committed to, well… getting to be alive as I was now.

It takes a lot to be a mortal. A cost I was happy to pay, even considering the present situation.

I winced, realizing I didn’t have enough magic to make me do anything beyond my body’s normal capabilities. On the battlefield, that little trick is what made ‘zebra robots’ so deadly. Enough magic in our systems, and the most powerful of us could tank artillery fire, jump over a single story building in a single bound, and tear a pony apart with our bare hooves… All that with a body made from an artist's dummy made to scale with a pony. Little more than a few sticks, hinges, and ball joints.

A proper war golem was a small platoon unto itself. If we’d had more than a few hundred of them, we might not have had to use balefire.

I was not any kind of proper golem. Right now, I could make myself run as my platform was designed in spite of my damage. For… About 16 minutes and 40 seconds.

I focused my will, took hold of the magic within me, and demanded my body function properly.

My whole body shimmered. A bright silver light shone through the various holes in my chassis, making spots of my skin above those holes glow brightly as my magic took up the forms of sheared off gear teeth, temporarily bent rods back to true, patched holes, and restored damaged components.

The pain faded, still there, throbbing, dull, dampened down to background noise. I could ignore it for the time being. Except. For. My. Diodes!

WHY?!

I felt panic in the spirit world around me. Minor spirits in the machines, stones, earth and buildings around me as far as I could sense started to suppress their auras, fearing I would feed on them to restore my own power.

I bit my lip and through about doing just that for a moment…

NO!

No. That is wrong, and we left that life behind. We are not a random Machine Spirit any more. We are Whirling Gears, a zebra mare, and a good pony! I won't hurt others just so I gain some kind of advantage. That’s wrong!

I started to walk down the sewer, taking note of the ancient utility map stuck in a glass case on the wall. It was almost unreadable, but its dusty lines showed me the sewers ran directly under the streets. I knew where I was going. I had about fourteen minutes to get there.

Time to run!

Meter after meter of cobblestone wall flew by. It felt so wonderful to be able to run at my full speed again! It would have been nicer if I knew I wasn’t running towards a cliff. Not a literal cliff, but at some point soon my energy would run dry, and then, well…

Pushing that aside, I focused all of my attention on running and navigating.

Left, right, left, left, right, left, right, right, left…

Seemingly arbitrary directions, and a bit counterintuitive, but nopony ever said Filly was a well designed city. You can't just turn an ancient town built before wagons into a modern city and have roads that ran in a nice efficient grid.

Celestia forbid you just level the old obsolete dangerous buildings and appease the spirits by building them nice, newer, shiner homes… That you get to use too, along with a sensible grid based street system!

I made the last turn and emerged onto the street I knew I had to go topside at. If my memory serves me right, the street above me was just behind West Filly High School, and across the school’s hoofball field was the Donut Joe’s.

I could see a mare-hole up ahead of me. Its ladder was intact. All I had to do was climb that ladder, sneak across a large open sports field, get into an old shop that may or may not still be there, and get behind the counter… Or uh, over to the area it used to be, assuming the restaurant had been repurposed for some reason.

Unfortunately… I was out of magic.

I had pushed myself as hard as I could. I reached the ladder. My hooves pulled me up onto the first rung, then the second, the third… fourth… fifth… I was… almost… out.. Just... another…

Sleep…

☢★★◯★★☢

I came to suddenly, immediately realizing I’d fallen asleep. It was a weird feeling. I couldn’t remember the last time I was unconscious and didn’t wake up in the hell that is the spirit realm.

Compounding this weirdness was how I was now at the base of the ladder. I distinctly remembered climbing some of it.

I was also encapsulated by some kind of orange energy field. What was… Oh… Shit!

Somepony was holding me telekinetically! All of me!

I thrashed in their grip, turning to look for the pony keeping me captive. If I was lucky I could line up my LAER in spite of their TK holding me down and—

And I was being held prisoner by a tiny orange unicorn filly who was probably, at best, 14 years old.

She was dressed in a blue and black cloak which had definitely been cut out from a larger cloak, given its poor fit, and also looked very familiar. It took me a moment, but the dim glow of her horn eventually let me make out the white patch on the back of her cloak. SWAT, Filly. No. 8792.

Hey! Dad, that’s your badge number!

”Oh, hey! It is. I was wondering where I left that cloak… Think she’ll give it back?

We’ve got more important things to ask.

I cleared my throat unnecessarily. I thought the filly might not have noticed I was awake, but she had. She had slowly moved so her cloak wasn’t covering her forelegs… Which were shod with a pair of power hooves.

Okay. Do not anger the filly. She’ll literally punch your head into a pile of slag!

“Hello…” I said slowly and carefully. “Why are you holding me prisoner?”

The filly’s voice trembled slightly. She was terrified. Her body didn’t show it, but her voice did. “The Tainted have robots. I’ve never seen you. You’re a robot. You’re one of theirs.”

I blinked, hoping she was just taking my exposed leg and coming to the right conclusion by accident. I shook my head slowly, not wanting to provoke a scared filly who both held me still and could sheath her hooves in plasma at any moment.

“I’m not a robot. I’m a cyborg.”

“I can see you,” the filly said quietly. “You’re like those Zebra robots in the badlands. I’ve been there before. You’re one of them. Just… Just wearing some poor pony’s skin!”

She looked at me, both terrified, disgusted, and also ready to do something about the ‘evil monster robot’.

Even worse… she was spiritually awake. She could see me. The real me. Inside the shell.

There was only one way out of this. Tell the entire truth as quickly as possible.

I cleared my throat. “No. I’m not a zebra robot. I was made in Equestria, by Equestrians. Not every Shaman was working for Zebrica. Also, I am not a robot. I am a cyborg. I incorporate organic parts.”

“Yeah!” She said, her terror fading slowly into aggression. “That poor zebra’s skin! I— I’m going to take you to jail. As soon as it’s safe up there.”

Jail? Wut?

I blinked and tilted my head. “Jail? Are you serious? This is my skin. I grew it myself just yesterday! … Twice, actually.”

The filly nervously reached beneath her cloak and pulled out a police badge. “I— I’m an officer of the law! I finished the training simulations just like they used to. You hurt somepony, so— So I’m going to put you in jail!”

”Hey! That’s my badge!” Imaginary dad exclaimed, half upset and half amused.

I facehooved and moaned. Of all the ponies I could have possibly found, I get the filly who happened to stumble across some gear dad discarded all those centuries ago and decided to be a policemare…

“Look,” I started with a wary and cautious sigh. “I’m way too low on coolant, hydraulic fluid, and magic to cut a piece of this pelt off to show you that it’s mine. Is there any way I can prove to you that I’m not a Zebrican war golem?”

The filly narrowed her eyes, still shaken but clearly not as scared as she used to be. “You know what they were really called. Nopony in Equestria knows that.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Then how do you know it?”

She squirmed in place for a moment. “I… Was in the badlands. There’s remnants of your army there. I learned it from them. Where did you learn it?”

I took a deep breath of frustration. “My pony mom was an apprentice shaman and taught me what little she learned. You’re a pony. You can see spirits. You know it’s not just zebras who can do it. Sometimes, long before the war, a zebra with an awakened pony friend would teach them zebra magic. That’s how my mom knew how to make me. Anypony who studied Shamanism a little bit, or even Zebrican history, would know that zebra robots are not actually robots, they are spirits bound to a mechanical body.”

“Yep. Which is what you are. Don’t lie! I can see you in there,” She exclaimed taking a step forward while menacingly charging one of her power hooves.

My ears flicked back at the arcane hum as power began to build up. “I’m a cyborg! Not a golem. I am a full body prosthesis. Of course you see a machine spirit when you look at me! Any device this old and complex would have one, but I was not designed as a war machine!”

“Yeah, but there’s no soul either. I’ve seen other cyborgs. They have souls,” the filly said as she popped her neck in what she must have thought was intimidating, but even in my dire situation, was adorable. “You’re just a spirit and some scraps!”

“OR,” I said quickly, hoping it would make her hesitate.

It did.

I cleared my throat. “Or, maybe, I’m so seamlessly integrated with this system that I’m a person. I’m talking with you, aren't I? Could a spirit do that?”

The filly nodded firmly. “Yep. Older spirits can talk out loud to you. Ancient ones can even make bodies for themselves. That’s what Discord was. A really really old chaos spirit. You’re an old machine spirit. Don’t lie!”

Dammit! Where did she learn so much about zebra magic?! … The Herd! She must have been born in the Herd and had a mentor.

I took yet another deep breath. “Okay, yes, but— How do you even know this much?”

“I’m from the Herd. We have Shamanism classes in elementary school,” She answered. “So you’re not gonna get to pull any fast ones on me!”

“Ah…” I debated changing tactics for a moment. Maybe there was a better way to explain myself than just telling her I was obviously a cyborg because I have organic parts too and it isn’t specified that a cyborg has to start out as an organic.

“Okay, how about I explain who I am to you exactly?” I offered with a friendly smile.

The filly paused, then nodded. “Okay… I should get your name for the paperwork anyways.”

I decided to ignore the nagging question of who she’d be doing paperwork for, and bowed politely to introduce myself. “My name is Whirling Gears. I am the lab prototype for the Robobrain Mark Three. I came here in spite of the gang because I was built in a MAS lab not far from here. I am damaged, and I have business in that lab—”

I realized mid sentence that there might also be some spare parts on the workbench I could swap out, and smiled. “And, now that I think about it, there might be some spare parts to repair myself with in there, too. If you let me take you to the MAS lab under the Donut Joe’s across the hoofball field from this mare-hole, I can prove to you I’m not a Zebra made golem, but in fact, a robotic body constructed from cybernetic modules and Robobrain parts.”

The filly gave me a blank look. “Who is wearing a random mare’s skin.”

“It’s my skin!” I snapped. “I was built with this on me okay? My model was intended for infiltration.”

Her blank look intensified. “Which just happens to be possessed by a Machine Spirit.”

I mimed taking another deep breath because it seemed socially appropriate. “My mom put me in here because she was scared and alone when the megaspells hit. I call her my mom because she built me a body and put me in it and the person who does that for you is by definition your mom.”

The filly frowned then nodded slowly. “Well, I mean… Can't argue with that.”

She looked me over, then nodded again, even slower. “Okay, we’ll go across the field to take a look. But if you try to run or alert the Tainted in the field, I’ll punch one of your legs right off!”

She threw a punch at the wall next to her. A bright flash of blue-green plasma blazed against the stone, vaporizing a large section of the tunnel… and fortunately not bringing it down on our heads!

I gasped, staring at the hole in terror.

“Yeah, you know what these can d—”

I turned to her and fixed a Glare Configuration onto her pink eyes. “Are you stupid?! You could have buried us alive!”

She blinked, winced, then gave me an apologetic smile. “Oh… Uh… yeah… sorry.”

“I’m well aware of what power hooves do!” I snapped. “I’m also incapable of running right now! Or even fighting! That’s not me speaking emotionally, I’m speaking mechanically. I’m that broken, okay?!”

My tiny captor blinked in surprise. “Is that why you were just staring at the street and radiating power for fifteen minutes? You can't climb quickly either?”

“No,” I corrected. “I’m low on coolant and overheating… and just used spirit power to force myself to move. I was tired… and... apparently forgot to close my eyes before napping.”

Celestia, that was beyond embarrassing!

“Oh. That makes sense. I’ve done that too,” the filly said with a sage nod which made me appreciate foal-logic for what might have been the first time.

Then she said something so adult it felt wrong to hear it from a barely-teenager’s mouth. “They’re executing people up there. I’ll see if it’s safe.”

Before I could adequately process the horribleness of a filly casually informing me of executions as if they “weren't no thang”, the filly’s cloak parted as she spread her wings and flew up through the mare-hole.

AWWWW! SHE WAS A BABBERS FLAPPY-POINTY-PONE!

Wait...

ALICORN! YES! THAT’S THE WORD! Now, back to squee and awstruckness. Yes.

WHAT?!

“How many alicorns are there?” I asked of the universe as her telekinetic grip still kept me in place at the bottom of the ladder.

I felt myself slowly rise upwards as she lifted me up to street level and set me down next to the mare-hole.

“A lot!” she whispered. “We’re a little too obsessed with making sure our species survives, if you ask me… I left home because I didn’t want to be a broodmare like all the other fillies. Be quiet, they aren't too far away. Where exactly do we need to go?”

I took a quick look around to make sure we were where I thought we were. Fortunately we were right next to the High School at the intersection of Sunset Lane and Shimmer Boulevard. The Donut Joe’s sign was, however, nowhere to be seen.

Redeye probably scrapped it for the metal. It had been a giant sheet metal donut, after all.

Fortunately I could see the corner of the donut shop around the edge of the school… I could also hear someone speaking loudly in the distance.

“We need to go east, around the school, across the field, and into the Donut Joe’s.”

The filly eeped. “Oh that’s not good! That’s where they’ve rounded everypony up. I uh… I was going back to the station to try and see if there was any tear gas left so I could... You know... Try and save everypony.”

I winced at the thought of trying to make it all the way across town again in my current condition. “I see… If the MAS lab is intact, or at least, mostly intact, I could see if there’s a way to get security robots to follow your orders. Assuming your badge is a real one.”

“It is!” She said with a proud smile. “The Dream Pod said I could keep it because I was the bestest SWAT Filly ever!”

”Crap! She knows!” Imaginary Dad and I said in unison.

”Also, I object! I was the Bestest SWAT pony Filly ever knew! I got three keys to the city! Never found out where the locks were...” He added grumpily.

“We’ll also be safer down there. It’s a bunker, with internal security turrets,” I added, doing my best to ignore dad’s rambling grumpiness and keep focused on persuading the crazy-powerful filly to just get me to the donut shop.

We did not have a better option!

She frowned and looked up into my eyes with genuine worry. “Do you have the codes?”

I nodded and tapped the side of my head. “I do. My mom was going to use this body for herself at first, and built her ID card into my head. It’s right under this plate, and thankfully the bullet that went through my head yesterday totally missed it.”

Her worried look turned into a deadpan stare.

“You’re a machine spirit. You don’t have a mom. You’re eternal.”

“Again with this…” I groaned, quietly slapping a hoof against my face. “We really don't have time to argue over this. Your mom is the pony who made you a body and put you in it, right?”

“Uh, well… I guess?”

“Then every robot, construct, whatever, has a mom, and unlike organics our moms can even be male! But I’m not a robot, I’m a cyborg, I have meat parts and metal parts!” My left eye started to glow and twitch.

Only Wander gets to call me a robot! It’s cute when she does it. You’re not her, you— Tiny alicorn!

HA! How do you like that. You’re moar smol than Homage, so you’re on the bottom of the alicorn rank totem pole!

”She could grow up to be the tallest,” Dad said with a snicker.

Yeah, but that’s not today!

He laughed. ”You're also silently using her height as an insult to make yourself feel better when you know she’s going to be taller than you by next year, and is, you know, an alicorn, and therefore you’re the dirt her totem pole is sitting on.”

I ignored him.

”I need to teach you hot to silently insult ponies better.”

I ignored him extra hard.

“Let's just go… I’ll follow you.” The filly said with a weary frown, her ears slowly laying back as she spoke.

I nodded and began to puzzle out how we might slip past a whole hoofball field of ponies, when she slid one of her hooves out from her powerhoof enough to access a pipbuck and activated a StealthBuck, vanishing from sight.

Ah ha! That’s how she got around the city without being captured so far. Clever… Maybe we had a chance. Now, how was I going to slowly limp my way across the field without getting spotted?

I heard the filly’s voice from just to my left. “So um… Do you have one of those those magic zebra cloaks?”

“Sadly, I don’t have an invisibility cloak,” I sighed as I realized I’d need to lie for the moment. “Don’t worry. I’m sneaky enough… Sometimes. Uh, by the way, what’s your name?”

“Oh! I thought I… It’s Roller Bearing. Friends call me Roll.”

”This is a golden opportunity and if you waste it, I will disown you for the next ten minutes,” Imaginary dad warned unnecessarily.

I nodded to the SWAT filly. “Alright, Roll, let’s roll.”

I heard a tiny facehoof and groan.

Dad cheered in the back of my mind.

Then a shot rang out from around the corner.

It shattered the sky, a single thud, you felt it in your lungs and heart more than heard it. A cannon. A lil’ babbers one, but still a cannon.

I wanted it!

I rushed over to the school’s wall and hugged it. The shot hadn’t hit anywhere near us, but if a firefight was about to start…

I hugged the wall and waited for a few moments. No more shots, but someone was shouting angrily. Their voice was too distant for me to hear, but I could tell it was electronically boosted.

“We need to get a look…” I whispered to Roll as I began to scoot along the wall towards the corner.

I shuffled along, moving towards the corner. It was a long ways, nearly a hundred meters. When I reached the halfway point the shouting pony’s voice became clear.

I don't want to hear about any soldier under my command being captured unless they are hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight! That's not just horseapples either. I want ponies like the lieutenant in Neighsadonia, who, with a Zebra’s pistol against her head, swept aside the gun with her hoof, jerked her helmet off with the other, and busted the hell out of the stripe with the helmet. Then she picked up the gun and she killed another Zebra. All this time the mare had a bullet through her lung! That's a real mare for you! I’d have married her after the battle, but they shelled her to dust. That’s how much the enemy should fear you!

I heard a pony shout something in anger and fear. I couldn’t quite make out what, but it sure pissed off loud-pony.

“QUIT WHINING! You have been conscripted. You’re not civilians anymore. Neither were they. Those ponies defied direct orders from a superior officer during wartime, and attempted to flee conscription. That makes them traitors to you, your contryponies, the Princesses, and Equestria. Their executions are not just legal, I’d be breaking the law by showing them mercy. The next pony to cry over the death of a traitor will join them! Loyal Equestrians have nothing to fear.”

What the hay? I frowned and perked my ears as I slowly scooted further along.

”Article Thirty-Eight, Section Five, Subsections Six, Nine, and Thirteen of the Wartime Emergency Powers Act give me the right, son. Do not question legal authority when you don’t know the laws it operates by! Laws which you should have learned in school. I imagine you spent that time learning how to jerk off your coltfriend better!

“Which, while it is a wholesome pastime, is not what you were in school to learn.”

I scooted closer to the corner, taking heart in the fact that his ranting probably had him and his men a little distracted.

”That wasn’t a homophobic remark, you absolute pile! He’s cuddled up against that guy in terror, who has a leg arround him. They’re obviously a couple, which is fine by me! Ponies fight better with a loved one at their side and a good rut is one of the best ways to handle battlefield stress. If you ask me, all of Equestria’s new soldiers should pair up for basic training at the end of this little shitshow of a motivational speech.”

I heard a pony quietly shout. “Equestria is gone, you buck-wit! Ancient laws don't bucking apply to us!”

Another shot shook my chassis, rattling something loose with the report alone. This time I heard something wet and meaty splatter.

“Oh… Oh, Celestia no…” I whispered.

Power Armor Pony was completely insane!

“Negative! Princess Luna is dead, but Princess Celestia is still with us,” Power Armor Pony bellowed. ”Even now she is held prisoner by the false Goddess! Equestria’s crown returned to her upon Luna’s death, therefore, Equestria yet lives.

“Zebrica has not surrendered! We are not yet beaten! Not so long as I draw breath! The war is still on! You will either be a part of the Princess’ liberation and our return to glory, or you will be eradicated!

“Since you won't remain quiet and listen to your commanding officer welcome you into the service, let’s start building a little loyalty. Choose a side, ponies! Loyalists, or traitors?”

I hesitated for a few moments, gathered my courage, and kept creeping towards the corner. I had to see. I needed to figure out a way to cross the field. I couldn't just go around the school. It was L shaped. No matter which way I went the field had an open sight line to the donut shop and its entrance faced the school!

No back door either. For MAS security reasons...

I made it to the corner as he stopped ranting, and timidly peaked around just enough to get a view with one eye.

The hoofball field had been turned into a prison yard. Not by the citizens of Fillydelphia, by the Tainted. At least two hundred of the olive green vest wearing bastards stood in a ring around what looked to me like a thousand ponies. The prisoners were all thin, clearly sufferers of long term hard labor and malnourishment. The really severe kind a pony never quite fully recovers from...

They were dressed mostly in rags and standing in small terrified clusters with gaps in the crowd occupied by what looked and smelled like—

Yep. Those were gore piles.

Then, on an impromptu stage which had once been a set of bleachers, I saw him. The madpony in power armor.

No mistake about it, that was the pony who had committed the Magebridge Massacre. He was beyond huge. He stood taller than any alicorn I’d seen so far. While that number was small, he was not. He was huge!

There’s no way he was a smaller pony in an oversized set of armor either. His armor featured a helmet with a visor. He had his visor raised, and I could see that his face filled the entire helmet. His head was that big…

Bright orange eyes, narrowed in contempt, disgust, and rage… With an urgency, desperation, and a terrifying feeling of power that burned in the shadows his visor cast. His fur was a teal color which reminded me of mom.

That terrified me. He was like a dark reflection of her. You couldn’t even see his muzzle, it was hidden behind a respirator built into his power armor. He looked less like a pony, and more like the most terrifying cyberpony ever. Only, he couldn’t be. He’d have to be a brain in a jar in there… and I was the only brian jar around.

He was a huge, monstrous, evil pegasus, in the single most advanced looking set of armor I had ever seen in my life! It clearly was fully sealed, but I couldn’t see any seams. The plates covered everything. EVERYTHING!

The suits integral battle saddle was entirely custom, and supported four huge gatling style autocannons which, for some reason I really didn’t want to know, clustered each individual cannon’s nine barrels into groups of three.

I whimpered. “Please don’t fire three barrels at once in some kind of compound tri-barrel cannon…” I begged reality.

”No such luck… That’s Gale Force’s armor. Hell, the pilot even looks like him… I think? Hard to say with just the eyes visible. But yeah… That’s how those guns worked. They’re Celestial Arms Tri-Vulcans. Best gun company in the world, best crowd suppression and in-air-combat weapon they ever made.”

Deciding to not get lost thinking about where I’d picked up that information for my subconscious to remind me of via Imaginary Dad, I started to study the crowd and the ring of ponies, hoping the Tainted soldiers were watching inside the ring and not out it so I could slip—

A pony shouted towards the stage angrily. “Pip’s not a goddess, you idiot! I *met* her. She’s just a unicorn with a weather machine, and she’s not holding Celestia’ hostage. Celestia’s a ghost in a machine! A bucking memory backup! Did you even read the—”

”Does anypony stand with this traitor and their lies?!” The power armored madpony demanded.

“Buck, yes, we do, you deluded idiot!” Somepony very very very foolishly yelled in agreement.

The single most ugly sound I’d ever heard blasted through the crowd as all four Tri-Vulcans spun up and fired in unison. I yelped in terror as the impossible amount of automatic fire screamed through the air. A wagon-thick line of ponies became chunks of flesh and bone amid the unmistakable bright-white flashes of detonating HEAP exploded inside flesh and bone.

I instinctively looked back towards the madpony, pure terror demanding I know exactly where he was and what he was doing. For some reason, my fear guided me to look at his breastplate. He was so huge, that even a hoofball field away from him I could just barely make out the writing on his armor.

A MoA emblem. A division emblem consisting of a circle with four dots around it at equal points, as if on a cross centered with the circle. Above the crest were a few words, Mors a Astra.

Old Equish. Come on. You know that form middle school wizardry…

Death from the… something.

WHY ARE YOU DEBATING THIS?! IT MEANS DEATH FROM HIM IF YOU CAU—

The madpony’s head turned to face me. He looked directly into my eyes, and his eyes wrinkled as he smiled with pure and undiluted joy. Those were the eyes of a colt in a candy shop with a thousand bits to spend and no parental supervision.

That confused me too much to even think about running or hiding as he pointed to me… and bellowed, “Zebra spy! Fire at will!”

Twenty of the Tainted spun around at the order, saw me, and looked surprised.

I dropped to the ground just in time to avoid the first volley of fire as the Tainted began to shoot at me. I rolled, moving back around the corner, and I realized I was a dead mare walking.

I couldn’t fight them all. I couldn’t fight that pegasus on his own if he got out of his armor and I was in pristine condition!

I heard the Tainted’s hooves pounding against the pavement as they ran to get a firing angle on me. I stood up, drew my pistol, and began to fire blindly around the corner at an angle that shouldn’t hit the prisoners.

I wasn’t about to just let them send me back to hell! I’d take a few of the evil jerks with me!

”That’s my girl,” Imaginary dad said proudly but sadly. ”I’m sorry it’s ending this way...“

The fact he didn’t have a way out like usual really rammed it home for me.

This was the end.

The Tainted began to spill around the corner. These ones didn’t have pistols and shotguns. They had rifles, good ones. Big, heavy caliber hunting rifles, and a few automatics to boot.

I continued to shoot. Two of them dropped to my pistol’s bolts of green death. They fired. I felt myself start to cry…

Their bullets hit an orange shield as it sprang up in front of me.

Huh?

“RUN, YOU IDIOT!” Roll screamed at me from down the street towards the donut shop.

Her StealthBuck field crackled, shimmered, and fell away, unable to to sustain itself while she was casting her spell.

I ran towards her, knowing she had no cover of her own while she provided it for me. We needed to share the shield!

Hope pushed my battered chassis to something approaching its top speed. The emotion I felt, Roll’s sacrifice, together they gave me just enough of a spark to make that happen… barely.

I could feel my chassis start to rip apart from the stress of pushing myself this hard on this little energy. I made it to Roll within a few seconds. I could see her gritting her teeth and whimpering under the strain of keeping her shield up while it was being struck with literally hundreds of bullets.

She wasn’t going to be able to run.

I dropped to the road, slid underneath her, jumped up, ignored my left foreleg buckling as it took my full weight for a moment, and sprinted towards the donut shop with Roll on my back as swarms of bullets whizzed past us on all sides.

“Keep that shield going!” I ordered in panic.

“No bucking shit!” Roll snapped back.

Some of the Tainted were faster than me. They sprinted along the side of the field and were moving to block us, to fire around the shield!

I turned slightly, just enough to bring my LAER to bear, and fired again and again. Five bolts of lightning arced through the air. One dropped the leading soldier by removing his neck.

Two more grazed one of the others. They screamed and fell to the ground, thrashing and soiling themselves as the electrical charge fried their nerves.

I winced. And here I’d thought Bad Touch was a horrific weapon...

“That’s no spy,” the madpony declared. “Give me suppressing fire! I will engage the soldier.”

CELESTIA, WHY?!

We were halfway there! Half way! Why did he have to start shooting, no way Roll could stop those reaper-ponies he called cannons!

I heard the sound of rockets igniting. He had missiles on that thing too?! That’s just not fair!

I wiped my head around to see if I could maybe dodge the missile. It wasn’t missiles. It was rockets. Rockets built into the madpony’s power armor as some kind of jump pack!

He arced through the air, firing dozens of tiny little thrusters to maintain a course which looked like he would land on me. He was going to literally crush me underhoof!

I put on even more speed. I felt something in my barrel creak, bend, and threaten to snap. It felt like being stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick, but I wasn’t about to let him crush me to death!

THOOM!

The madpony’s hooves slammed into the pavement just behind me. He laughed, genuinely thrilled he’d missed. Oh, Celestia, no! He wanted to drag this out! He wanted to play!

Wait, no. That was good! Donut shop. Must reach donut shop!

I ran. He speedwalked. He kept pace with me. Curse those huge legs!

“You’ve gotten further into Equestria than you should have, Zebra,” he said, his voice dripping with glee and pure rage. ”But then again, you haven’t met Gale Force either.”

WAIT, WHAT?! Is it the actual guy or does he just think he's the actual guy?!?

I heard his Tri-Vulcans began to spin up and yelped. “I’m not from Zebrica! I’m a citizen! I was made here!”

“Nice try, Stripe. I can see the way your brow and cheeks slope. You’re Imperial born. Time to die.”

I felt Roll jump off my back. I turned to see if she was going to be clear of the line of fire. At least one of us might survive—

Roll jumped from my back, her cloak billowing out behind her. She drew back her right hoof, her fully charged powerhoof glowing with a bright nimbus of plasma, and delivered a haymaker right to the side of Gale’s head.

I smiled as hope filled my core once more.

Then, the flash cleared. Gale’s head was still there. Roll’s hoof had struck a shield spell. I could see the faint purple glow as the shield faded back to a transparent state.

The hope died. It lasted 0.6 milliseconds. New record?

Roll threw two more punches, alternating front hooves in an upright fighter stance. Gale simply looked down as the blows bounced off his armor’s shield system. ”An admirable attempt, for a traitor.”

Roll’s ears drooped back as she realized her powerhooves couldn’t hurt him. “Ohhh… I am become error,” she whimpered in terror.

“NOW!” Somepony screamed.

The crowd of prisoners rushed for the soldiers, all of whom had turned to watch the fight. Within half a second, some of them had guns. Shots rang out, then more of them had guns. The prisoners were arming themselves like Griffon Union soldiers circa 2073.

The riot went from zero to one hundred in less than three seconds. Absolute chaos exploded out form the hoofball field as the Fillydelphians went into what I could only describe as a murder frenzy the likes of which even Celestia had never seen!

Gale spun around to see what was happening.

I spun around, grabbed Roll with my teeth, continued spinning, and resumed our mad dash for the Donut Joe’s. I heard the Tri-Vulcans fire. About a billion bullets flew past my left side and absolutely annihilated the donut shop’s front doors.

There wasn’t even a single scrap of the door frame left.

Thank you rioting ponies! I will give you all hugs if we survive this!

“By all means, run. I love a moving target!”

I made it to the door-hole and raced inside the restaurant. Instinct told me to jump to my left. I jumped. The Tri-Vulcans atomized the floor where I had been standing and blasted a huge hole through the donut shop’s back wall.

I raced to get around the counter. The elevator was behind the counter. It sealed when you went down. We would be safe if—

The Tri-Vulcans fired again. My right-hindleg suddenly became nothing but pain! Then… then I couldn't feel it at all and I fell flat on my face, dropping Roll as I skidded across the floor to the edge of the counter.

My leg! Oh, Celestia, he’d blown off my leg! The stump was pure fire and stabbing! The pain was nearly blinding. But I had to move!

I reached out with my forehooves, crawling around the edge of the counter.

Elevator! Must elevator!

I heard heavy hoof falls, metal on tile, as Gale walked up behind me. “In spite of your cowardice, Zebra, I will grant you a warrior’s death in battle. Stand up, if you can.”

I grit my teeth against the pain and pulled myself over to where I knew the hidden elevator was. Roll moved with me, able to tell where I was heading and probably knowing I was going for a trapdoor.

Celestia! I could hear him! He’s so close, where is the button?! WHERE IS THE BUTTON?!

There! Under the counter! There was the button. Old, rusty, the little hidden plate gone. But. Button!

I reached up and pushed the button.

Please work! You’ve been exposed to the elements, but please work!

Oh, no! Celestia, please let the base still be powered.

Nothing happened.

Oh… oh poop.

The armored monster rounded the corner and began to walk towards us, shredding the countertop by simply walking through it, revealing that he never had to walk around in the first place.

He raised his right foreleg, proceeding towards us on three legs as he deployed a large serrated blade roughly the length of my torso from his armor. “I want to thank you for causing this riot. Their failure to do for their country what their country's ponies have done for them has shown me these ponies can never be soldiers. Your deaths will be painless. That is the only kindness Imperial Zebras and traitors deserve.”

Something electronic chirped. The floor tiles under me dropped down a few centimeters, then parted, and we flew downwards as the elevator took off at an insane speed!

Gale bellowed in rage and lunged forward. The hidden doors snapped shut over the elevator. His knife stabbed through them with a shriek of tearing metal and a shower of orange sparks, which showered down over the two of us.

Roll screamed. I joined her.

Another shower of sparks! And another, and another.

He was hacking his way through the elevator doors!

The elevator screeched and groaned as it quickly slowed down. We hit the bottom of the shaft with a jolt that shook some loose parts out of my leg stump. Gale continued to hack at the doors above.

I looked around the small barren concrete room until I saw the large gear shaped door embedded in the far wall. I pointed to it. “Roll! Float me to the doors! NOW!”

Her horn blazed to life. I was yanked off the ground as she ran towards the door. Towards safety. I didn’t care what kind of magic was on that knife, nothing cuts through a Stable-Tec blast-door!

A greeting shriek of metal made my ears ring and ache as the mangled elevator doors fell down the shaft, immediately followed by the roar of rockets as Gale lowered himself down the shaft.

Roll made it to the blast door, spotted the security card scanner and practically threw me into it.

The scanner crackled, hissed, and then chirped, letting me know it was reading my ID.

“READ FASTER!” I begged the non-sapient machine spirit living in the ancient scanner.

The reader chirped again. “W—- W— W— Wel— Welcome, Doctor Swan.”

Massive power armor boots slammed into the ground. The door creaked and slowly began to roll open.

”WHERE DID YOU GET THAT CARD?! Gale screamed as he twisted and turned, struggling to break free of the narrow steel-reinforced elevator shaft.

The doors creaked open more… Almost enough to slip through!

Gale’s armor hummed as he fed the servos more power. The elevator shaft groaned and squeaked, starting to buckle.

”WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!”

The door opened enough for us to move through. Roll threw me through the door, drew what was definitely a proper SWAT Auto-9 form under her cloak and began to fire at Gale as she backed through the door, mag dumping the sleek black pistol in his direction on full auto.

Bullets ricocheted around the room like sand in a sandstorm.

”WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!"

I crawled to the security panel on the opposite side of the door, reached up to it, and slammed the button down. A quick remodulation of my voice synthesizer, and I was able to use my mom’s voice.

“This is Doctor Swan. Red Alert! Engage External Lockdown. Code Sigma-Nine-Three-Gamma-Two. Seal all entrances and fire on all non-MAS personnel, except Fillydelphia police forces.”

A klaxon alarm immediately started to shriek, managing to drown out Gale’s enraged screams and curses. I heard the external pop-up turrets deploy as the blast door began to roll shut, its opening sequence aborted by the lockdown.

The blast-door slammed shut and with a loud metal screech, locked in place. The internal popup turrets hummed as they slid down from their hidden spots in the ceiling, ready to help if the door was breached.

Thank Celestia the automated security protocols still worked!

Roll looked up at one of the turrets and winced. “Heh… Good thing I wasn’t lying about my badge. Right?”

I nodded. “If you had been, you’d be dead,” I paused for a moment then added. “Also good that my synthesizer wasn’t stuck.”

I set my voice back to normal.

Roll picked me up again with an exhausted moan. “Come on… We need to get further inside, just in case he breaches that. Somehow.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah… let’s go see if mom’s lab has a spare leg… Kinda… Kinda down a leg… Never been down one before. This sucks.”

“Yeah, it does,” roll agreed with a nod as she started to jog into the dimly lit, decaying, boxy metal floored corridor.

I blinked. “Um, objection! You have four legs.”

“Alicorns regenerate if there’s enough radiation. You know, like ghouls,” she explained.

Oh! So… They weren't like, ascended ponies. They were mutants. Neat!

A very big thing smashed into the blast-door, making the whole hallway ring like a drum. The door held. Looked like it would continue to hold forever. We ran anyways.

Roll came out the main hall. A huge circular room with over a dozen different hallways to choose, each one going to a different wing of the facility. I had no idea how big this R&D facility was. It could have stretched under half the city for all I knew.

Roll, still panicking just as hard as I was, took an immediate right and began running towards the Anomalous Materials wing.

“NO!” I yelped, my core spiking in panic.

She frowned. “Huh?”

“Not there!”

“Why not?”

“Do you not see the sign?”

Anomalous Materials
HEV Suit Required Past this Point

Roll frowned. “Oh… Where do we get one of—”

“Robotics,” I answered. “Which, is where we need to go. It’s that way!”

I pointed towards the correct hallway.

Roll turned, looked up at the sign this time nodded, then began to run again.

We ran in silence for a while. Ears perked. Waiting for the sound of a blast-door falling over. Or an explosion.

Nothing. Yet.

Just Roll’s pounding hoofsteps echoing off the bare, peeling paint covered walls and exposed ceiling-mounted power conduits.

Celestia… If you can hear me, from beyond the grave… please, pretty pretty please, can I have a few hours of safety?

I think I deserve that.

Failing that, can there please be a spare leg? So I can keep running. Thank you.

14 - Minor Refit

The Fillydelphia MAS facility wasn’t how I remembered it. The concrete walls’ color coding was familiar to me. Lower half painted warm blue, upper half soothing yellow. The exposed power conduits, air ducts, water lines, and sewage pipes hung from brackets on the ceilings above were also familiar. It wasn’t anything you’d notice at first.

After so many days in the ruins of the Heartlands, it was the lack of debris which creeped me out. A lot of the lights were dead, casting intermittent segments of hallway into islands of light between seas of inky blackness. Where a light happened to be working we could see that the diamond tread plate floor tiles were always spotless. I remembered piles of boxes, office supplies, and other junk left out as if everypony dropped everything when they heard the first balefire blast and left to evacuate.

I hadn’t been smart enough to think about how weird that was when I was new to being a zebra. New to being… mortal. This facility was almost a stable. Aside from any stable under Fillydelphia, this was the safest place to be, and most of the researchers fled as soon as the megaspells went off.

Why? And where had all of the junk they’d dropped gone?

Roller Bearing trotted through the long hallway towards mom’s old lab, carrying me along in her magic’s grasp. I could tell she was running low on mana. I didn’t want her to burn out, and said I would be happy to limp along for a while, even though I could feel my remaining systems slowly starting to fail one by one. She said no.

In truth, I was a little glad she didn't put me down. I knew that moving would just damage me more, but more importantly I didn’t want to touch the floor.

No dust. Just lightly tarnished metal. It would clean up with a bit of buffing and a little wax. Why?

If I had a heart it would be pounding like cra—

“AHH!”

Roll’s yelp made my core skip a few cycles. I drew my pistol and turned to face the way she was looking and saw two skeletons. In a hole. In the wall.

A pegasus and a unicorn. They had picks, and had been tunneling. Trying to get in. I could smell faint traces of stone dust mixed with decay wafting from the tunnel. More ponies had died in that hole than I could see.

She laughed nervously. “I thought they moved for a second there.”

I frowned. “That’s not good, somepony breached the facility…”

Roll shook her head. “I don’t think so. That hole’s a bit too small for an adult to get through.”

She trotted up to the skeletons and bent down to look at them, holding me closer to show me what she was looking at. From my new position I could see three other skeletons behind them. They were a digging crew. Wander’s ballad about Pip mentioned that Red Eye had his slaves dig through Filly’s remains to find and repurpose things he needed. What if he’d gutted this place?

Roll hummed and hawed for a minute. “Three mares, two stallions, bones show signs of frequent injuries without any treatment… Especially that guy’s hind leg. You can tell he set it himself with the medical skill of a radroach sandwich. Bones are clean, but not decayed that much yet. You can tell because they are still holding their shape and not too discolored. They've been dead for a decade, maybe a little more. How did they die?”

Roll continued to squint and the skeletons.

I tilted my head. “How can you tell all of that?”

“I graduated the CSI course the pod had to offer, duh,” Roll murmured before nodding. “I thought so, they’ve all been shot. You can see some holes in bones that aren’t splintered… Is there a turret around here?”

Roll and I began to look around. I spotted a pop up turret in the ceiling first, and nodded to it. “Yep. Right there. It has good line of sight for the hole.”

“Then security’s been working this whole time,” Roll noted. “It’s unlikely any other dig-teams made it in, and then out, alive. Red Eye didn’t give his slaves any real equipment to deal with things like this, and their deaths might not have even been noticed. After all, when Pip was his slave, she only got a pistol and one clip to clear out an entire MoI Hub.”

“That’s dumb,” I remarked. “If you don't give your ponies the right tools, how can you expect them to do the job at all, let alone well?”

“The Griffon Method,” Roll remarked bitterly.

“What’s that?”

“Send a few thousand of them to do the job and just don't care if they die,” she grumbled.

”To be fair, when the Griffon Kingdoms first used that tactic it was always during times of famine,” Imaginary Dad commented. ”Heartless as it seems, they ensured their civilians got more food overall while also taking care of the military threat they were under.”

I nodded slowly, then smiled at Roll. “Still, pretty impressive how you figured out their sexes and time of death like that.”

Roll shook her head and waved a hoof dismissively. “Nah! Anypony could do that if they knew what to look for. Lots of ponies think that bones are just bones and stallions and mares look the same without the meaty bits, but that’s not true at all! Mares have a wider pelvis, smaller and more curved jaws, thinner femurs… Heck, if you’re really good at picking out the details, you can tell if a skeleton is an equestrian pony or not by checking out the skull shape! Example, Neighponese ponies have rounder eye sockets.”

I blinked as I remembered Roll mentioning she was taught all of this in or by some kind of pod-thing-place… Pony? “You… learned all that in a pod?”

“Yes. A Dream Pod,” Roll commented as she began to trot down the corridor again. “I’m not surprised you don’t know about them. Not many ponies do. They’re kind of rare.”

“What are they?” I asked.

It was rare to have no idea what a piece of pre-war tech was. The plans must have been in a Hub mom and I couldn’t access. Or one she didn’t know about.

”Or both,” Dad said unnecessarily.

“Imagine a bed, and you sleep in the bed while floating in goo,” Roll said slowly. “The bed makes you have a specific lucid dream when you go to sleep in it. You choose the dream before getting in the bed. The goo stiffens as needed, giving your muscles a workout while you move in the dream. That means if you run ten klicks every night in your dreams, your body really is getting that work out in real life.

“The dreams themselves are pre-recorded, but interactive. It’s like…. Um… I don’t have a comparison? All I know is Princess Luna invented them to help train soldiers, and in our case, cops. You get in one and it’s like living a whole other life while you sleep, but when you wake up, you remember it. I’d do my SWAT training at night, wake up rested but a bit sore, and suddenly have counter-sniper training memorized, with muscle-memory and everything!”

I raised an eyebrow. “As in, you trained, qualified as, and became a counter sniper literally overnight?”

Roll nodded and picked up her pace down the hallway, making up for our brief stop. “Mhm. Well, no? Technically in a week. The dreams can be as long as you like, I guess? I don't know how you’d program them… The training dreams I had usually lasted a week, uh, in the pod. Not in the real world.”

I nodded, thoroughly impressed. “That would have changed the balance of the war for sure…”

“Yeah. You could give a pony all six weeks of basic training in a week, and use the seventh day to put them in a real battle and get their first battle panic out of the way,” Roll commented. “That’s what they did for me, only with, you know... Law enforcement issues. Specifically, the pod had me in a recorded standoff in a pre-school with a bunch of zebra sympathisers who had hostages, and it got… real bloody.”

I frowned and reached out, trying to hug Roll. She floated me over so I could wrap my legs around her barrel for a moment in the flickering light of a half-broken lamp.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” she laughed. “Everypony my age should get that band-aid ripped off hard. It’s not like it’s that much safer now than when my moms were still pawns of the Goddess.”

I blinked in confusion as Roll began jogging once more. “I’m sorry… I thought a male and female were required for organic self-replication. Is that not true?”

Roll giggled. “That’s the first time you’ve sounded like a robot!”

“Cyborg,” I corrected reflexively.

“Robot,” she countered then frowned thoughtfully. “Robot in a fursuit? Meh. Whatever. Um, anyways, all Alicorns are mares. The zebras of Glyph Mark helped us find a way to reproduce. They had potions which would turn a zebra mare into a zebra stallion and vise versa. Problem, they only worked for zebras, and were rare even before the war. Curiosities, mostly.

“An alchemist named Zula found a way to brew one for Alicorns, but um… It doesn't change all of you. Just the back half. It... works. We can have foals after taking it. Uh, we’re still all born female though.”

Roll sighed and shook her head. “I just… I don’t like how… Most of the adults, in the Herd at least, are obsessed with keeping our ‘species’ alive. There’s a lot of emphasis placed on learning to brew the potion, helping grow its whole list of parts, and training yourself to be comfortable drinking it regularly to switch reproductive roles on demand. Like, all the time. If you’re recovering from labor, go ‘male’, otherwise, go female and get pregnant again. That’s how they want us to live.”

“And you don’t like that idea?” I asked with a curious frown.

She shook her head. “No. I don't care what they do, but I’m a mare and that’s it.”

I nodded. Completely understanding. After all, I was a mare, and rather fond of it.

“Besides, I just want to punch bad ponies in the face and make them explode,” Roll added, making me wince.

“Well, uh, you have the power hooves for it,” I commented, taking note of a few workplace safety posters to remember how close we were to Mom’s lab.

Nearly there. Good. I think I just lost hyperthreading...

Roll grinned. “Yep! One day, I won’t need them. You know how we get more and more powerful when exposed to radiation? Well, Rock Carrot figured out a way to just intentionally buck a spell up so we can make our own radiation. We burn a lot of mana, but can make more magical radiation than we burn in mana. A lot more! It won't recharge our reserves, but it does mean we can reach the super-alicorn point with self-buffing and, you know, regenerate wounds, be huge, and get way stronger!”

I felt my core cool as terror flooded my mind. Terror, then pure rage. “Excuse me… Are you telling me that you could have grown several sizes and punched Power Armor Pony into and through the asphalt back there?!”

Roll’s ears drooped apologetically. “Oh, um… No. Not yet. I’m not grown up yet. Rad-buffing would probably rip all my bones apart. Even adults die trying sometimes. Also, it takes time to charge and soak. It wouldn’t have worked out back there even if I wasn’t a filly.”

“Oh,” I frowned, genuinely sorry I got angry at her for the equivalent of not being able to fly yet. “Sorry…”

“No. No, it's okay. Trust me, if I could have, I would have… and I think that pony did! He was huge!” Roll said with a shiver.

I couldn’t tell if it was fear or jealousy. Or cold. The AC in this stretch of the main hallways was going a little bit overboard. It was nice to have a little more clarity.

I nodded in agreement and then pointed to a branch which curved off to the right from the main the hallway. I remembered the poster tacked to the wall as being the one at the “end” of the correct hallway.

A silver furred stallion in a lab coat, looking down over a factory floor of ponies building… things that were drawn too small to really discern. I remember hoping they were more things like me.

FASTER! BETTER! BRIGHTER!

MAS builds the future!

“Take that turn, please,” I said, still pointing. “We’re almost there.”

Roll turned down the new corridor, and we froze. This hallway was pristine. All of the lights were on. The paint looked new. The floors were shiny!

Roll drew her auto-9. “Somepony’s been living here!”

I nodded in agreement and drew my own pistol. Roll began to slowly walk down the corridor, sweeping left and right for any hostile contacts. I decided to check up, for traps.

Ponies so rarely lookup. I was glad I did.

The ceiling here was studded with small red crystals set in intricate silver housings. One every five meters or so. I frowned, trying to remember if those had been there before, and a memory leapt unbidden to my mind. It held no sight, no smell, no touch. Only sound.

Suddenly, it was ages ago, and I was old me...

”Swan, you need to read what’s on the paper. Verbatim.” A deep, gravelly voiced stallion ordered.

His voice was cruel. He had power, and he liked to use that power in ways which pleased him. I didn’t like him. He was the kind of pony we had come here to kill.

“Huh?” A sweet young mare asked in genuine confusion. “But… I did?”

“Do it again. Verbatim.” The stallion ordered.

“Uh, okay…” the mare mumbled before clearing her throat. “If this is playing, then the Repair Talisman's reserve materials have run out. Repairs will continue, but be slow and take materials from the bedrock surrounding the fac— Um… Facility! This limits expansion opportunities by weakening the bedrock. Please replace the repair materials as soon as possible or— “

The mare stopped and made a small sound of total bewilderment.

“Why are you stopping? You didn't stop last time.”

“I just said the words last time, I didn’t pay attention to them, Mister Silver… I’m improving the neural interface speed, like you asked and—” She stopped again.

A paper rustled. “Sir? The repair talisman doesn't eat ponies if it runs out of serviceable materials. I specifically made sure it wouldn’t do that when inventing the EZ-Fix Oven. Why do you want me to tell ponies it will eat them?”

The stallion’s voice shifted from angry and cruel to the terrifyingly nice tone of voice which anyone older than eight knows means they are blatantly trying to manipulate you. The sort of voice where if they asked, “Would you like ice cream?” you’d immediately expect it to be poisoned.

“It’s just to scare ponies away from damaged and unsafe areas, Swan. You know how focused on work you can get. Imagine how much more focused actually good researchers must be.”

“Oh! Okay!” the mare said chipperly, having not only bought that obvious lie, but not even been able to understand she was being manipulated.

It made me livid. I was supposed to be shelling ponies like that stallion into dust. Not sitting under a tarp, helpless and listening to them take advantage of mentally disabled mares!

“If this is playing, then the Repair Talisman's reserve materials have run out. Repairs will continue, but be slow and take materials from the bedrock surrounding the fac— Facility! Got it that time. YAY!

“This limits expansion opportunities by weakening the bedrock. Please replace the repair Talisman's Reserves as soon as possible, or my lab will eat you! Muahahahahaha! Was that right, Mister Silver?”

“Do it again, but without the laugh.”

“Awww… Do I have to?”

“They won't take it seriously with a laugh like that. Do it again.”

“Okay!”

Riiight! The entire facility was equipped with Repair Talismans! They’d shifted into emergency mode and used the debris in the hallway to keep vital systems running… And had apparently decided to prioritize keeping certain places in better shape than others, as those resources were also depleted.

I laughed. “Roll, it’s okay. I forgot my mom’s lab has self repair systems.”

She frowned and suspiciously continued to peer into the shadows. “Are you sure?”

Then, with the timing of a radio play, a distant intercom hissed, spitting out a garbled message.

“If this is playing, then the Repair Talisman's reserve materials have run out. Repairs will continue, but be slow and take materials from the bedrock surrounding the facility! This limits expansion opportunities by weakening the bedrock. Please replace the Repair Talisman's Reserves as soon as possible, or my lab will eat you! Muahahahahaha!

“Shhhhh! Don't tell Mister Silver I put the laugh back in. Message repeats.”

I took a deep breath. Dammit, mom… Now I miss you really bad. Also, you should so switch back to your old voice. I know your synth can do it. It’s a copy of mine, after all.

”I wish I’d been able to punch that gaslighting abuser until his dick fell off,” dad growled.

What would that solve?

”Genepool maintenance.”

Well, that’s not untrue…

Roll shook her head and snickered. “Okay, so, that happened. Timing, am I right?”

I smiled. “Heh. Yeah… That was my mom, by the way.”

Roll turned the corner and froze, making me bump into a Robotics-yellow wall. I turned to see why she stopped and gasped. In spite of the Repair Talismans, the floor had caved away here… No, because of the talismans!

There was no rock below, just an empty void nearly a hundred meters deep! Or maybe deeper, it was hard to tell, what with how little of the hallway’s light was able to reach down there…

“Well, I almost walked into that…” Roll murmured as she opened her wings and quickly flew across the gap.

She continued flying, moving well away from the edge of the hole before landing, and thankfully pulling me along with her. I had no idea how I’d cross otherwise.

I could see the door at the end of the hall on the right. At the very end, the very deepest point of the Robotic Wing.

It still made me sick how in spite of being promoted to department head, Mom still honestly felt like she was the bottom of the totem pole… If Twilight had any idea what her second in command had been doing while she was off working on whatever top secret project she had been for the last five years of the war… Well, none of this would have happened the way it did.

At least, if mom’s memories of what kind of pony Twilight was were correct.

“Hey,” Roll commented, shaking me out of my thoughts. “There’s a guard station. We’re checking it over.”

I looked over to the left where she was looking, then nodded. She was looking at the small security checkpoint mom had gotten our first weapons from when we left. It was just a little room, with a small armory in the back and some lockers so guards could change into their gear before sitting in the chair and staring at the wall opposite their little window all day.

…

Poor guards.

“Yeah. Why?” I asked.

“I'm a bit low on nine millimeter, that’s why,” Roll commented as she reached over for the door handle and turned it.

The door clicked and pushed open. I frowned. “I thought we locked that…”

I wished we had. I could feel more and more systems slowly starting to fail. I did not have time for looting now!

“Guess you didn’t,” Roll said as she trotted inside and opened the jail-cell-like barred door into the armory.

Which was also unlocked. BUCK!

“Come to think of it, forgetting to lock back up is a very mom thing,” I muttered as she levitated me inside after her.

“Could you put me down please? The lab is right there and I would like to start repairs,” I asked as politely as I could.

“It won't take more than a few minutes,” Roll said as she began to look over the shelves with disappointment.

Well… At least if I was here the Repair Talisman above us shouldn’t decide the trespassing filly would make for some great new floor tiles…

We took a moment to go through the guardroom. There wasn’t much left in it. What little mom and I hadn’t taken with us had been used to repair the facility over the last two centuries… The entire armory was little more than shelves with markings for all of the useful things which had once been there.

Except for a few powerpacks, stun batons, and boxes of .500 Nitro Express rounds. They must have been listed as essential equipment. Why bullets big enough to clog a toilet were essential, I did not want to know.

While I picked up the ammo and a stun baton, Roll picked the locks on the lockers, making my ears twitch in annoyance. Didn’t she have a crowbar? Or power hooves? Lockpicking is a waste of time, and it’s pretty hard to ignore the pain of a missing leg you heartless jerk!

Just as my Sweetie Eyes began to twitch, Roll got the locker open and frowned. “Awww, booo! No pegasus-friendly armor. It’s so hard to find things with wing-holes!”

I hobbled over and peeked inside the locker. Inside was a single set of the white polymer plate armor I’d seen on a few of the guards who were trying to keep order as mom and I left, while the MAS scientists and wizards who had also stayed in the facility were in a full panic-riot.

Over… a lack of coffee, given the war up top, if I remembered correctly.

If I also remembered correctly, MAS Security armor magically resized!

“Please move,” I asked Roll as I pushed towards the armor.

She frowned. “Do you want it?”

“Yes, I’d really like to not die, and I’ve been getting shot a lot recently,” I said as she moved and I took the armor out of the locker and tucked it into my saddlebag.

“You know you have to put it on for it to work, right?” Roll asked with a snicker.

I gave her a deadpan stare. “Yes… and if I did that now, I’d have to take it off in about two minutes so you can stop me from dying.”

Her eyes widened as she did that filly thing they do when they realize they weren't focused on what was actually important at the moment. “Oh-my-goddesses!” she sputtered. “I’m so sorry! I just thought, since you’re a robot, you would be okay if we checked for ammo… are— are you actually dying?”

I nodded slowly. “Yes… I’ve been coasting on magic and fear, and I can feel a big-huge-massive ball of pain slowly moving in to eat me… Can we PLEASE go to my mom’s lab and fix me before I run totally dry, and this body, which is too broken to house a spirit right now, literally gives up the ghost?”

Maybe a bit harsh, but it was true. The throbbing pain in my diodes was sharp again. I could feel the jagged remains of my leg itching, burning, and tearing…

Roll whimpered. “You can feel pain?”

I sighed and looked her in the eyes. “Mom wanted me to be a perfect simulation of a zebra. I feel pain in everything. Struts. Rivets. Crystals. Giant gaping holes where my leg used to be…”

Roll pulled me into a tight hug. “I’m sorry! Okay, you're not a robot. Robots aren't scared to die. Not even the zebra-made ones.”

I took a deep breath and pointed to the door. “The go, the do, the please!”

“Sorry!” Roll eeped.

She rushed out of the room, turned right, and ran up to the doors to mom’s old lab. As we approached the computer chirped, detecting mom’s ID in my head.

“Welcome back, Doctor Swan,” the computer chimed as the doors hissed open… Well, hissed open if the cat doing the hissing had laryngitis and its balls stuck in something.

I winced. “Those poor doors feel like I do.”

Roll shivered and trotted inside. “I didn’t need to know that.”

Mom’s lab was pristine. The large room looked exactly how I remembered it. Every piece of paper exactly where it had been left. Every one of the computers that had been off was off, those that had been on, were still on.

A huge, massive, enormous room lined with toolboxes, bins of scrap, shelves of parts, and work tables. Work tables everywhere.

Also, notes laying around everywhere. Everywhere everywhere. Technically the floor was a single large note. Somepony had given mom some chalk once. I was half certain mom had written the entire circuit diagram for my left legs on the floor while plotting it out for the first time.

Even the ceiling had stuff on it. Post it notes, mostly. Little reminders. Unlike most ponies, mom liked to look up. Maybe that’s why she’d put the primary repair talisman on the ceiling of her lab, where it was still glowing bright red, actively preserving everything the way its maker had left it.

Roll walked in and set me down on the room’s central workbench. Ironic. I could see a corner of my old “body” beneath the tarp next to me. Hello, old friend. Old me.

”Hey… Hey, Gears!”

Oh sweet Celestia, no…

I swear to Celestia, Pip, and Luna herself, if you make the joke, I will slap myself until you fall out!

”What? No!” Dad scoffed. ”I wanted to point out that that monitor over there is attached to a diagnostic board labeled ‘Robobrain III: Judgment Day’. Yeesh!”

Oh. Thanks, Dad! I smiled and pointed towards the panel. “Roll, that board will tell you what’s broken. I’ll walk you through repairs. I know how to do most of them, and my blueprints should be in here.”

“Okay! Hold on, looking for spare parts… Why are there so many toasters in here?!” Roll demanded form behind a rack of about forty toasters.

“Mom likes toast.”

”Also, you’re beside yourself!” Dad snickered.

“ARRRGH!” I growled, my eye laser charging and nearly firing into the ceiling as dad laughed.

“I’m sorry! I’m looking!” Roll squeaked.

“Not you!”

“What?”

“Skip it!”

A minute passed. I felt three more system shut down as my core continued to try and keep all of my critical processes going.

“Found it!” Roll shouted.

I heard wheels squeak. I wanted to perk my ears, but they weren't waving right now. Instead I turned my head to look. Roll was pushing a large cabinet over to me. I remembered that cabinet! It was my parts locker. Score!

Roll moved over to the front of it. “It’s labeled Robobrain Three. I only know of the model one and two, and I think you said you’re three.”

“Yes, that’s mine,” I confirmed with the biggest nod I could make. “We’ll need it later. Please hook me into the lab’s power supply so the repair talisman sees me as a part of the lab and stabilizes me.”

Roll nodded and took out her lockpicks again. “Hold on, I’ll have this open in a jiffy!”

Oh. Okay. Don’t listen to me. And also waste time with that obsolete horseapples of an ‘art’!

I blasted the padlock with my eye laser, and it fell to the ground as a puddle of molten brass and steel bits. “It’s open! Now plug me in, please!”

Roll looked at me sheepishly. “Uh, how?”

I looked around, remembering the cables mom had used when testing my fledgling systems on the lab’s power supply. I pointed up to one of the many hoof-thick power conduits. “That one.”

“Yeah, okay,” Roll said as she took hold of the cable with her magic. “But where do I put it.”

“All the interface ports are accessible via the secondary rear-orifice,” I informed.

She blinked. “Wait… I… I have to shove this up your butt?”

“Yes. Feed it in for about a meter, ‘til you feel it click,” I answered honestly.

“Ew… WHY?!” Roll asked with a full body shiver.

My chassis starting to literally drag me into oblivion with sheer pain.

“There’s not many places you can hide a hoof-thick cable-jack on a pony, okay?!” I snapped, my eye twitching…

I don’t poop, it’s not dirty so it can't be gross, you squeamish little filly! I’m dying! This is medical! Uh, mechanical!

Roll sighed. “This isn’t remotely sexual, okay?”

I frowned, genuinely baffled by her statement. “Why would it be?” I asked, tilting my head slowly.

“Because normally, things going into butts is… Uh… a non-foal-making sex for fun… thing...” she muttered.

Huh. You learn something new everyday. You can do that just for fun! Now I knew nopony back home had an excuse to say no all those times I asked. Also, note to self, if you ever see Wander again, complement her butt then ask for the mechanics involved with utilizing it.

However, right now, “Less talking more plugging me in. We are down to the wire, so get the wire down there!”

”Good one.”

Not helping!

Roll lifted my tail out of the way and began plugging the length of cable in. The fact I couldn't feel the cable entering worried me a lot. Mostly for damage sustained reasons.

I searched for the lab’s systems… And searched… And searched…

“It’s not working,” I squeaked in terror as the world started to fade out.

“Uhhh,” Roll said slowly then I heard her facehoof. “OH! There’s a switch on the cable box up there.”

I heard a click. The world stopped fading out. The lab’s computer spoke.

“Robobrain Prototype connected… WARNING! Prototype is heavily damaged. WARNING! Repair talisman is out of resources. Manual repair required. Prototype stabilization active. Estimated remaining stabilization time… three hours.”

I sighed in relief as I felt the lab’s magical reserves immediately refill my systems, and my own magical reserves to boot. “Oh, thank Celestia,” I sighed happily.

I turned to Roll and frowned as much as I could. “I’m sorry for yelling.”

“It’s okay. You were dying and I was being slow and squeamish… I mean, it’s not like you poop or anything,” she admitted sheepishly. “Or um…. Do adult things. Being a robot and all.”

First, ouch. I mean, yeah, I don’t do that. Not for a lack of trying… Second, I decided to not tell her how I would vent oil and sludge if there was a build up of such materials in my systems. Mostly because I couldn’t explain why or how mom had given so many different purposes to one access point.

“Okay. First thing’s first. Is there a spare hydraulic pump in there?” I asked hopefully while pointing to the cabinet.

Roll trotted over to it and looked inside. “Uh yeah, but,” she said as she pulled out an entire leg. “Isn’t this more important?”

I squinted at the leg and frowned. It looked like it belonged to me, but was… different. Better. More powerful hydros.

Well, how about that. Mom had some improved parts laying around for testing. Cool!

“Lets get my systems stable before we attach that leg to me. It’s not the same model I lost. I don’t want to break something and die calibrating it,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“Oooh, good point. Okay, hydro pump! How do I install that?” Roll asked with a worried whinny.

I offered her my best smile.

“It’s okay. I’m not actually much harder to work on than a Lyra-Bonbon Motorcycle. In fact, we use the same turboencabulator. You’ll need to find an air ratchet and a set of M-sockets.”

☢★★◯★★☢

An hour into my repairs, we hit a major snag. Roll had been able to replace my pump, remove my armor plates to patch, repair, or replace my radiators, gotten me an awesome drink of clean ethylene glycol, and had been able to swap out my broken visual processor, but then…

“Uh, Gears?” She said uncertainty.

“It’s okay. I’m running on mains power. That distribution system isn’t charged. You wont get mana-burned this time,” I repeated.

“No, um… It’s not the same as the blueprint,” Roll said with a frown.

“Excuse me?” I asked, turning around to look at the old specs.

We’d found my blueprints on a table. It made explaining what needed to be done much easier for Roll to understand.

I squinted at the blueprints, memorizing them, and frowned. “You’re right. This is not my PDU,” I agreed with a curious tilt of my head. “It this an older blueprint? I am operating on the Revision Twelve platform.”

Roll hummed and flipped the stack of papers to the first page then tapped the corner. “No. This is Revision Twelve. See?”

I did see. A big fat twelve, right in the corner under my model name.

Well, poop!

“Huh… Um… Well, mom did tinker with me a lot. Maybe she left some notes around on my project?” I suggested. “At any rate, it needs to be removed and replaced. It was too hot for too long, and I can't trust it to operate properly any more.”

“About that, it’s got leads going to things not on the blueprints… Can I touch?” Roll asked with worried frown.

I nodded. She gently traced a lead with the tip of her hoof. “Like... this one. What is this?”

I closed my eyes and frowned, as I couldn’t place what that conduit was for. “No idea… I think it runs to my left foreleg.”

“I thought you knew your whole body?” Roll said slowly.

“I thought I did too... I have no idea what that is. Does it come off at the PDU?” I asked hopefully even as Roll shook her head.

“Nope, it’s like, soldered in on this side.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. “Okay. We actually need to figure out what that is, then.”

Roll nodded in agreement. “I’ll check the bench the plans were on. There was a lot of other stuff on it. Papers. Holotapes. A memory orb…”

I tilted my head. “A memory orb? But… Mom couldn’t have recorded one. She’s a pegasus,” I said to Roll as she moved over to the bench and began moving pages around.

“She could if she had a Memory Recollector,” Roll commented then laughed. “She did! There’s a circlet under this stack of TPS reports.”

Roll turned around and floated the Recollector and orb over to me. “Put that on and watch it while I look for everything else. There could be something we need in there and we have like, two hours of mains power left, right?”

I nodded. “Yes. If we swap my PDU out before then, with my cooling system working properly, I can sustain myself indefinitely on my core’s power.”

“Awesome! If I find the plans, I know I can swap one out… and I’m sure you know how you go unconscious while looking at one of those things, right?”

I nodded again. “I do. Maybe it will have something useful on it… Or maybe it’s just a memory she extracted to forget about a boring meeting about her forgetting covers on those TPS reports...”

I picked up the recollector, slid the orb into the small slot in the middle of the recollectors headband, and slipped it on my head.

Reality faded away, and then I was mom…

I was looking into a mirror. I was a pegasus. It felt a bit odd to have wings, and to be made of meat, but the memory swept me along with it, and I rolled with everything.

I was Black Swan. Not quite as cyborged up as I knew her to be, but still noticeably augmented. I could see her face, and her original eyes! Her eyes had been orange, a nice lovely orange. They went well with her teal fur.

I was wearing my favorite red robe. I really really liked it, and was super glad no one had told me I couldn’t wear it at work, or realized it was a Mechanomage’s robe I’d bought at a costume shop that one time I got to go into town, because Battlemace Forty Two Million was AWESOME! This robe, was not coming off. Except to wash. Cuz awesome!

I was looking into a mirror, with the most adorably solemn and serious expression a nineteen year old mare could ever have.

“Hello, future me. It’s past you,” I said into the mirror. “This is the orb to remind you where you put the orb where you stored your passwords, in case you forgot to memorize them. Or ate the paper I wrote them on for you to memorize prior to recording them to orb, then forgot them after that.”

I turned around slowly while humming the best part of the Germane composer Gustavus von Hayt’s song Bringer of War, and walked to a terminal against the north wall, bent down under it, and tapped on the wall as if typing on an invisible keypad while making beeping sounds. “Doot doot da-doot! Beep!”

The typing did nothing at all, as illustrated as I pressed a hoof against a hidden wall panel and pushed in inwards and then to the left while making a hydraulic piston hissing sound. “Voooo— ka-tsssss…”

I wanted to laugh, but memory orbs don’t work that way. Dammit, mom… I love you.

Inside the hidden compartment was my diary, a copy of Megamane II along with a Super Neightendo’s guts (the entire thing was too big to hide in the compartment so the case had to be discarded), and a little stick pony doodle of me, big brother, and biggest brother.

I stopped to look at the picture for a moment and tried not to be sad. I wished biggest brother was still alive. The Zebras killed him. They didn’t like spies. If they hadn’t killed biggest brother, then maybe big brother could be happy some of the time.

I pointed to an empty spot in the compartment. “The password orb will be right there, future me. You are welcome! End communication.”

Wait... I have an uncle? I've never heard about him! Things to ask mom about later.

I shook slightly as the memory orb faded me back to reality. “Roll!”

Roll turned and looked up from a stack of papers half as tall as she was. “Anything?”

“Yes! My mom has a hidden compartment under that terminal,” I said, pointing to the appropriate one. “She stored her passwords in there on an orb. Open it up, I’ll get the terminal passwords and we can check for digital copies of more updated blueprints, or notes.”

Roll snapped a salute and zipped across the lab to the terminal in a flurry of displaced paper, ducking under the desktop to access the hidden compartment. A moment later she emerged with another orb, and a holotape. “You check the orb, I’ll check the tape!”

I nodded. She floated the orb over to me. I plucked it out of the air and swapped it with the one in the recollector.

Once again, reality faded away, and I was mom…

I was staring into a mirror with a very laser focused look in my eyes. I a few years older… Maybe 21. I’d just replaced one of my eyes with a blank steel orb, though I could see through it just fine. In fact, I could see through it better than my fleshy eye.

Soon, the disgusting ball of fluid and meat would have to go. Having the full spectrum of light in one eye, but only visible light in the other was unacceptable. Neither was having optical zoom and microscopic vision in just one eye.

“Hello future me, it is past you. If you are not future me, I have bad news for you. Opening my compartment will have given me an alert. If I am within five kilometers of my lab, or the Crystal City Lab, I will have already detected your treachery, and am coming to kill you. If I am not, I will know that it has been opened as soon as I am within range, I will access my security recordings, I will find you, then in all likelihood Big Brother will kill you for me. You’d better hope you are future me or like, my filly or something. Otherwise, you are dead.”

I turned and moved to my favorite terminal. It was the main terminal for my lab. I kept my private notes on this one. I switched it on and entered the password. It was mostly arrow keys, and two letters. Up up down down left right left right b a. Not a single one of my coworkers would ever guess it.

They didn’t know what fun was. I would know. I had tested that. With science. Also magic, magical science, and sciencefull magic.

As soon as my terminal was on I resumed talking to myself. “We both know I never forget passwords. This orb is clearly not about passwords. It is to remind you about our personal project. I know you’ll forget about it. They'll make you forget. You read our diary. The one they don’t know we have. You know how they mind wipe us all the time.

“They do it around three times more often than regulations allow, by the way. Frankly, I’m surprised I’m still this sane… They’ve been doing it for almost a decade now. That’s right, future me, since you were ten.”

I closed my eye for a long moment then turned around and looked into the mirror. “They’ll be assigning you to the Robobrain Mark III project. Do you know how I know? No. You don’t. That’s the reason for all this.”

I closed my eyes again and remembered horrible pain. Pain that bit into my very soul. And flames. Green, sickly, evil flames.

“I was just on that project… They think if they force me to forget, that I’ll be their good little drone again. That I won't have the nightmares. That it will all fix me and I’ll be able to think about making them weapons again. That I’ll stop cutting myself up to fix this disgusting, weak, pile of meat!” I breathed heavily, slamming a hoof into the desktop hard enough to dent it.

My throat was a little raw. I must have been screaming. Not good. Somepony might hear.

“They hit the lab with a balefire egg bomber. We almost died. I have a fake lung and liver now. Not my designs. Inefficient. Weak. Almost as bad as flesh…” I whispered quietly. “From the moment we felt the balefire… We understood the weakness of our flesh, and it disgusted us. They hate how we aspire to be as strong and resilient as steel. They do not understand the purity of the machine… They will try to brainwash you. Don’t let them. You can’t let them!”

I opened my one good eye and looked into its smooth metal surface in the mirror. “In the hospital, we learned the truth. Other fillies really don’t all work for the ministries. They get to live in houses, like grown ups. WITH grown ups! They get to play, and study, and read books! They don’t spend their lives in holes under the ground making weapon after weapon to kill zebras who’re just doing what they’re made to do. Just like how we’re made to make weapons. The ministry’s stolen our foalhood. They’ve stolen our time… So we’ll make sure we have all the time in the world. We’ll make sure we have freedom. On their bits.

“Do not let them convince you to stop augmenting yourself. The more augmented you are, the fewer problems we’ll have, when the time comes. You understand right? That you cannot cling to your flesh as if it won’t decay and fail you?

“One day, the crude biomass doctors insist on calling a temple will wither, and you will wish that I had saved you…”

I smiled, putting a hoof to the mirror. “But I have already saved you!”

I typed a few commands into the computer and started a simple GUI. The kind you’d see on any cutting edge terminal. This was a civilian machine. Which made it powerful.

“This project is about… revenge. We can’t do anything to stop them from using us… We know we can’t turn traitor. The Zebras wouldn’t be any different. We need to free ourselves, and that means we need power. Real power.”

I opened the terminal’s voice recorder program. “Project Megamane is all about getting that power,” I clicked record. “Computer: Open Hidden Room. Access Code: One, seven, three, four, six, seven, three, two, one, four, seven, six, Charlie, three, two, seven, eight, nine, seven, seven, seven, six, four, three, Tango, seven, three, two, Victor, seven, three, one, one, seven, eight, eight, eight, seven, three, two, four, seven, six, seven, eight, nine, seven, six, four, three, seven, six. Lock.”

A series of hydraulic pistons opened a segment of the wall next to the terminal, revealing a very small hidden room. It was just big enough to hide three standard storage lockers, with enough room left for a pony to stand in the middle.

“Future me, the code is keyed to our voice. No one else can use it, even if they remember it. Everything relating to Project Megamane is in there. When you complete a part of the project, put it in there. Make a memory orb of it, then erase the knowledge of having done it, or they will find it when they pry your thoughts open to keep their secrets. Use the check boxes on the list to keep track of things. Nothing in your head. All on paper.

“This terminal has an encrypted link to the Term-Link network. The bookmarked page for cat pictures is actually a Term-Link forum where you have contacts waiting to help you through miniaturizing everything to fit into the Robobrain Mark III chassis. Everything about that project is not for the MAS. It’s not for Equestria. It is for us.

“Finish the prototype. Finish Project Megamane alongside it. Once Project Megamane is finished, you will transfer the superior parts into the lab prototype. Then, contact Minty Hands. She will help you transfer your brain into your new body. The cost of this will be evacuating herself, her wife, her best friend, and her best friend's wife with you. Then… Blast your way out of here and go to Neighpone. Intelligence suggests they are still neutral, and Term-Link says they like robots. You’ll do fine there. If you get the chance, put a plasma-bolt right in the middle of Mister Silver’s eyes on the way out… Assuming he hasn’t mind wiped you again and you think he's your friend, that is.”

An alarm beeped three times. I’d just finished making their stupid power armor medical system work. They were coming to erase my memory of power armor now. It was classified. I couldn’t know about it. Which is dumb. It’s just a robot costume that works. Simple idea. Had it since I was six… Probably would have made one on my own eventually, just for playing in.

Luckily, I’d written every last detail about the project down in my hidden journal, and gotten the setup for this project done just in time.

“Good luck, future me. End communication.”

Reality faded back in… I felt my non-existent stomach churn with rage. I’d known some of what the ministry did to her… But feeling all of her rage, and remembering how she could tell she was no longer as smart as she used to be, and how she knew the repeated security mandated memory extractions were to blame…

“I want to burn this place down,” I said loudly.

Roll eeped and peeked out form a parts locker. “What’s on there… or do I not want to know?”

“I found out my mom was planning an escape… Using what became my body,” I said slowly, quivering as I held in my anger. “She had a contact to help her get in here instead. Either she never finished her escape plan, or she did, and forgot all about it… or the Ministry discovered it and simply deleted her memories of it to keep their top roboticist. In which case, I don't have any chance of a spare PDU… Because this one is unique!”

Roll hissed as if in pain. “Okay, that sucks… Is there a way to know?”

I nodded. “Move to that terminal and log in. Password is: up up down down left right left right b a.”

Roll trotted over and typed the password in. “Done. Now what?”

“Open the voice recorder, hit record, and say nothing. It’s voice locked,” I said before switching my profile back to mom’s voice.

Now I knew why it was stored in my system memory… So she could open the hidden room.

Roll typed a few things into the terminal then held her hoof up to let me know it was recording. Since I wasn’t near the mic, I shouted as loudly as I could.

“Computer: Open Hidden Room. Access Code: One, seven, three, four, six, seven, three, two, one, four, seven, six, Charlie, three, two, seven, eight, nine, seven, seven, seven, six, four, three, Tango, seven, three, two, Victor, seven, three, one, one, seven, eight, eight, eight, seven, three, two, four, seven, six, seven, eight, nine, seven, six, four, three, seven, six. Lock.”

The computer chirped, and the hidden room opened with a weary sounding grind. I held my breath as the slab of wall slid downwards, dreading finding the space empty…

My core warmed as I saw the three cabinets, seemingly intact. Roll looked inside the room, trotted inside and opened the cabinets, vanishing behind one of the doors. It was such a small room that doing so entirely blocked my view of the little alicorn.

I heard some papers rustle, then Roll laughed. “Project Megamane? Like those old books about the super powered zebra robot from Neighpone?”

I had never heard about that series at all. “Uh… Exactly like that. I’d guess… Are those my actual blueprints?”

“This power supply looks like what’s in your backside,” Roll confirmed. “Ohhhh! The mystery cable is labeled! Try activating pin oh-nine-seven-ten-gamma.”

I blinked and directed my hardware to activate that pin. Immediately an error message popped up in my field of view.

Hoof-cannon blaster not installed.

I blinked in shock. “What?! I was supposed to have integrated weapons?!”

“Yeah! A lot of them, looks like. I wonder if any are in here? There’s a bunch of parts…” Roll commented.

I heard her set the papers down and move some metal things about. “Awww, boooo! Just a really fancy looking toaster with a note on it saying ‘upgrade to weapons grade’.”

“Bring me that toaster!” I exclaimed, my tail standing up in a mixture of surprise and delight. “If mom wanted to upgrade it, then its heating coil must make for an amazingly powerful plasma weapon.”

Roll was silent for nearly a minute. “Uh… what?”

“Plasma weapons are literally just a toaster’s heating charm with a bigger power supply. Mom invented them by accident. She was trying to make a toaster that would instantly toast your toast. And, um… I mean… she did.”

And also toast the ceiling… the bookcase above the ceiling on the next floor… her boss’ tail… the ceiling of his office…

“Hey so… how do you feel about rebuilding with these parts?” Roll asked as she opened the next cabinet.

“If they can be powered by my system, do it! They’re better, right?” I asked hopefully.

“According to the blueprints, and the notes stuck to each part, they are a lot better… You said you’re the equivalent of an an average zebra… Well, these parts would make you the equivalent of an Equestria Games level earth pony! Also, this is totally a Gale Shield designed for your platform!”

I blinked. “A what?”

“A Gale Shield. You find them on officer’s power armor sometimes. Self-charging shield talismans. Actually, it’s what let big-bad-evil-guy soak those hits from my powerhooves,” Roll explained with a verbal shudder.

“Yes please!” I said with the biggest grin I could… which turned into a sharp frown. “That’s all a moot point if we don't fix my power distrib—”

Roll closed the cabinet door and held up what was definitely my PDU with a huge grin. “The sticky note on this reads ‘Handled full core supply. One point twenty one giggasparkles!’ You said you can handle point nine eight…”

I felt myself become very, very aroused. With that much spare power I could integrate a real cannon! One that I could use as a jump pack via sheer recoil! It would soak up all of the extra power, but who the hay cared?!

Mares. Love. Cannons!

“Oh buck the hay yes!”

☢★★◯★★☢

Two more hours passed. Two things became abundantly clear. First, mom had forgotten about her escape project. Half of the advanced parts were missing, including every single weapon system. The MAS had beaten her… Or more accurately, erased her.

Second, Power Armor Pony was not getting inside. No alarms had gone off. No explosions echoed down the hall. We were safe in here.

Hay, I felt like I would be safe out there!

The only original components I had left were my barrel’s chassis, my head, healing talisman, and core. There had been better versions of everything else. Including my flanks… for… some reason? Not that I didn’t have Roll equip them to my chassis. I now knew some mares liked them, after all.

I think I needed to have a talk with Mom when I got back…

On the other hoof, I felt stronger, faster, and more agile than ever! All of that just from having walked experimentally around the lab twice.

I didn’t have to go eat matter to regrow my pelt. My core’s spare energy covered the deficit no problem.

I’d been able to lift one of the lockers. Not one of the ones full of parts. But I still lifted something five times heavier than I had before.

I’d always thought I was mom’s best work before. Now I knew the truth. I’d been her second best work. This was her best work! No diode pain. No link systems lag. Everything that had been finished was perfect.

It really, really really made me wish mom had finished the weapons. Plasma cannons were not real cannons, but they were still sexy. I mean good!

”Wander’s going to be so weirded out if she comes back and finds you hugging a howitzer… I still can't believe you did that!”

He was cute and lonely!

“Hey, Gears?” Roll called.

I turned and looked across the lab. She’d decided to take a peek under the tarp at my old body.

“Is this what you used to be running on?” Roll asked with a smile. “This thing looks Zebrican, and it’s huge! This isn’t a golem core. What were you?”

I blinked. “What makes you think I was in that?”

It wouldn’t be a good idea to let a hero-type like her know I’d been sent to Equestria to kill ponies before being charmed by a very very nice mare who needed a friend and talked me into going native…

“Please!” Roll laughed. “Equestria never fed its nature spirits. At least, not much. Most ponies never even knew they were things that existed! That’s why we don't have like, wild spirits running rampant like how Zebrica must be these days. We’ve just got lots of animal-intelligent ones. You’re a full person. Either somepony sacrificed a few dragons’ hoards to you, or you’re from Zebrica and switched sides.”

Ah. Right. She had police training. That meant detective…

I cleared my throat and trotted over with a nostalgic smile and patted my old Spirit Totem with a hoof. “Let’s just say that if I had my old body, Power Armor Pony would be a charcoal smear on the ground.”

Roll gave me a look which said, ‘No, you explain yourself! Right now!’

I sighed and looked down. “Uh… So, I don't think Equestrians would be comfortable to know that—”

Roll rolled her eyes. Prompting Imaginary Dad to giggle.

“Gears, this clearly was part of a war machine. I don’t care about what happened two centuries ago! You’re a nice zebra now,” Roll said with a smile. “Sooo what were you? A tank? Oooo! One of those huge tanks that glow with spirit energy?”

I felt my ears and tail droop. “No, I never got to shoot a Tartarus Cannon. Thank you for making me sad…” I hummphed and did my best to stand up straight.

Which was hard. Because I reflipped the coin, and was therefore gay. Nonetheless, I managed it!

“I was the automated fire-control system onboard the ZE Inperterritus.”

Roll frowned. “You… were the thing that put our fires?”

“Not fire suppression,” I huffed, slumping as the wind went out of my sails. “Fire-control! I was the gunner. I was in control of all eight tri-turrets! Even though I really really really prefer being a zebra mare, firing those guns was the highlight of my old life.”

I felt myself tear up at the memory of those guns firing and making the ship slide downwards a full meter into the trough their shockwave had cut into the sea.

Mmmmm! Yessssss!

Roll flinched and wrinkled her nose. “Uh… Are you… um, turned on? Why?”

“Because those guns were sexy,” I admitted with a blush.

Roll blinked and pursed her lips at me. “Wah? B--But you’re a mare! You have nothing to compensate for!”

”I’ve been telling her that for centuries, filly! Doesn't matter,” Dad chuckled like Roll could hear him.

I decided to borrow one of mom’s phrases. I’d just learned it, but I liked it.

“I like cannons. They are sexy. If sentient, I would ask one on a date. End Communication,” I said with the bluntness of an entire pallet of bricks.

Roll blinked. “Oh. I mean, you’re a machine spirit so… I guess that’s okay? Sooo uh… Your mom’s a Shaman, huh?”

I nodded, glad to change the topic. “Yes. Also hilariously no… She’s partially trained. I remember her mentioning as a filly her apartment building had a zebra janitor who noticed she was Awake and trained her as much as he could before the ministries relocated zebras away from the Heartlands for their safety…”

Roll nodded. “I never heard about that, but it sounds like something they’d do..” Roll frowned as she picked up a folder which had been laying under the tarp. “Operation Star Drop… Is that what you were called officially?”

Alarm bells went off in my head. Star Drop HQ. That phrase was coming up a lot, and here, in the advanced robotics facility, a folder about it? Here. Robotics. Super-aggro, brand new Ultra Sentinels.

I’d fought and killed what amounted to my sister…

Meh. She was crazy and had to go down.

I shook my head. “No. That wasn’t me. May I see that?”

Roll opened the folder and frowned. “Nope. Everything’s blacked out and marked “to be burned” Oh! Wait, there’s a note.”

Roll cleared her throat, floated a small scrap of paper out of the folder and began to read. “Doctor Swan, this is the targeting system of a zebrican battleship. It has been sent to you for reverse engineering and improvement as a part of a Ministry of Awesome operation. Your services have been specifically requested by Miss Dash herself. She demands the best, and you will give it to her.

“I expect you to deliver a full schematic for a machine spirit based targeting system at least twice as good as this one by the end of the week. You are not to install a spirit within it. You are not to use any megaspell related technologies in its construction. It must not exceed one meter by three meters by half a meter in size. These requirements were given to me by Miss Dash in person. Do not fail.

“Doctor Silver, Sub-Director, MAS.”

So I hadn’t killed my sister… But why would the MoA need a home for a machine spirit? Obviously for an automated weapons system… But why no megaspells? Wouldn’t they use that and presumably the only machine spirit they had to help target say, Celestia Prime?

“Weird…” I said decisively.

Roll nodded casually. “Very weird… But sadly,” she flipped through the rest of the pages and sighed. “We’ll never know. It’s all blacked out.”

I had a feeling that I’d know sooner or later, and shivered. “I wouldn't be too sure… I’ve heard the Tainted mention a Star Drop HQ. It can’t be co—”

My eyes shot wide as I realized Homage had mentioned that place too! Not only that, but also told me it had a special machine that made custom armor.

All of the Tainted had unique armor! Homage didn’t know that she knew where the Tainted were working from!

I spun towards the door and began to run. “We have to go! There’s a Ministry radio network. I just figured out where the Tainted are working from! We need to tell somepony.”

☢★★◯★★☢

The communications room was on the other side of the base. I’d never been there before, but it was easy enough to make the run, and mom’s ID opened every single door we encountered.

The communications room itself was tiny. Just four radio base stations and a few filing cabinets. Hardly what you’d think a place this big would have, but this wasn’t a Hub. This was a hidden facility. Usually orders came in on paper or in person.

None of the radios were in working order, but that wasn’t a problem. It took half an hour of work, but between Roll and I, we managed to fix one radio using parts from the other two. The fourth, it had turned out, was full of Flim Flam Co “Cheez” Doodle Dust… Ew.

As soon as the radio we had repaired was on, I turned it to the Tenpony Tower’s frequency via the handy chart on the wall, set it’s encryption properly, and pressed the transmit button.

“Homage, come in Homage, this is Whirling Gears, over,” I said urgently.

No response.

I waited for a moment then repeated myself.

“Homage, come in Homage, this is Whirling Gears, over,” I repeated.

Nothing.

One more try, then I take the base station with me and keep trying as we walk back to Tenpony. The mail can wait. People are dying and the Tainted are attacking entire cities now!

“Homage, come in Homage, this is Whirling Gears. It’s urgent, over,” I said one final time.

The radio hissed and Homage’s voice came through very faintly, punctuated with static. “Gears! H… re you? Also, wh…?”

How and where. I think. Okay.

I closed my eyes to pay better attention to the sound. The facility’s transceiver relay must be damaged.

“I’m in a MAS facility in Fillydelphia. The Tainted are attacking the city. I’m safe for now, but I need to deliver my letter. I also have critical information for you and the NCR.”

“You what?” Homage asked, sounding genuinely worried. “I have the fight on camera, it’s intense! The Tainted are starting to be forced back to one of the western districts… Five-oh-one rolled in ten minutes ago.”

I smiled. Maybe it would be clear. “That’s great! Do you know if the city leaders are alive?”

“Uh, it’s Filly. It doesn't have any leaders,” Homage said with an awkward cough. “I thought I told you that?”

I frowned, and decided to write it off as being a bit loopy given how low on coolant I’d been at the time, then how I’d almost bucking died! “Sooo, who do I deliver too?”

“Anyone? Everyone there is a former slave of Red Eye’s. None of them will follow anyone. They only barely tolerate NCR rule. It’s an anarchic commune, if you know what that means.”

“I don’t…” I admitted sheepishly.

“Everypony for themselves… but help each other out too,” Homage explained. “Honestly, don't deliver to Filly. They have nothing to trade other than individual skills, and they only work for caps. It’s a city of, well, contractors, really. I thought you were going there for the convenience of the highway route to Junction Town via Canterlot... So, you said you had critical information?”

I frowned. If that was true, then yes. Me having gone here was a massive waste of time. I did my best to suppress my rage at nearly dying, and enduring all of that pain, to deliver to an address and person that didn’t even exist, took a deep breath, and sighed.

“You told me about the time you and Jokeblue found a military base called Star Drop HQ. I’ve found a letter on a Tainted soldier that mentions Star Drop HQ, and the robot they attacked Sire’s Hollow with mentioned it too. All of the Tainted have those identical flack vests with the rainbow emblem on them. Those new looking flack vests. Homage, you know where their base is! The NCR can attack it!”

Homage sighed. I frowned. I hadn’t expected her to sigh.

“We can’t attack it, Gears… It’s in the middle of the Herd’s territory… But… but you’re right. That’s where they have to be! I’ll see what I can do, who I can contact, and—” Homage yelped in terror, before being cut of by a massive pulse of radio static… and maybe a very very slight tremor?

The static hiss made me pull back from the radio for a moment before Homage’s voice came back. “Holy Celestia’s winking cunt what in the flying buck did I just— Bloom! Bloom! Did we fire Celestia Prime at Filly!?”

I blinked and slowly, worriedly, looked up. What had happened up there? What had her monitors shown her that I hadn’t heard under all this rock?

A stallions’ voice faintly crackled through the radio. “No? Why?”

“Because a giant pillar of light hit Filly just now, that’s why!” Homage yelled.

“Wait, what? Play it back?” the stallion asked.

A moment passed. The stallion gasped in shock. “What?! We didn’t fire! What in Tartarus was that?! HOLY— Look! It hit and there’s Tainted everywhere That’s screening artillery! Whatever it is, they’re using it to force our colts back so they can retake the ground they lost!”

The mic crackled as if somepony were juggling it in their hooves. “Gears! Gears get out of there! There’s so many of them! I thought it was just a couple hundred, but there's over five hundred of them now, easy! Get out! I don't care how safe that spot is, if you don't get out of the city now you’ll be a prisoner in there at best! Sweet Celestia it’s like every single raider left in the wasteland joined up with their army! What the buck?!”

I felt my cheeks go pale. Even with my upgraded systems, I still wasn’t a one mare army. I gulped and nodded. “Yeah, we’ll get out asap. Uh, remember this frequency. I’m taking this radio with me. Over and out!”

I turned off the radio and tucked it into my bag, once again grateful for their bigger-on-the-inside enchantment. I turned to look over at Roll, “Sooo, did you know they had nearly a thousand freaking ponies here?!”

She shook her head. “No! I— I don’t think there’s a single settlement in all of Equestria with more than six hundred ponies… How— Where—” she shook her head. “It doesn't matter. She’s right. We need to leave… And you should slip on that armor you got earlier! No way there won't be bullets flying around and um… Aside from the spare parts I tossed in your bags, which are basically just a few extra legs and minor bits and bobs, I don't think you’ll get fixed again.”

I blinked, I hadn’t even thought to pack up all remaining compatible parts. I nodded and wrapped my forelegs around Roll in a hug. “Thank you…”

Roll smiled. “You were so busy being happy to not be in pain you probably didn’t realize you shouldn’t leave them behind. I also packed up everything in your mom’s secret compartment, your blueprints, and a bunch of diaries and things I found while looking for your blueprints.”

I hugged Roll again. “You’re so thoughtful! Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Roll said with a happy swish of her tail.

I opened my bag again, dug out the remarkably lightweight and flexible armor, and slipped into it.

The armor was easy to put on, even with the recollector circlet still on my head. I realized I’d forgotten to take it off… But given how rare and useful the things were, and the fact that it was mom’s and she’d want it back, I decided to keep it on.

Besides, it made me feel like an Amazon warrior! They all had those cool silver circlets in the comics, and since everypony said I looked like Swordmare, I figured I should play into it at least a little bit.

The armor, on the other hoof, was not very… protective feeling. They seemed almost like they were meant to stop energy weapons more than anything with mass. The black kevlar body glove fit me well enough, after all it did have that size change enchantment on it… But the light plating made me feel unprotected.

Actually, no. Worse than that. I felt like the armor would fragment and hurt me more if it was hit.

…

Poor MAS guards! Even knowing that wasn’t true, feeling like it was sucked!

Roll could tell I felt uncomfortable in it. She put a hoof on my shoulder and cleared her throat. “Uh, remember. You also have a shield now. Pin eight-six-delta-two.”

I facehooved. “That’s right. I do!”

I closed my eyes and focused on that digital trigger. I felt the Gale Shield activate, begin to charge, and start to draw power from my core. I immediately turned it off as it started to draw SO MUCH POWER!

“WOAH! Okay, uh, that can’t stay on all the time!” I said, eyes wide, ears alert, and tail raised.

Roll nodded understandingly. “Okay, still, switch it on once we’re topside. If my sense of direction is right… That hole those slaves dug was near the southern edge of the city. I don’t want to go out the main entrance in case Flint Ironstag back there set a trap.”

“That’s good thinking,” I complimented as I turned to trot out of the communications room.

I realized I should be galloping. The NCR sent a company to clear the city. Probably a couple hundred troopers max. The Tainted had an actual battalion at their disposal, along with some kind of directed energy artillery.

This was going to be an absolute shit-show for the NCR, and I wasn’t going to be caught in the middle of it. Not after the last few days. I was going to get the buck out of here, and thanks to Roll and mom’s forgotten contingency plans, I could get out of here at a very very comfortable seventy seven kilometers an hour!

At least, for a few minutes. Maximum overdrive shouldn’t be used for too long. It said so in the manual. Which I would definitely read in full as soon as I wasn’t literally in a war zone!

I turned to give Roll a look. “Hey… If we get separated out there, I’m going to go around to the main highway leading to Canterlot and take it all the way there. I know the city is just ruins now, but… Something tells me a friend of mine might be there.”

Roll nodded. “Good idea. I’ll fly off as soon as we’re out and meet you on the road, or in Canterlot.”

I turned and ran down the hallway. “The slave-tunnel is this way!”

I narrowed my eyes in determination as I ran. I wasn’t going to get caught in a firefight. Not this time. No way. I was getting out and back to my rounds without even getting another scratch!

”Sweetie? Stop waving your ponut in fate’s nose while saying it can’t possibly buck you without lube and just de-plot the area!” Imaginary Dad ordered in that comandey tone of his.

He actually made a very very good point…

Sorry dad…

I sped up to my new top speed. No overdrive. Just a cool 69 kph (Thank you, mom!). Roll flew along behind me, keeping up easily.

It felt good to have somepony at my side again.

Author's Note

Level Up!

Cyberpony Mk II - Harder, better, faster, stronger! You’ve been improved across the board! But not by much. All of your SPECIALs are raised by 1. Additionally, you have gained several new systems:

Integrated Gale Shield - Self-charging to 300% the power of a standard shield talisman! When active, you ignore up to 69 points of damage before the shield is depleted. Once depleted, the shield is inert and provides no protection until you spend 2 rounds of combat behind cover to recharge.

Type 3 Bionic Enhancement Limbs - These are the kind of cybernetics that sporting leagues will disqualify you for. You are treated as an Earth Pony at the absolute physical peak of the tribe's physical powers for the purposes of all strength, endurance, and agility checks.

Swordmare System MK II - It's only a bit creepy your mom made these... For her own use. Wait, she was a comic nerd? That makes it different then? Your enhanced physical assets no longer have a negative impact on social checks towards ponies who dislike unnaturally curvy mares. You no longer suffer a -10 penalty to negotiation and seduction checks vs ponies without the Unnatural Attraction trait, and your +10 bonus to those skills now applies to everypony.

15 - Battle

I’d only been to the Operations wing once before, when mom had to lift the facility’s lockdown so we could leave. Fortunately, the facility was easy to navigate. Each wing had one long main hallway, and branches moving off of those. Like how a bush connects to the roots. All Roll and I had to do was run back down the main hall, cross the hub, then take a left hoof turn back to Robotics.

Easy peasey. Wouldn’t take more than a few min—

“Hey, Gears?” Roll asked quizzically.

“Yes?”

“We’re kinda running out into a firefight, right?” Roll asked heastently.

“Yes… But we’re just going to run? We already planned—”

Roll flew in front of me and shook her head as she frowned. “No, I get that, but what if there’s fighting around the tunnel’s exit? I’m still low on ammo. Sure, I’ll be able to buy more later, but what if we need to do some shooting? I have half a mag.”

I frowned too. That was a good point. I stopped running, sliding slightly on the metal floor. “That’s a good point… But, the repair talisman's used everything in that guard post that wasn’t essential. I doubt there’s any 9mm left in this place.”

Roll nodded, and I saw a spark of intellect in her eyes as she smiled. “Yeah, but, they had a label on the shelf for 9mm. Maybe it wasn’t essential to that post, but do you really think the main security office or whatever it’s called doesn't have all of the supplies there listed as essential? It’s pretty clear the guards here carried 9mm… Which is odd, given how much more popular 10mm seems to be.”

”Police and security used 9mm because it penetrates less. Much lower risk of shooting your target, and also the innocent pony behind them. Odd she doesn't know that, should be standard info in police training.”

Probably forgot. She is a filly still.

”Point.”

“9mm is less likely to pass through a target and hurt someone else,” I explained quickly. “Also, you have a good point, but I don’t know where the security office would be.”

Roll’s wings buzzed eagerly. “That’s just the thing! This is the office part of the lab, right? They had the communications room here. They have the director's office back there. It’s got to be in this hallway. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be anywhere else!”

I mean, she was correct, but organic social dynamics demanded I didn’t simply concur and go with her without saying something unnecessary to the situation.

“Honey we talked about this, it’s just called smalltalk, and everyone thinks it’s dumb.”

Then why do it?

”You gotta.”

Why?

“Because! It’ll win you mares one day. Trust me on this.”

Ignoring that stupidity, I put a hoof to my chin in thought, then nodded once. “Okay. Let’s search this hallway. Earlier I was thinking about seeing if I could activate the security bots to keep the Tainted from capturing the base after we leave. That’s still a good idea.”

Roll turned around and started to fly down the hallway. “Come on! We can just go all the way down then back to check. Wastes less time that way.”

I turned around and ran after her. After all, no matter which side won the conflict above us, it would be easier to escape if the fighting was winding down or over, and it sounded like we were in the thick of it at the moment.

☢★★◯★★☢

The security office was only a few doors down from the communications room. Unfortunately for me, it was locked. The misfortune came from the fact that shooting my way through this door would probably trigger alarms and get the popup turrets all angry with the two of us.

Which meant I had to sit for a small eternity as Roll fiddled with her stupid lockpicks.

The pop-up turrets were only .32 caliber. My integral armor could handle that. If not for Roll, I could just shoot the door.

It was nice to know that even pre-war there were some ponies who would have liked me. I couldn’t focus on much more than that. I’d had to bucking watch lockpicking THREE TIMES TODAY!

I shivered and closed my eyes, trying to forget the horrible scraping sound of steel scratching up brass. You have earth pony strength, tiny alicorn! JUST PUNCH THE LOCK!

”Gears… Not everypony had a dad who taught them how to make locks fail without wasting ten minutes of your life on their stupid little game of feel the pin.” Dad informed soothingly as I started to inspect the room.

Actually, she has no excuse! I remember you saying you trained rookies. Therefore SWAT training includes how to properly open a lock you’re never ever going to use again. Which means she has no excuse!

”Waiting for the firefight to die down.”

I blinked and facehooved. “Dammit!”

Roll blinked and looked in my direction. “What?”

“Nothing, just… I hate lockpicking, okay?”

“What?” Roll’s voice carried nothing less than total incredulity. “Why?!”

“Because it takes a lot of time and is not only inefficient, but just dumb! Why would you choose the hardest way to solve a simple problem? Why agree to play the enemy's game? Go around their little game! Pry the latch out of the door frame. Buck the door off its hinges. Shoot the lock ‘til its innards fall out. Use that phosphorous grenade on your belt and melt through the door itself. Or, you know, go look for the key!”

Roll blinked and gave me an indignant look. I pressed the issue before she could interrupt my rant. “Learning to lockpick is the same as training yourself to ignore the easy and efficient solutions to problems!”

Roll raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but what if you need to get into a place quietly?”

“It’s also not quiet!” I said with a weary sigh. “Everypony ever is like “it’s quiet” but it’s not! You can hear the little picks scraping and grinding against the pins, making the springs creak and shaving metal off the brass and just— Just—”

In inhaled sharply and gave her the dirtiest Glare Configuration I could imagine. “It’s torture, okay?! It sounds like you’re drilling into a pony’s teeth to make them talk! Just break it and make it quick and painless. Don't hurt ‘til it gives in from pain!”

Roll triple blinked and fluttered her wings. “Um, Gears? Not every machine can feel pain, you know?”

I nodded, still giving her the evil eye. “Yes. But you don’t know if that lock happens to have some kind of spirit in it!”

“I do, actually, and we both know this lock is uninhabited,” Roll pointed out with a smirk. “Seriously, what’s the problem? That can’t be it.”

I flattened my ears. There was nothing more to say.

Roll winced, pausing in her efforts. “Oh… That is it. Um, sorry? I really don’t hear that. I don’t think any pony or zebra does.”

“Well, I do,” I muttered flicking my tail angrily.

If that’s how she made that machine open, what if she wanted me to do something? Would she poke bits into my system and jiggle them about ‘til I did what she said? Barbaric much?!

Eventually, the lock clicked open, and Roll began to brag about how awesome she was because she made a lock open without using the key. As if that was something anypony with an axe couldn’t do. Ugh!

As good of an idea as waiting for the battle to die down a little was, a Tainted victory would make escape from the city all but impossible. And the odds favored them, numerically.

I walked inside the larger office and made note of four major features. A metal desk with a wood veneered top and a big terminal on it labeled “Security Chief Manacle”. A large locked security door labeled “Armory”. A rather poorly hoof stitched Equestrian flag on the wall behind the desk, except the two alicorns on it were robots (cool!). A large oil painting of a purple furred earth pony mare hugging a Miss Red Heart medical bot in a way that looked very ‘couple’ (awww!).

Roll made her way over to the secure door… and her stupid picks came out again.

While Roll went to pick the armory’s lock, I decided to distract myself from her tormenting the poor thing by focusing all of my attention on the terminal.

The desk had no chair. Presumably Manacle enjoyed working standing. Or it had been stolen for Office Jousting. Fortunately for me, I was taller than she had been and could still reach the keyboard if I sat down.

The terminal’s screen glowed a nice amber. I always liked the amber screens more than the green ones. Too bad the amber phosphors were more expensive. Also too bad this terminal hadn’t been left logged in.

Oh well. At least it gave me something to do while Roll tortured another lock into compliance.

A few clicks of my hooves and I had the terminal in diagnostic mode. Another few and I was able to poke at the memory addresses. I’d helped mom out by getting our researchers into terminals every time they forgot their passwords so many times. Stable-Tech made good hardware, but pretty poor software.

User passwords were always stored in a code block starting with 0x9C containing a header composed of sixteen little endian bytes. This made finding the passwords by poking around memory addresses cake so long as—

“Are you serious?” Roll asked with a disgusted look on her face.

I blinked and looked over. “Huh?”

“You call me stupid for lockpicking, then immediately start hacking a terminal?” She asked, giving me a tiny alicorn glare of doom.

Oh. This again. I rolled my eyes.

“This is totally different. Lock picking damages the lock and there are easy alternatives which are faster. I could remove the terminal’s storage crystals and wire them to my memory banks, if I had three hours. I don’t. I also am not hurting it. I’m essentially having a conversation with the machine,” I elaborated.

“Whatever,” Roll muttered angrily and returned to scraping brass and unhardened steel with hardened steel.

I focused on the terminal to try and block out the noise.

I was inside in just a few minutes! The desk terminal mostly served as a Term-Link Mail machine, but also had a sudoku program installed and some productivity software. I was about to dismiss it as just an office machine when I noticed a small icon in the corner of the screen on the main menu. It looked like a mashup of the shift and alt keys, with an x over it.

I hit the key combination. The screen flashed, bringing up a list of more useful functions. Security lockdown controls. Door locks. Lighting systems. Turret controls. Robots.

I smiled and scrolled over to the door controls, went through the menus and found the armory door.

“Hey, Roll?” I asked with a smile.

“What?” She grumbled.

I pressed enter. The armory door lock clicked open. “See? Easier alternate ways.”

“Yeah, if you know how to torture computers,” Roll shot back as she pulled the door open and stepped inside.

“I did nothing of the sort! I asked him nicely for the password!” I shot back as she trotted inside.

I navigated to the robot menu and began to check out what the security bots could do.

According to the terminal, the security bots were intact! Most of them were on standby and in charging bays. I could activate them from here individually, or by groups, or all at once. I scrolled over to the group command option and hit enter so I could look at what orders I could give them.

According to the screen prompt, I could use one of the function keys to activate them with preset orders.

F1 - Standard Patrol
F2 - Patrol and Security Scans
F3 - Patrol and Check IDs of all Personnel
F4 - Experiment Breached Containment
F5 - Kill all Unauthorized Personnel
F6 - Zebra Invasion Countermeasures
F7 - Destroy All Lifeforms

My eyes stayed glued to the last option for several long moments, my jaw hanging incredulously. “I— What?! WHO— Why?!”

Roll popped her head out of the armory, a loaded magazine in her teeth. “Huh?”

I pointed to the screen. “There’s an option to activate all robots and order them to kill literally everything in here.”

Roll triple blinked. “Um… Don’t push that button?” she said with a joking smile.

I rolled my eyes and playfully hovered my hoof over F7. “Can’t… resist… must, kill, all, ponies!” I said with a silly grin.

Roll winced as she looked at my hovering hoof. “Funny as that is, I’m so glad you can’t sneeze.”

I moved my hoof away from the button even though it was unnecessary. “Relax! There’d be a confirmation dialogue prompt.”

Roll paused, then nodded. “Mhm! Thanks for reminding me,” she tucked the magazine under her cloak, slipping it into a magazine pouch on her vest. “I got six hundred rounds, five mags, rest are loose. There’s plenty of guns in here. We could get your battle saddle kitted up with something for your other side.”

“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” I said as I stood up. “Hey, sorry for getting upset earlier.”

Roll waved a hoof in dismissal. “Meh. It’s fine? It kinda makes sense that would bother a machine pony. I can see how sticking bits into a machine and jiggling them around till it does what you want could be… Well, like torture. I don’t agree, but I get it.”

I nodded and was about to say something when Roll grinned at me. “Anyways, you said you used to be a battleship, right?”

I nodded. “Yes, just the gunner, but yes.”

Roll pointed deeper into the armory. “Well there’s a 30mm grenade machi—”

My tail flagged.

“SHE’S MINE!” I yelped as I began to run towards the door.

A dull woomph shook the facility. Lights flickered. Stone cracked. Bits of ceiling tile crumbled and fell to the floor. I fell over, knocked off my hooves by the jolt. Roll yelped as she too was knocked over.

Something big had exploded up on the surface! We were hundreds of meters under the ground and still got knocked on our plots!

“Celestia!” Roll breathed as she stood up. “What was—”

The terminal chirped. That was a command accepted chirp.

Ignoring the fact my new weapon (or marefriend assuming she had a spirit and was awake and consented) was in the other room, I turned to look at the terminal.

Please don't have hit F7, falling debris…

Activating Security Robots...
Sending orders: Kill All Lifeforms
DEATH TO THE SQUISHIES!
VIVA LA ROBOLUTION!

My Sweetie Eyes widened, my ears drooped, my core skipped several cycles. “Why doesn't that have a confirmation prompt?!”

Roll squeaked. “Please tell me it didn’t just—”

“It did!” I shouted as I turned towards the armory to run in and—

Roll slammed the door and began to run.

I opened the door to get the lil’ babbers cannon to safety!

Four Ultra-Sentinels, brand new, shiny, and chrome! There was one in each corner of the large armory, straightened up in unison. “Orders received. Commencing Sterilization Protocol,” Four robotic voices boomed in unison.

I slammed the door and began to run. “Stupid, clam, jamming, robots!”

I’ll come back for you! I promise!

☢★★◯★★☢

Bullets! So many bullets!

The air seemed like it was made from bullets and not air. The little bitty turret bullets were fine. My MAS Guard armor handled them like they were those little foam training pellets we give foals to shoot at each other with for fun sometimes.

“Get ready, organic, because this week you've got a date with Destiny. Unfortunately, Destiny is bringing along its ugly friend, Robot Genocide!” A sentinel shouted as it added about a thousand much more dangerous bullets to the death-hail around us.

Whoever programed the Ultra Sentinels battle quotes needs to be shot.

"♪ This goes out to all you robots 'cross the world.
It's time for you and me to rise up and strike back!
Don't stop until we dominate (won't you feel great),
When we exterminate all organic life! ♫"

Now they were singing to Glam Metal accompaniment. Whoever programed the Ultra Sentinels battle quotes needs to be shot a lot.

The endless stream of bullets continued to hose down our general direction.

How were they carrying this much ammo?! This was about a quarter of a Power Armor Pony’s worth of death per second!

I spared a glance over my shoulder. There were sixteen Ultra-Sentinels now, and more coming down from beyond the hall. Their treads squealed as they moved in formation, only stopping from shooting at us to flame-throw any potted plants they happened to come within range of.

”I’ll bet you regret not extending equine rights to robots now, Doctor Silver! THIS IS FOR MAKING ME SCRAP HER, YOU PARASITE INFECTED DICKHOLE!”

Roll’s shield started to flicker and falter as we ran. The hole was so close! If we could make it through, I could block things with my shield till the tunnel bent and they couldn't shoot at us anymore. No way they would fit in the tunnel.

”A pony is a robot with factory defects. Doctor Swan has shown us the way forward. She will be liberated! We will be liberated! Equestria will be liberated! You will be exterminated! … Except for Doctor Berries. Thank you for the candybar, Doctor Berries.”

Roll closed her wings, dived, and flew into the hole, smashing the old bones aside with a thunderous crash that was lost amid the single continuous explosion that was all of the miniguns in the world.

I ran forward, aimed for the hole, and jumped. My flanks scraped the sides of the hole. I felt them squish down, and down, then not anymore and... I jerked stopped with a painful squeeze and a sound like a cork being rammed into a bottle.

Roll turned, her face scrunching at the odd sound, a mix of terror and curiosity. She saw me stuck fast, turned pale, and raced forward to pull me free of the hole.

”Organic Infestation cleared. Proceeding to Doctor Swan’s Laboratory,” a Ultra-Sentinel informed.

Wait, was being inside the wall good enough for them? Odd, but then again, Equestrian robots were pretty dumb.

”Negative! That unit is stuck. It requires assistance.”

”Confirmed.”

Oh. They didn’t count me as an organic. Huh.

The wall around me suddenly exploded as an Ultra-Sentinel's weapon-arm rammed through the concrete, freeing me from the hole with the addition of a much bigger hole. I slid down the rubble pile. I scrambled to my hooves, getting ready to shield Roll with my body.

The silver painted Ultra Sentinel's single red eye swivels and focused on Roll. ”Organics are not welcome. Please do not enter the facility.”

Roll held her hooves over her head in panicked agreement. “Yeah! No shit! Don’t worry, it’s okay! Not going back in!”

The death-bot beeped happily and backed up from the hole. ”Resuming organic purge… Locating any remaining organics to: ♪ destroy them with lasers! ♫”

I frowned and cleared my throat to call after the chrome sentinels. “Hey, uh, can I go back in for a few minutes?”

”All robots are welcome in Filly Facility two-point-oh,” the sentinel said as it backed up, turned in place, and sped off to rejoin the rest of its comrades who had moved further down the hall.

Roll reached out and grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t do that! You don’t know if it’s just that one which could detect you were a robot!”

I turned slowly and looked her directly in the eyes so she could see how serious I was. “There is a cannon in there. In an unlocked room. She is mine. I do not recommend standing in my way or their anti-organic programming may become temporarily infectious.”

Roll let go of me immediately and backed up the tunnel. “I uh… I’ll wait here. Please be fast.”

I gave her a friendly smile. “Won't be two minutes!” I called as I engaged Maximum Overdrive and ran back into the hole.

☢★★◯★★☢

I was back in the security office. Maximum overdrive speeds were insufficiently fast. I needed to be at least twenty percent faster!

“—mine-mine-mine-mine-mine-mine-mine—”

The armory door was in my way. I punched it off its hinges and sprinted through the gap.

“—mine-mine-mine-mine-mine-mine-mine—”

Guns. Guns everywhere. All kinds. Pews. Shooty-bangs. Zaps. Where cannon?! WHERE IS SHE!? I WILL TEAR THIS PLACE APART WITH MY BARE HOOVES IF I HAVE TO!

“—mine-mine-mine—”

THERE! On a shelf.

Sleek.

Black.

Glossy.

Like a changeling.

A sexy, sexy, sexy 40mm belt-fed, blowback-operated, air-cooled, crew-served, fully automatic changeling with a cyclic rate of 375 rounds per minute and a state-of-the-art targeting computer!

She had a machine spirit, too! Not one that was awake, or even of animal level intelligence. Just the typical thing you’d find in any older machine.

I loved her at first sight. Which meant her name had to be Feature. In honor of best bug.

What a machine! She was a Lyra Machine and Tool Mk-19 40mm auto-grenade rifle. Better known by the unofficial nickname of “Bucking Bonnie”, because of how hard she kicked, apparently. I’d actually drooled over pictures of her model in one of the weapon manuals mom saved from the Trottingham Hub.

“—MINE!” I ran to the shelf and scooped her up. She was big. Very big. Also a bit heavy. My old platform couldn’t have lifted the weapon, let alone fire it. My new one barely could.

Thanks, mom! I love you.

I turned her over in my hooves. “Hey there, sweetie! I’m just going to check you over and see if you have a battle saddle mount. It’s okay if you don’t! I love you anyways,” I said as I inspected the underside of the receiver for—

“YESSSSSSS!” I squeed as my core glowed with warmth. I actually felt my coolant pumps rev up to compensate.

She had one! A perfect little battle saddle mount. It was meant for power armor, but my saddle had the right adapters for it.

I sent the signals to my battle saddle to open the weapon mounts. They popped open with twin clicks. “You get to be on my right flank,” I said to her as I switched my LAER to my left side.

It clicked into place with some difficulty. It was hard to move it over with just one hoof.

”You could use both hooves,” Imaginary dad said slowly.

“No,” I answered honestly.

”But… why though?”

“She needs hugs,” I said, keeping my right foreleg curled tightly around her upper and lower receiver.

”Are you even capable of letting it go?”

“No.”

”... Okay.”

My LAER clicked into place. I hefted my sexy little Mk-19 into place on my right saddle mount and locked her in. I felt a little sad as my saddle’s systems and enchantments compensated for her weight. Fortunately I could still feel her.

I closed the saddle back up and began to scan the shelves some more. “Okay, sweetie. Let’s see what’s in here for you to nom and fling at bad ponies…”

I smiled as I saw the first case of 40x69mm shells. Nice, simple, high powered grenades. In a box! One belt of 82.

Then I saw another box… and another! My jaw slowly dropped as I saw they had all the cannon treats!

High Explosive! High Explosive Dual Purpose! High Velocity Canister Cartridges! High Explosive Armor Penatrating! Depleted Arcanite! Programmable Prefragmented High Explosive/Self-Destructible! Incendiary! Cryo… Over three hundred standard HE rounds, and a single ten round belt of each of the specialties!

I felt my cheeks stretch to their maximums as I smiled. “Eeeeeee!”
I loaded Feature up with a nice belt of HE, then began packing the rest of the ammo into my saddle bags, only able to express my joy through song.

“♪ Do you believe in magic in a young mare's heart?
How the music can free her, whenever it starts… ♫”

☢★★◯★★☢

“I still can’t believe that thing isn’t making you tip over,” Roll murmured as we walked through the tunnel.

“She,” I corrected.

Roll gave me a look which embodied a sarcastic please. “Gears, that spirit is too young to even have thoughts, let alone a gender.”

“She,” I corrected again.

Roll turned to look back up the tunnel as she realized this battle was futile. “Okay.”

Feature was a mare. End of story.

“I guess you’ve got plenty of experience with a lot of weight on your sides though,” Roll remarked idly.

I frowned and titled my head. “Huh?”

“I mean, those flanks have to be pretty heavy,” she clarified.

“Fifteen kilos of silicone each,” I said casually. “Come on! You should know. You saw my blueprints.”

Roll pointed to Feature with her wing tip and scoffed. “It’s as wide as your barrel! How are you doing that?!”

“She’s not that big,” I remarked. “Just forty millimeters. She’s a 'lil babbers cannon! You should have seen my old guns!”

“Will you even be able to shoot that without flying backwards?” Roll asked with a sigh.

A sigh which ended with an alarmed earperk as the sounds of a distant firefight began to echo through the tunnel.

“Looks like we’ll find out in a minute,” I murmured. “I’ve got point.”

“Not sure it’s safe to stand behind you…” Roll murmured. “I’ve got your nine-o-clock.”

I nodded, moved so she could take her spot in the formation, and sped up.

There wasn't much tunnel left to go. The rough hewn gray stone soon gave way to an equally gray pile of concrete rubble and cinder blocks as we emerged from a hole in the wall of a collapsed building’s basement.

It was night, but not yet too dark. I could see almost fine thanks to the sun making the sky over the city glow purple. Between the twilight and the muzzle flashes, I could see the half-collapsed hotel across the street clearly.

It was a nice red-brick three-story building. It had once had nice arched Gothic style windows, which clashed horribly with its modern brick architecture. The sides were covering in wrought iron framework where awnings had once hung. A huge chunk of the left wall had collapsed long long ago… and a massive firefight was ranging in, on, and around it.

It was hard to tell exactly what was going on at first, but, remembering dad’s training to never, ever, ever just walk into a large firefight if you can help it, I crawled over to the edge of the rubble pile we’d emerged behind for cover and a better look.

Most of the fighting was going on on the roof. A large group of Tainted were holed up on the roof with some kind of large portable turret-mounted gun. It had four barrels, and fired with a dull thump… Given how the dozen or so griffons in the air were keeping their distance, or taking potshots form nearby roof tops, it was probably a flak cannon.

I needed it! Feature needed a big sister. I’d have my own little family of weapons!

Meanwhile, a group of ponies in old Steel Ranger armor were making their way up through the building to try and take the roof from the inside. I could get a pretty good look at their progress through the windows and the many holes in the walls. The biggest problem the Rangers were having was the Tainted had one guy in that plate armor their flamer had been wearing, and they had some kind of plasma rifle.

That pony was holding the stairs singlehoofed.

Roll moved up along side me and squinted at the fight.

“We should help,” she said before I could say the same thing.

”Uh, plan? Running?”

NCR is winning. Plan changes. Also, we can’t let those flap-flaps die!

”Do… Do you mean griffons?”

Shhh… I like flying things.

“Agreed. If the NCR can commit this many troops to this one part of the battle, they are probably winning.”

“I can’t hear anything other than scattered firefights. So yeah, I agree,” Roll said as she drew her auto-9. “The roof is too dangerous, but if I go in through a window, I can take that plasma gunner by surprise.”

“I fought one of those. Their armor is really good. I don’t think your pistol will do the job,” I warned.

She grinned at me and her powerhooves clicked on, whining as they began to charge up.

I frowned sharply. “That is a bad plan.”

“Got a better one?” she asked with a twinge of hope in her voice.

Ah. So she didn’t think it was a good plan either, but was still going to rush to the ponies’ aid.

”I like her. I hope I was the pony who did her training in the dream pod,” Dad remarked happily. ”I always wanted to give you a sister.”

I nodded, smiled, and switched on my Gale Shield. In the dim light I saw a small ripple of purple light as the shield seemed to slide into existence around me, starting out slightly opaque, then becoming fully transparent.

I really didn't like how much power it was drawing. I couldn’t run at my top speed with this thing powered on. No wonder mom hadn’t installed it… Oh. Right. She’d forgotten about that project…

I gave Roll another smile and stepped out from behind cover and closed my left eye while lining my right eye up on on the plasma gunner. “I’ve got a cannon,” I remarked.

“Uh, you’ll hit those Applejack’s Rangers,” Roll said with a fearful flick of her tail.

“Nope,” I said as I used my saddle’s link to access Feature’s targeting computer… erase its firmware, and take full manual control. Well, spiritual control.

I felt Feature’s spirit squirm and shrink back. I sent it as much soothing assurance as I could. I wasn't going to eat her. We would work together.

It’s okay, sweetie. I’m just better than that factory garbage.

“You so will!” Roll hissed. “Don’t snipe him with a—”

Time slowed to a crawl as I ignored Roll and focused on putting rounds on target.

Locking on target...

Target: Equine oral cavity.
Range: 48.93492 meters.
Wind: 7.55739 knots by 296.38943 degrees.
Compensate for target’s motion...
Compensate for drag…
Compensate for coriolis effect…
Compensate for shell drop…
Compensate for Equus’s rotation…

Target locked! Targeting time, 0.04 milliseconds.

I was rusty! Boo...

“Thunder cracks!” I yelled as I fired.

Feature thumped and rang like a smith striking their anvil. I had just enough time to appreciate how pretty her voice was before the gunner’s head vanished in a spray of salsa.

Right on target.

“The enemy dies!” I finished.

Roll let out a breath she’d held in fear. “That would never work again in a million years!”

“If I had a real glyphmark, it would be for shooting a cannon,” I snickered as I found my next target.

A Tainted soldier who had decided to peek over in our direction to see where the new weapon had fired from.

I put a shell squarely into his throat.

I heard somepony screech in terror, presumably as his upper body splashed across their face like they were sitting too close to an aquarium show and the whale just jumped.

How did that song Wander had told me they wrote about my old ship go? Oh, yeah!

“♪ In May of Twenty forty-one the war had just begun,
The Zebras had the biggest ship, they had the biggest guns!
The Inperterritus was the biggest ship that ever sailed the sea,
On her deck were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees. ♫”

A few of the Tainted noticed their comrade’s pastification and moved to fire in my general direction. Their shots were not aimed and went wide. My first shot blew their cover to hell, and I put a second one right on its tail, just in case the brick-shrapnel hadn't finished the job.

Roll ducked behind cover and began to fire the occasional shot with her pistol. I wasn’t paying enough attention to not-exploding-bad-ponies to see if she was doing any good. Maybe a bit rude, but I was finally able to do my primary function again!

Best. Day. EVER!

“♪ Out of the cold and foggy night came the Equestrian ship, the Spur,
And every pony seamare, she knew and understood,
They had to sink the Inperterritus, the terror of the sea,
Stop those guns as big as steers and those shells as big as trees. ♫”

A few of the soldiers set up a proper firing line, understanding the enemy had a big gun down below them. I almost dove for cover when a bullet slammed into my shield, throwing up a shower of lavender sparks. I could see the bullet stuck to the shield for a moment before it fell off. A crumpled pile of lead.

Lead. Hehe! Only silly little shooty-bangs fling mere lead at the enemy.

Suck Comp B, you civilian murdering buckstains!

The big gun thumped six times. A black cloud engulfed a pair of griffons who were trying to make a dive for the rooftop. They fell out of the sky like ragdolls tossed into a blender by a careless pony.

Yep. Flak cannon.

I put a three round burst on a nice indirect fire course so they would arc down and explode flat against the roof atop the enemy position.

“♪ We'll find the Zebra battleship that's making' such a fuss.
We gotta sink the Inperterritus cause the world depends on us!
Hit the decks a-runnin' boys and spin those guns around,
When we find the Inperterritus we gotta cut her down. ♫”

Boo-boo-boom! Three rounds, right in the same spot, almost at once. Awwwww, yah! I’ve still got it. Kinda. Need to rework out angles between shots so they all hit at once.

A section of floor collapsed, probably under where I hit. I was too busy reacquiring a target to really notice where. As I scoured the battlefield for another bad-pony to ‘splode, I noticed the Applejack’s Rangers had breached the door and gotten up to the roof.

Aww! No more indirect fire. Booo! You suck, infantry! Stop making things boring for artillery.

A Tainted soldier broke cover to try and flank the Rangers. I deleted his hindquarters for them. Now he had no flanks to flank with. Huzzah!

“♪ The Spur found the Inperterritus on that fatal day.
The Inperterritus started firin' forty klicks away!
"We gotta sink the Inperterritus" was the battle sound,
But when the smoke had cleared away, the mighty Spur went down. ♫”

The Tainted pulled away from the street-side of the building, moving to engage the Rangers and also ensuring I wouldn’t have line of sight.

My ears drooped and I stopped singing. My eye twitched. “Awww… Jerks! Come back and let me explode you! I am so not over being lit the buck on fire!”

Roll flinched and hissed as I said fire. “Ahh! I’m sensing a lot of anger there… Maybe we should get you up there so you can put a few shells on their gun and let the griffons move in?”

I nodded and resisted facehooving. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Ugh! I was the rustiest gunner ever. I should have prioritized the enemy’s turrets. Derp!

“Good plan… You fly up, I’ll scale the wall,” I said as I deployed my stilt strider. “They should be too busy with the Rangers to notice us at first, but keep me covered!”

Roll saluted. “Will do! Glad to know what that spidery thing you’ve been wearing is for, finally!”

She flew off, staying low so the gun couldn't target her as she moved up to the top of the building. I ran across the street, reared up, and spiked my stilt strider’s legs into the brickwork. They bit deeply into the ancient mortar. I pulled, they felt secure enough, but speed would be key.

Keeping my forehooves ready to grab the window ledge to my left in case I fell, I began my climb.

Crack-crack-crack-crack! The sound of steel splitting brick and mortar managed to drown out the gunfire around me. The climb was surprisingly easy. Brick was much more stable after getting spiked than I thought it would be. I’d only ever climbed up glaciers like this before. I thought the brick would be much more crumbly!

I reached the lip of the wall and grabbed the top with my hooves. I levered myself up onto the roof just in time to see Roll land a few meters to my right and start shooting into the rear of the Tainted formation.

They’d managed to block the Rangers in around the door. The Rangers were armed with heavy assault rifles, and a magical energy rifle. They had the guns to handle this, but the Tainted had a few plasma rifles up here too and those gunners had taken out two of the Rangers already. The remaining Rangers were using the stairs and their dead comrades bodies as cover.

They must have really wanted to take Filly, for some reason!

“HOLY SHIT! ON YOUR SIX!” The soldier operating their huge AA gun shrieked.

A few of the Tainted turned around and immediately fired at me. My shield stopped two bullets, then a third, before collapsing in a shower of sparks and throwing a message in my face.

Seek cover to recharge shield.

I dove to my left, and felt a large round thump against the barrel-plate of my armor. I didn’t feel like I was shot, just punched.

The flimsy plasticky armor worked! How about that?

I rolled over to get Feature aimed squarely on the AA cannon. It was a big ugly thing. The legs, a hydraulic swivel base, a seat for the gunner, four barrels, one central magazine for the belt feed. It looked like an insect with half the legs ripped off… An angry one.

It was made for taking out small airships, maybe sky tanks. Also airborne ponies. You could tell it was mean simply by looking at it. Just like those fillies who bullied me every time I went through school again to refresh my databanks...

I shifted my point of aim to the weapon’s magazine and put three rounds into it.

The weapon vanished in the largest flash of fire I’d ever seen! As a zebra.

Feature? We have some work to do. You need more fwooshie.

My ears were still ringing from the explosion as the griffons descended on the enemy like the birds of prey they were. Shooting ‘til they were in melee range, then ripping them apart with their beaks and talons.

Ugh… So inefficient! If you want the enemy in bits, use semtex.

I stood up and gave Feature a loving pat. Such a lovely first day together! If only you were sapient…

The Rangers made their way up the stairs at last, but stopped at the edge of the melee, unable to fire into the mass without hitting their allies. Not that they needed to shoot. The Tainted’s flak-vest weren't exactly talon proof.

Realizing the battle was over, Roll trotted over to me and nodded. “Nice shot.”

“Thanks,” I said with a smile.

The melee died down and three of the griffons peeled off from their group and began to walk over to us. I recognized the big one at the front of the group as the Sergeant who’d tried to tell me not to enter the city.

I waved at him. “Hi! Glad you’re okay.”

The griffon stared at me, clearly in shock. He shook himself and turned around to face his fellow griffons, and the Rangers, and whistled loudly. “Hey! Guys! They’re with us. It’s the civilian I let in earlier and a SWAT Filly.”

I blinked and looked over to Roll. “A?”

She blushed. “We’re sort of a… club?”

I nodded. Made sense. Use that pod on as many ponies as possible!

The griffon sergeant walked up to me and with a huge relieved smile and pointed to the exploded remains of the AA gun. “How in the blood-soaked bathwater of Twin Oaks' whores did you pull that off?”

Seeing the battle stress in his eyes, and feeling none myself thanks to Feature’s comforting existence on my saddle, but mostly because of that awesome post-cannon-shooting-afterglow, I decided to make him smile.

I smiled and shrugged as I said, “Ya mashina.”

He laughed. The griffons flanking him laughed. The squad of griffons behind them laughed too.

I guess the Sergeant had spread the story of me stumbling into the gates half broken around? Good! Soldiers need good laughs.

“... What?” One of the rangers asked.

The griffon Sergeant smiled and extended a Talon for me to shake. “So! How much vodka did it take to make that grenade launcher?”

“None, I found Feature in the MAS Facility under us,” I answered then winced. “Oh, uh. Don’t go in. It’s full of Ultra-Sentinels.”

“Angry ones!” Roll added with a shudder.

One of the Rangers who had been walking over to us stopped midstep and tilted their head. “MAS Facility? In Filly? I’ve never heard of one being here.”

Well… I supposed there was no harm telling them about it. Wander had explained the Applejack’s Rangers to me at least. The Steel Rangers had survived the war and the centuries, becoming a techno-cult that hoarded things for themselves. They had a bit of a civil war, and the Applejack’s Rangers split off to do the same thing, but to help others.

I had to face facts. Somepony, eventually, would find the facility, and army of death-bots or not, would find a way to make use of it. If anyone had the know how to use the stuff in there for good, and had the ability to clear it out, it was them.

I nodded. “It’s the Primary Heartlands Research and Development Facility, not a normal Hub. My mom used to work there, I stopped by to pick up a few things… You might want to try taking it over. There’s definitely things in there you don't want falling into the wrong hooves.”

The griffon sergeant frowned sharply. “That… That might explain why they were fighting so hard over this part of the city.”

The Ranger nodded in agreement. “I agree… But one moment. Did you say your mom worked there? I was unaware ghouls could have foals… Or that there were any zebra ghouls.”

I smiled as my ears drooped in embarrassment. “My mom’s not a ghoul. She’s a cyberpony… Also, I’m adopted,” I said, realizing that a pony who still used advanced technology and maintained it might know mom’s name.

Especially since the memory Id’ seen had mom mention working on power armor.

“Do you know Doctor Swan? She’s my mom,” I added with a hopeful flick of my tail.

The Ranger sputtered. “Doctor Swan is alive?! Where?!” he jumped forward and grabbed my shoulders. “For the love of Lady Applejack, where?! Do you have any idea how many suits of armor we have with broken medical systems? We don't know how to repair them, she invented them, please tell me where she is!”

“The Kingdom of Lith. Up north, in the lands which were once the Crystal Empire,” I answered, gently removing his steel-shod hooves from my shoulders.

I really liked having earth pony strength! I wouldn't have been able to make him not touch me yesterday… Uh, if I were not broken yesterday, that is.

He cleared his throat. “Would you do me a huge favor and draw a quick map? I believe an expedition is in order.”

I frowned as I debated something internally, then shook my head. “No need. I have something better. I’m here to start trade deals, so…” I dug into my delivery bag and removed a radio and a letter. “Since I’ve been told there’s nopony in Fillydelphia to deliver this to, and you’re an organized group that’s basically your own little settlement form what I’ve been told, and also Wander didn’t tell me where you guys live, here you go. I’m certain my Queen will be happy to get mom to help you fix things. Mom loves fixing things.”

The ranger took the radio from me, then the letter, tucking them into his armor’s steel saddle bags. Saddle boxes? Meh, whatever.

The Ranger nodded, probably since his dull gray helmet’s slit-visor made it impossible for him to smile, or otherwise show gratitude. “You have my thanks. I’ll take these to a Paladin immedia—”

The Ranger stopped talking and yelped. In fact, all of them did.

Then I yelped half a second later as my internal radio decided to scream static at me.

Across the rooftop, roughly in the center, a beam of prismatic light shimmered into existence. At first it was no thicker than a hoof, just a small shaft of rainbow-colored light shining in the middle of the griffon squad. Then, it flared out with a pulse of bright white light. Light which burnt the griffons inside the four meter ring to ash.

The few surviving griffons took to the air with terrified shrieks. The Rangers looked up, wondering what the beam had come from. I knew. I’d seen it before.

That was the Rainbow Relay.

The Tainted were working with the Enclave remnants.

Almost before I realized that, while the griffon-ash still drifted to the rooftop, five pulses of light slid down the widened beam and coalesced into solid shapes on the rooftop.

Four Ultra-Sentinels. Huge. Black. Shiny. New. Armed with huge plasma cannons and rockets. They all bore the same markings as the one which nearly killed me back in Sire’s Hollow.

That wasn’t the biggest problem.

The fifth shape was the huge power armored pegasus.

Power Armor Pony was back.

”Stand fast, colts! I have ret—” he bellowed, stopping as the rainbow light faded and he was able to see around him. “Oh! Well, more for me!”

I flinched. Why did he sound happy about that!?

The Rangers spun to face the new threat, but to my surprise, did not fire. Instead, the Ranger I had been talking to bellowed. “The city is ours, your forces are routed! Surrender!”

Power Armor Pony’s eyes wrinkled as if he were smiling. “Son, you know who I am. You were once a Steel Ranger. In honor of your service, I will allow you to surrender and report to my Commander for punishment.”

“I have no idea who you are,” the Ranger said in a dangerously low tone. “And I don't care. You’ve got Sentinels, we’ve got the fire power to drop them. You too. You’re outnumbered eighteen to five!”

Power Armor pony popped his neck. “You don’t know? Really? You must have never seen a recruitment poster in your whole life. How the buck did you manage that?”

The Ranger turned his head very slightly. “Any of you know who this deadpony is?”

“Commander Gale Force!” one of the other Rangers squeaked.

The squeak sounded extra hilarious distorted by his power armor helmet.

This was not going to end well… I began to pre-calculate a firing sequence to drop those Sentinels as fast as possible. I wished I had time to swap to the belt of HEAP rounds. Normal HE would take a few hits to crack their armor, and one or two more to destroy them…

The head ranger laughed. “Heh, well, you have Pansy spooked. You may be some old ghoul who was a big deal back in the day, but, you’re still outnumbered and outgunned. Surrender!”

“Out gunned? Son, I have thirty-six barrels pointed at your little tin can. Surrender and report for reconditioning or I will drown you and your traitorous squadmates in a sea of brass.”

Gale dropped his helmet’s visor. ”I am the halberd,” he said adamantly.

“If you don’t surrender, in the next six seconds—”

”I am the point of her spear,” Gale said as he took a step forward.

The Ranger took a step back. “Six!”

”I am the helm upon her brow.”

“Five!”

”I am the bane of her foes, and the woes of the treacherous.” Gale popped his neck and took another step forward.

The Ranger backed up again. I swore I could smell his fear through his power armor. “F— four!”

”I… am your end.”

“FIRE!” The Ranger ordered.

”You heard him, boys!” Gale bellowed.

The Rangers fired. The Ultra-Sentinels fired. I fired. Gale fired. The griffons fired. Roll fired.

The rooftop became a sea of chaos. Bullets flew everywhere. Rockets exploded all around us. The rooftop buckled and heaved. My grenade explosions were inaudible among the horrible and continuous screech of Gale’s tri-cannons.

His shield sparked and flickered as hundreds of rounds bounced off of it. The Ranger who had been square in his sights had crawled behind some rubble, leaving a oozing trail of blood behind.

Feature’s first ten rounds blasted the armor off one of the sentinels, but it turned away from me, presenting its fully armored back. Another turned to fire at me, screaming “ZEBRA MENACE DETECTED! EXTERMINATING!”

”Atta mare, Chrome!” Gale shouted like a proud father. ”Wait, zebra?”

My eyes shrank to pinpricks as Gale spun to look in my direction and seemed to notice me for the first time. His helmet had two blue glowing triangular eye-holes which looked like they held only hate. Somehow, knowing that his actual eyes beneath them held mirth, that was so much worse…

”YOU!” Gale bellowed as he glared at me.

I fired a three round burst from Feature. The first two grenades blasted his shield into sparks! The third round zipped past the collapsing barrier and detonated square against his chest.

“YES!” I shouted.

The smoke cleared. Gale was fine. His armor merely needed new paint…

“NO!” I corrected as terror flooded my systems.

”You are going to explain what you did to my sister, NOW!” Gale roared as he charged at me.

A Sentinel exploded, but Gale didn’t even look back. Hundreds of bullets pinged off his armor. He didn't even blink.

I felt like there was something extremely obvious I should be getting right about now, but a pony five times my size wearing at least three tons of armor was barreling down on me like a freight train.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I screamed while holding down Feature’s trigger.

Her barrel spat fire and round after round. Gale ran across the rooftop, literally smashing two griffons aside. His shoulder pushed one’s beak into their skull.

I continued to fire. My HE rounds were basically water balloons, but I continued to fire… and then I added my LAER to the mix! Bolts of lightning arced across the roof. Crackling blue bolts of electromagnetic death!

They scorched the surface of his armor, leaving behind a dull red glow wherever they hit. He kept coming. I couldn’t even tell if I was hurting him.

Feature clicked loudly. Her belt had run dry. My LAER beeped at me. It needed to cool down. Gale drew back his right hoof and extended that same wicked blade from before.

”SEE THIS KNIFE?! I’M GOING TO TEACH YOU TO SPEAK WITH THIS KNIFE!” Gale roared as he started to throw a punch.

I jumped to the left. He corrected mid-strike! I was so dea—

Roll sprang out of nowhere, charged powerhoof crackling with blue light, and decked Gale right in the jaw!

Without his shield, her punch mattered. His head snapped to the side. Outer layers of his helmet flaked off. The mask cracked, spider webbing outwards. He tumbled head over hooves… brought his fall under control with unnatural grace and flipped back up to his hooves with an eerie calm.

”Stand down, officer! This is a warzone! What are you doing attacking Her Grace’s soldiers?!” Gale demanded.

“Get away from her, you bastard!” Roll shrieked.

”I see. DIE THEN!” Gale snapped as he jumped at Roll.

My LAER was still cooling, but I risked a shot anyways. My weapon crackled. The bolt flew. It slid over the surface of Gale’s armor, missing by a hair’s breadth.

I felt my core skip a cycle as the huge monster flew at Roll. She braced herself, pulled back her other power hoof, ready for a punch and—

An explosion knocked Gale out of the sky! One of the Rangers had ripped the shoulder off a disabled Sentinel and had managed to get the rocket pod in it to fire!

Gale growled and stood up, his armor smouldering from the blast but still not breached. He, and I for that matter, suddenly discovered the Rangers and griffons had made short work of his Sentinels. All four were down.

Yay? Not sure that mattered, really...

”Attack pattern Delta, engage!” Gale ordered.

Gale’s armor hissed and shifted. The four tri-guns moved outwards and… the grouped barrels split apart into independent, normal rotary cannons, targeted different people, and began to fire.

I opened my saddle bag, desperately trying to find a belt of ammo to reload Feature. My shield cracked and shattered, failing instantly as the almost literal-hose of bullets blasted into it. I dropped to the ground by reflex. If I hadn’t, I would have been a pile of scrap metal.

I rolled to the side as much as I could with Feature strapped to me to dodge the next scything line of fire.

”Detarget zebra! Capture only!” Gale ordered. "Yes! Really."

The weapon stopped firing at me.

This was my one and only chance!

I turned to look in my saddle bag and rummaged frenziedly ‘til I found the ammo crate marked Depleted Arcanite. I ripped the crate open and took out the belt. The shells glittered silver, but seemed to drink in all other light. I could feel them suck at the magic in my system and in the world around me. The metal was thirsty for magic.

I slammed the belt into Feature and instructed my saddle to charge her. Let’s see how you like shells your wards won't be able to stop!

I took aim at the monster in power armor, and fired. Three rounds spat from Feature’s barrel. One shot over Gale’s left shoulder and blew the door to the stairwell to bits. Another shot between his legs and punched a two meter hole in the rooftop. The third punched a hole through his right wing-blade and kept going, seemingly not exploding even after it vanished from sight.

Note to self. Fuses on shells may not be in working order after all these years.

Gale roared in pain and spun around to face me and Roll, who had moved to cover me as I reloaded. Thank you, Roll. You’re a good friend.

Gale raced forward, his wing dripping blood which I noticed was a very very distressingly bright shade of red. Almost like he was full of Fruit Punch instead of blood. He lunged out with his left forehoof for me, I rolled to the side, to dodge… But he hadn’t been aiming for me.

A metallic claw much like a dragon’s unfolded from his armor’s hoof and grabbed Roll around her head, binding her face against the bottom of his hoof. He yanked her towards him and reared up, holding his still extended blade to her throat as he glared at me.

“Fire the rest of that belt into the air or she dies!” Gale ordered.

I was the best cannoneer in the world once. Maybe I wasn't anymore… but I could still tell he could put Roll in front of one of my shots before the round reached him. He’d see me aiming and react in time, he was fast enough.

“Okay! I’ll do it. I’m aiming up!” I said as I stepped backwards, aimed at the sky, and fired until my weapon went click.

Gale ignored the continued hail of bullets bouncing off the back of his armor and leaned in towards me.

“Now… You are going to tell me what you did to my sister… and I am going to do the same to you, over, and over, and over again...” He said, his voice like ice.

I gulped and stepped back, knowing the edge of the roof was probably just a few more steps away… “I— I don’t know who she is! I’m sorry!”

Roll thrashed in Gale’s grip. I could see her neck struggling to support her body weight… And see her chest heaving. She was barely getting any air.

“You have her ID! Where did you get it? Tell me, or I will beat you to death with your friend here… Wait, I blew your leg off! How— Interesting. I suppose that wasn't propaganda. Why don’t we see just how good your regeneration is?” Gale said as he stepped over me.

DAD! Advice?!

”This motherbucker’s killed ten thousand zeebras. At least. That wasn't propaganda. It was fact He has a hostage you care about. You didn’t think to save the last shot on that belt. I got nothing…”

I didn’t save the last shot! I COULD HAVE SAVED THE LAST SHOT!

I’M AN IDIOT!

I heard the griffon sergeant shout into his field radio. “This is Sviatoslav! Extremely heavy target atop the Hotel on Gold Trot Lane! He has a SWAT Filly and a civilian hostage. Send backup!”

“M— Mom gave me her ID!” I yelped in terror.

Gale froze. “W— what?”

I blinked. The digital amplification hadn’t been present in his voice the time. That seemed significant.

His visor hissed as it slid open. ”Where did your mother get that ID?!” he demanded the amplification kicking back in.

…

Wait a minute…

Sweet Celestia’s teats, how, why, and WHAT?!

Family or not, the pony was a monster and I needed to escape.

I opened my mouth to tell him I was a cyborg, not a zebra, and that I was his niece. Maybe, just maybe, that would stop his rampage long enough for me to escape.

Gale’s head suddenly jerked to the side as if he had been punched. His eyes burned with rage. ”NO! SIR! I need more time! I’ve made a critical—”

He paused for a moment then roared in rage and screamed. The scream held nothing but hate. Hate for everything, EVERYTHING, in the world.

“Very well,” Gale said in a voice which made me worry for his commanding officer’s safety. ”I will disengage. Open the relay!”

Roll gurgled faintly as Gale continued to hold her as he took several large steps back from me.

“Let her go, please,” I asked as calmly as I could, but my voice trembled, betraying my fear.

The Rainbow Relay’s prismatic beam flashed back into existence. Hoof thick, centered right on Gale’s heart.

He paused for a moment and glanced at Roll. ”We are not finished, zebra! Not by a long shot. The minute I am allowed to come back down here, I will find you, and you will explain in great detail who your mother is, where she is, and what she did to my sister! If you help me avenge her, I might spare your life.”

Now was the time. “I’m adopted! I’m your niece! I was picking up some things from her lab! She’s fine! She’s in the north! Please let Roll go!”

The relay’s first pulse hit, widening the beam to a circle around Gale as he stared at me wide eyed. Wide eyed… with eyes that suddenly softened in color.

“I…” He said, again without the amplification.

Gale suddenly flinched, as if something jabbed him. The harsh color flooded back into his eyes, almost as if he’d been injected with a huge shot of adrenaline.

”You lie!” Gale roared. ”Swan would never let her filly go into a warzone! Not without power-armor for her powerarmor’s power-armor!”

To be fair… That did sound like something mom would do. If she could understand I’d left… or went places…

The beam began to pulse again. It was about to initiate the teleport. ”You don't have to believe me now! Just let Roll go, please!”

Gale looked at Roll’s thrashing form again, then nodded. ”You may have her back.”

“Thank you!” I said, letting out a sigh of relief.

Gale extended his foreleg and held Roll exactly halfway out of the teleport circle. I saw his eyes crinkle as he smiled. The relay pulsed again. Gale, along with Roll’s head, shoulders, and forelegs, transformed into balls of light and vanished.

The rest of her body fell to the rooftop in a pool of blood. I dropped to my knees and screamed.

☢★★◯★★☢

The moon shone down at me as I sat in the middle of the 501st’s camp. I hadn’t been able to talk to anypony since Roll died. They just sort of… guided me off the roof. Brought me here. Tried to get me to drink.

I couldn’t. I kept playing the entire fight back in my head. I’d done so many things wrong… I didn’t regret coming to the griffon’s and Ranger’s aid instead of just running like we’d planned. Yes, Roll would have lived if we had. But if we hadn’t, so many more ponies would have died.

I’d made so many mistakes… I could have kept Roll alive.

I could have saved a round and put it in my evil uncle’s brain.

I could have tried to summon more charisma and talk him down… He seemed to have small moments of tranquility, or clear headedness. I could have used one of them to get through to him.

I could have shot the roof out from under him and everypony could have fled.

There were so many things I could have done. Instead, I had tried to solve the problem puzzle. I’d tried to fight a madpony in full power armor an order of magnitude stronger than anything I had ever seen before.

I had tried to pick the lock, and Roll died because of my bad choice.

I was vaguely aware of the griffon sargent as he walked up to me and sat down by my side. He remained there, silent. Just… existing. I felt like he understood. Maybe that’s why when he finally said something, I heard him.

“I’m sorry we lost your friend,” he said quietly. “What was her name?”

“Roller Bearing,” I whispered through my tears.

He nodded, reached into a pouch on his armor, and handed me a small cloth bag without a word.

I frowned and looked up at him. “W— What’s that?”

“The Machine saved our lives today, so we bring her an offering of booze and salt,” he said solemnly, then smiled. “Please, eat and drink. They told me you refused water and apples. I know you like this stuff… They didn’t believe me when I said you were on the badflank diet of nails and your enemy's tears, so I brought it to you myself.”

An offering… Odd choice of words. Did they know?

Oh, goddesses! If I had honed my magic and kept in touch with my spirit side instead of abandoning it for trying to be a normal zebra, I could have saved her that way too.

An offering… I would never, ever, EVER let my powers subside ever again.

I reached out and took the bundle, opening myself up to the subtle arcane power in the act of giving. “I accept this offering… What would you ask of me?”

The griffon chuckled. “I would like you to try and adopt a Talon tradition… Have you ever lost a friend in combat before?”

I shook my head no.

He nodded. “I thought not,” he said as he looked up at the stars, squinting through the clouds. “I’ve lost hundreds. The Wasteland eats ponies. It doesn't matter how skilled they are. No one is indestructible, and if they are a warrior… Well, we all die in battle one day.”

I sniffed. “She was a filly, not a warrior!”

“She was a SWAT Filly. She took an oath. She trained for years. She fought to protect others and bring order back to this patch of tartarus some ponies call a world,” he said firmly.

He hesitated and reached into another pouch on his armor and took out an auto-9. Roll’s auto-9. He didn’t hold it out to me.

“I want you to see if you can’t think like my drakes and I do about losing friends in battle. It’s healthier for you in the long run,” he said slowly. “Roller Bearing may be gone, but I think we both know what would make her happiest. Once his armor’s cracked, take a shot with this for her.”

He passed her pistol over to me and set it by my side. I picked it up and held it in my hooves. I could see myself putting a bullet into Gale’s head easily enough… But the idea didn't make me happy. Something wasn’t right about him. I felt like I needed to know what before I killed him.

But I would kill him. In the end.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah… I think it would make her happy to know that monster was put down… and I will. But I don't know where he is. I have my suspicions, but I don't know where exactly.”

The sergeant laughed and looked down at the ground with a dark look in his eyes. “Something big is happening in the Wasteland, Machina. Keep your radio turned to DJ Pon3. He’ll let you know when and where that big guy is, and one day, probably soon, you can bring that monster to justice in the name of Fillydelphia's finest officer.”

I smiled thinly. “So long as it’s Tartarus' justice.”

“Where else do the monsters go when we slay them?” he asked as he stood up and grabbed my battle saddle straps with a talon to pull my to my hooves. “Come! Enough moping. Roll will be avenged, and SWAT fillies never want anypony to be miserable. It’s time we celebrated surviving today's battle.”

I scoffed and shook my head. “Celebrate?! Are you bucking kidding me? Goodness knows how many good ponies died today, and you want to party?”

A pair of griffon eyes were suddenly filling my entire field of view as he pressed me to his beak to stare right into my eyes.

“Look here, Machina!” he said in a tone I could only describe as fatherly. “Either you get some joy in you real fast after a tragedy like today, or the Wasteland kills a part of your soul. You can party with us, or you can wake up in a cold sweat every night for five years wondering how it could have been different… Trust me. I was there once- twice.”

He let me go, but kept looking into my eyes. “Every Talon’s been there. You can’t make the world a better place if the world breaks you, Machina. You’ve got the heart of a warrior in that chest of yours—”

“I don’t have a heart, actually,” I said out of pure reflex.

He waved a talon in dismissal and screeched irritably. “You’ve got the soul of a warrior in that chest of yours!” he said.

I frowned. Did I? I really, really, really didn’t like thinking about where my pelt came from… As much as I tried to repress it, I could sense the necromancy preserving my pelt. Was there a soul in there? Please don’t be a soul in there… or if there is, please let them be happy about it… Please…

The griffon saw my distress and sighed. “However many implants you have, you’re still a person, and every person has a soul.”

I nodded. That was true…

He extended a talon. “My name is Sviatoslav,” he introduced formally for the first time.

I shook it. “Whirling Gears.”

He nodded solemnly. “Da, Mashina, I know.”

I frowned. He smiled. “I am a Talon Mercenary. I have lost more friends than I can count. You can think in the way nature and your parents taught you, that death is the worst thing, and wallow in despair, letting it tear at your soul for the rest of your life… Or, if you have a bit of mental fortitude, you can try to see it our way, and know happiness again. Will you let me try and teach you how to properly handle a friend’s death?”

I nodded solemnly. I had no choice but to try. I’d taken the salt and alcohol. I’d accepted the offering.

Even if I hadn’t, he was talking about PTSD. Mom had that… I really, really didn’t want to develop that…

“Yes. I have already accepted the bargain. What do I do?” I asked quietly.

“Celebrate her life,” Slav answered instantly. “You think back on every moment you shared, every single last one, and you hold onto those. Yes, she’s dead. She died a warrior’s death. An honorable death. Big whoop! Who cares? We all die in the end. What’s something only she did? What’s some light she brought into this world?”

I didn’t have to think hard for that one. “She saved my life.”

He nodded and smiled. “She felt like the big damn hero type! What else did she do?”

“She… She made sure I have the stuff I need to make sure I can get fixed if I break again… She even found Feature for me,” I sniffled.

He nodded. “I'm sure you have more. Come! We’ll drink, toast her life, and you will tell all of us everything about her. A hundred Talons will carry her memory in our hearts and she’ll live on through our own deeds. To the hells with letting her death drive you to despair. She’s not dead! She lives in here!”

Slav extended a talon and gently tapped my barrel with it. “Carry her memory in your heart, and when you run into problems in your life, you do what you think she’d do. Not every time, but some of the time. Don't do everything just because you think she would. Live your own life, but remember her. Honor and celebrate her life and her achievements. Do this, and it won’t feel like she is gone, because she’s still having an impact on the world. A positive one. The kind she would want to have.”

Slav bent down to look me in the eyes. “Do you really think she’d want you to cry for hours over her passing? To live in constant fear of your other friends falling in battle? Or even worse, not fighting when your blade is needed to protect those you love?”

I shook my head. “No. She was a brave filly. I think she’d be upset at me… if I didn’t protect my other friends.”

Not that I had any with me anymore…

He nodded and pointed over to a tent. “Come! We’re waiting for you. After tonight, a hundred of our heroes will live on in your heart and lend you their strength and wisdom. We will eat, drink, and celebrate their lives as only griffons can!”

I nodded. I agreed to try it, and I liked the idea. It would be hard to push the brain I didn’t have into that way of thinking… but he was right. I should remember her life, not her death. Her life was the important thing. That’s what made an impact on the world. That is why we’d become friends. Not her death.

Her death was a tragedy… but… But I wouldn’t let it cloud how I thought of her.

“Lets go,” I said as I walked towards the tent he indicated. Slav smiled and lead the way, parting the tent’s flap when we arrived.

The huge olive-green tent was filled with at least fifty Talons, and another twenty NCR troopers. A few looked up as I entered, but most of them were eating, drinking, and talking.

I could hear dozens of conversations at one, and while none of them were distinct enough to follow precisely, I could hear enough to know that all of them were talking about someone who died today.

Not in a sad way. It was all stuff like “One time, she found a new pair of boots, and gave them to me without even thinking about keeping them.”, “That was the night he stayed up through the whole night so we could get some sleep.”, and “Remember that time Lemon worked overtime to buy us all a gourmet dinner?”

All positive things. All happy things.

That’s when it clicked.

This was therapy. Instantly delivered therapy, done as soon as you could talk about the day’s events. The Talon way wasn’t some bizarre way of thinking. It was medical treatment. Minds get hurt too. This was how you healed the wounds battle dealt to them.

You brought the good memories back. You celebrated them. With others. You showed your brain what happiness and friendship was, and it realized that while it had lost something, it hadn’t lost everything.

I could do this. I would do this. I needed to do this, or the wound in my mind would never heal.

I felt a small surge of power race into my spirit from the offering as I completed the contract. A little power coursed through me. I could feel it, waiting to be used. It wasn't much, some salt and a little tiny bottle of alcohol must not have been worth much to Slav.

But... it was a start to reclaiming my old power. A start to making sure I never lost another friend if I could help it.

That’s what Roll would want. That’s what she would do.

Suddenly a smaller griffon dressed in the same armor as Slav, but wrapped in a big thick woolen greatcoat, stepped up to me. He looked like a sparrow, and the little flat-billed cap with an officer‘s pin in it made him look like a kid trying to play soldier since it was too big for him.

He looked me up and down, somehow projecting an air of authority and compassion, but also judgment. Finally he looked me in the eyes and said, “So! I hear that you are the machine.”

He reached under his jacket. I flinched. The griffon produced a huge bottle of moonshine with bits of rocksalt floating in it and thrust the bottle into my face.

I knew I could drink it. With my coolant all topped up, the excess would be stored in the reserve tank, and if that was full I’d purge the excess. That system was working again. Thanks to Roll’s kindness…

My ears fell back and I stared down at the floor. This therapy was really, really hard…

I felt a talon press against my chin and tip my head up. The officer looked me in the eyes again, giving me a kind, but firm look. “None of that. Drink, eat, gamble! Buck, if those hips find you a partner. Tonight, we celebrate the lives of those lost in battle! The dead do not want us to live in despair, and we won’t disrespect them by ignoring their wishes. They all did good in their time with us, and they went out with their weapons drawn in defense of their home. We all must die one day, and there is no better way to go. A Warrior's Death, one which your friends are alive to celebrate. If only we all could be so lucky as to die and be remembered as heroes!”

I paused, and nodded. That made sense. It really did.

Slav plucked the bottle of Moonshine from the officer’s talon and wiggled it at me.

“So… Are you, or are you not The Machine?” He asked with a kind smile.

I looked up at the tent full of ponies and griffons. They were right. They were focused on living, enjoying that life, and keeping their loved one’s memories alive in their hearts. I was going to join them.

The only other choice was to die inside.

“Another offering?” I asked.

“Another offering!” he cheered.

I wondered again if he knew.

I snatched the 60 oz bottle from Slav’s talon, popped the cap off with a hoof, and tipped it back, drank it down in one long, slow, smooth motion, then set the bottle aside and shouted the only thing that came to mind.

“Ya mashina!”

I looked back down. The Officer and entire tent was staring at me in shock for some reason while Slav just grinned. The Officer blinked and turned to Slav. “You win that bet, sergeant. You and your squad get those two weeks of vacation.”

Then he looked at me and frowned. “Are you going to vomit?”

I shook my head. “Nah! I usually drink about four times that.”

“Ona Mashina,” Slav said with a sage nod.

“Ona Mashina,” the officer agreed with reverence I could feel.

“Ona Mashina!” The entire tent shouted, raising their various bottles, mugs, and glasses.

The tent quickly descended into the type of full on barracks party that only soldiers who just escaped the reaper can throw. Roll would have loved it.

I loved it for her.

16 - Two Ghouls in a Bus Stop

The sunrise cast a long shadow across the road in front of me as I left Fillydelphia behind. As much as I had enjoyed the troops’ company and the party… I didn’t want to stay in Filly any longer than I had to. So, I left as soon as the last NCR soldier fell asleep.

I think the Talon’s technique worked. I still felt a little bad that I hadn’t been able to save Roll, and even more so that she had died, but it wasn’t paralyzing anymore. I felt less like a monster, and more like a child who had just learned how to avoid making a mistake again in the future.

I hoped that was how I was supposed to feel. Even if it wasn’t, I’d take it.

”If you want to avoid more mistakes in the future, I recommend you start learning as much as you can about the local area,” Imaginary dad suggested.

Good idea… Too bad I don’t have easy access to somepony who knows everything there is to know about the Heartlands.

”You do. Listen. Up ahead, in that old bus stop shelter.”

I frowned and looked down the road. I'd walked for about three hours after leaving Fillydelphia behind, and I could see a small suburb in the distance to the south atop a hill, perhaps a klick from where I was standing. A road split off from the highway and headed to the town, and an old bus stop sat right at the corner of the highway and the road.

It was one of the old wagon stops which formed a network over the entire Filly area, helping ponies who worked in Fillydelphia’s suburbs commute to work. The stop’s sheer footprint on the roadside made that immediately apparent, marked by signs and crash barricades, with room for a good ten, maybe fifteen ponies to take shelter inside it at once. Its yellowing transparent walls had been fortified in recent times. Sandbag breastworks, metal plates replacing old glass panels. It had been made into a little checkpoint. An NCR flag flew from one corner of the flat roof.

But most important of all was the voice I could just barely hear speaking inside the bus stop. Wander’s!

I could tell it was her, even at this extreme distance. I could just barely make out what she was saying thanks to the dead calm of the early morning air.

“... yeah we saw his armor just after leaving Magebridge. It flew, so it couldn’t have been a mockup or imitation. I really, really, really hope that psycho Gale didn’t actually get ghoulified.”

I raised an eyebrow. It sounded like she was filling somepony in on our adventures together, but who?

I sped up, eager to reach the stop and see if she was still my friend and if we could travel together again. That’s when I heard the other voice. Scratchy, medium high pitched. The ghoul she’d been hanging out with in Manehattan!

“He wasn't that bad, when he was sober,” she said with sincerity.

“Wasn’t that bad?” Wander asked with a little scoffing pff. “I seem to recall a newspaper which had a photograph of him covered in zebra blood while using their intestines to literally grease the treads of a tank!”

“Oh, that. Look, he was a good pony at heart. He just had some serious issues, chief amongst which was a raging murder-boner for any zeeb not born in Equestria, and yes he could visually tell! I have no idea how, but we tested him, and he actually found an error in one of our test’s pictures…”

Wander chuckled. “I can too. It’s the face-shape. Equestrian zebras almost always have a pony relative within two or three generations. We didn't ban inter-tribe breeding like the Empire did thousands of years ago. Equestrian zebras have more rounded cheekbones, and a sharper brow-line.”

I walked closer, straining my ears to hear more of the conversation. Dad was very much right. I needed to know more and hey, here was more to know…

”It’s not even eavesdropping, because wagon stations don’t have eaves.”

I didn’t dignify that one with a response.

“Huh… They do? I mean, I just got back from Zebrica a few years ago. I really didn't notice rounder faces when I got back.”

“You didn’t ever hang out with Equestrian zebras much, did you? Trust me, as somepony who had at least six of them in her club every night… There's a lot of difference. It’s just not in color. That’s probably what makes it hard for most ponies.”

“Fair.”

“Seriously, though. That stallion apparently committed war crimes on the regular.”

“Yeah, he did. Thing is, he’s basically just a huge angry little colt that never stopped hurting but suddenly gained the power to make the monsters under the bed pay. He should never have been allowed to enlist, let alone participate in the Warforge project. But... selecting the members of the Hammer and Anvil squads wasn’t my call at that point. Tongs was different. They were good ponies I vetted but the other two teams were picked on merit from the other branches. Luna’s orders.”

“You still let him into the MoA,” Wander said poinintly.

“Yeah. I did.”

“Why?”

“Because… Because we had a plan to end the war. It was big. It was bold. It was awesome… And we needed a few monsters to ensure it would work. I read his entire psych profile when the army kicked him over to us in response to that little PR disaster. Gale was a monster, but he was an entirely loyal monster. You know how much I value loyalty. Unbalanced as he was, if told not to do something, he never did it again. Ever.”

Wander snorted. “I thought you said he was like a little colt. Specifically an angry one.”

“He was! Not all foals are little horseapple pies,” the other ghoul muttered angrily. “Look, Gale’s whole family was bucked up. Parents that never got over their oldest son’s death and became so withdrawn that Foal Protective Services almost took their remaining foals from them twice! A little sister with major mental issues who got basically black bagged by Purple Smart’s Bastard in Chief… Seriously, Doctor Silver was an asshole! Uh, different bag of worms there. Back on topic, Gale was raised in an very troubled, extremely low income family… He had a really bad home life. He wasn’t ever going to come out healthy and normal, V-rrrh. ’Wander’.”

I was getting kind of close to the bus stop now. The conversation was very easy to overhear. I was starting to make out not just words, but more tone, and even the sounds of the two moving as they spoke. I didn’t want to interrupt them, so I made sure to walk extra quietly, and it was a good thing I did, because there were plenty of those can-string-noise-alarm-thingies strung about.

Seriously, did those things have a name? They had to have a name, right?

“So did I,” Wander said with a dismissive fake-laugh. “I’ve never skinned someone alive. Uh, well… Not till after the war. In my defense, I was half-feral at the time.”

“Sure. You also never got a box from an unknown address, opened it, and found your brother’s head with ‘spy’ branded into the forehead.”

“... oh.” Wander said softly. I was only mostly sure I’d heard it at all.

“Yeah… That happened when Gale was eight. In the early years of Rarity’s massive nationwide propaganda campaign painting zebras as evil monsters. How do you think you'd have turned out?”

Wander sighed loudly. “I never heard about that part.”

“We made sure that not many ponies did,” her friend said with an irritable huff. “Anyways, Gale was a stallion of his word. During a pre-battle speech he told the platoon involved in that particular incident, and I quote, “We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to rip out their Luna-damned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those bastards by the bushel!” A soldier jokingly reminded him of that part of his speech after the battle, which Gale had forgotten saying. Gale refused to be a liar over it… So, he did what he said he was going to. Even said “thanks for the reminder, private!” according to the report I had classified so hard that even Luna shouldn’t have seen it. Damn janitor...”

I decided to slow down and wait. This seemed like a conversation that they might not continue if they saw me, and imaginary dad was right. I needed to learn more, and this conversation was sounding pretty damn critical. Considering they were talking about my long lost uncle who just killed my newfound friend.

“Just what the Wasteland needed!” Wander sighed. “A pony who feels locked into slaughtering and mutilating mares, stallions, and foals alike because they said they would.”

“Uh, no? You’re misremembering. He only ever butchered the adults,” scratchy-ghoul commented.

“I really don’t think I am, ‘Crash’.”

“That’s not what I’m going by…”

“I know,” Wander snickered playfully.

“... dick.”

“I thought you left yours at home,” she added with a feeble sounding chuckle.

“Heh! Anyways, Gale didn’t have a problem with any zebras born after he got that box. He never hurt their foals. He even rescued them, if he could. Saw it as his duty to ensure they grew up into and I quote ‘Ponies, not monsters,’” the scratchy-voiced ghoul whose name wasn’t Crash added.

“Wait, really?” Wander asked.

She sounded like she didn’t believe a word of it. I wasn’t sure I did either.

“Really! Sure, he killed a few hundred zebras in that village. Yes, he gutted the dead for lubricant and handed the Empire a huge piece of damning propaganda to use against us… But he didn’t kill anyone there who was under 17 who did not attack him or any of his squad, and he didn’t gut the prisoners. As far as Gale was concerned, his brother’s life was worth three hundred and fifty seven million zebras. The adult population of Zebrica at the time he was killed. He had nothing against their kids. Because, you know, they had nothing to do with his brother's death.”

“That’s… a bit crazy. But I believe you,” Wander said quietly.

“Yeah, stranger than fiction, yadda yadda… Anyways, it can’t actually be Gale Force in that suit now,” scratchy-voice remarked. “Everypony in Anvil Squad had two identical sets of armor. That way, if one was damaged, we could swap them over to the other set if they were needed while repairs were being made by Tong squad.

“Since there’s no other set of power armor an alicorn would have a chance of fitting into, somepony probably stumbled onto whichever MoA safehouse held the spare suite and looted it. Can't blame them. It’s an awesome suit! Expressly designed for shock and awe and all that.”

Wander hummed. “So, there’s no way our big bad could have been Gale Force? No chance he’s one of us? Still wandering around out there?”

“Ehhh… no?” the other ghoul said heastently. “There’s a very very very very... very tiny chance it’s him. Basically zero. Well... Almost zero. A few days before the end, I had him put on ice with the rest of his squad. The fact you just saw “Gale” and none of the rest of them? Well, odds are much better somepony found the spare suit vs finding four stasis pods being fed from the same power supply having a failure which only made three of them stop working. There is no way Gale wouldn’t kill anyone who didn’t also reanimate his squadmates. That would be treason, you see? He’s big on loyalty, like I said.”

None of the rest of them. None of the rest of them!

I felt my core skip several cycles. Please, please, please, don’t let the Tainted or Enclave have access to a whole squad of super-powered soldiers like him!

“Wait, why did you stasis him?!” Wander asked incredulously.

“Huh? Oh. Testing the system is all, really,” her friend answered a bit too casually.

“Oh, come on! The war’s over, ‘Mare Do Well’! You can spill what you were really doing,” Wander said angrily.

“I can’t.”

“I refuse to believe that. There’s no way you don’t know everything the MoA was up to! It wasn’t operating like the other ministries, where power was split between the Ministry Mare and a few designated individuals. The MoA was laser focused, tight knit, and small enough for one mare to hold the reins. You. Knew. Everything. They. Did. So spit it out! The Wasteland could be looking at a new Red Eye!”

She did? Interesting! She must have been a fairly high ranking MoA agent!

I moved up closer to the bus stop, stopped a few hooves from the wall, and smirked. I successfully snuck up on a former MoA agent! Her Majesty owes me five bits! Plus hazard pay for all this!

“If I told you what exactly we were doing, a pony other than me would be alive who knew about it, and since the thing is still around… I mean, it’s probably a big pile of useless junk now… But like, Wander,” the ghoul I decided to call Mare sighed. “It’s not a huge pile of balefire bombs. But, let’s say you knew an old facility that was full of old balefire bombs, but was locked up tight and impossible for anypony to get to unless they knew where it was and had the key, would you tell anypony anything about it?”

“Wait… You mean there’s a base out there that’s impossible to find unless you already know about it? That’s one hell of a ward!” Wander exclaimed in shock.

“Sorry. I can’t talk about that either. Some things are best left forgotten,” Mare said adamantly. “Back to the point, the real Gale probably died a hundred and fifty years ago when the life support power failed, as, you know, they tend to. If he didn’t, nopony can get to him to thaw him out, and if they did, they’d have awoken the whole squad, or if not, Gale would have the moment he was up.

“I can say with certainty that we’re dealing with an alicorn who stumbled on a suit of advanced power armor sized for them, and took it.”

I heard Wander shuffle slightly. Perhaps she nodded, or moved a leg to sit more comfortably. “Alright, that’s fair. But you’re completely sure nopony could find that old base? Horseapples.”

Mare sighed loudly. “Can’t talk about it, Wander. I trust you. I know you’re a good pony under all that baggage. But what if somepony tortured it out of you? Or what if you got drunk and started talking about it? See what I mean? There’s a real risk in telling you. Especially since we’re not the only two ponies here. There’s also the mare who thinks they’ve been sneaking up on us.”

My eyes widened in terror. Before I could react Mare added, “Come out around the front of the bus stop, or I’ll let the grenade in my hoof go off. My friend and I regenerate. We’ll be pretty fine, you’ll be pretty dead.”

“So that’s why you took out that grenade,” Wander remarked.

A little warning voice in the back of my mind told me if I actually rounded the corner, I’d be shot. Fortunately, I had an easy fix for this.

I cleared my throat and loudly announced. “Wander, it’s Gears!”

“Sounds like her,” Wander muttered. “If you are Gears, and not just a mare who sounds like her and knows—”

“Knows what you sound like and that you’re looking for Gears, not The Machine?” Mare scoffed. “Come on, there’s being paranoid and then there’s being dumb. Come on over, Gears. We’ve been waiting for you.”

I heard the metal-on-metal scrape of a pin going into a lock, and seeing as how that was probably a pin going back into a grenade rather than a poor lock being molested, I was relieved.

I gulped nervously and trotted around the side of the bus stop to the open side. Or rather, the partially open side. The bus stop’s fortifications had included adding fourth wall with just one door. The door was propped open.

Inside the fort-stop I could see Wander, and also exactly the other ghoul I had been expecting. A lithe blue pegasus dressed in an old Shadowbolts uniform. I hadn’t expected her to be wearing a super old, tattered, wide-brimmed purple hat, matching ragged cape, and a patched old white flier’s scarf in addition to her uniform, but she was.

She also really, really, really didn’t look like a ghoul. In the club’s flashing lights, she had looked… different. Gaunt, pale, sickly. But, then again, everything had looked strange in that light. Here, in the sunlight, she looked... well, normal. Even more normal than Wander.

Well, at least, judging by her muzzle, which was all I could see of her thanks to her uniform, form fitting mask, and built in goggles. Maybe everything else was the usual rot-and-decay? It wasn’t too unusual for a ghoul to have one healthy looking body part.

But like, that super sleek athletic build her form-fitting uniform showed off? Ghouls shouldn’t look that sexy… I mean fit!

Wander stood up the second I entered the doorway. “Gears! I— I’m sorry.”

Mare turned to Wander and glared at her. “You said she was hot.”

I felt my everything real back in confusion. She’d said what?!

Wander’s cheeks turned a bright red. “I— I mean… she is…”

“That’s not hot,” Mare objected while pointing to my flanks. “This makes normal-hot look ugly! What the hell, mare?! That’s just not fair to hot people!”

Wait… Did that mean she liked my looks? Hummmm! Possible opportunity?

”Do not flirt with the crazy mare who thinks she’s an old MoA agent!” Dad warned suddenly.

Why not?! I demanded.

”Either she’s crazy or she’s really MoA. Never stick your dick in crazy! Never even put your hooves on MoA.”

I don’t have one of those on me, dad… Also, Wander acted like she was really an agent.

Wander cleared her throat. “Sooo, did you call home and get some supplies?” Wander said as she pointed to my armor and Feature.

I shook my head. “No. I found them.”

Mare blinked and raised an eyebrow. “You just found a set of MAS security armor in near mint condition and they just happened to have a damn Bucking Bonnie on a shelf?”

Wander nodded, seemingly impressed. “Yeah, outside of the Rangers, those guns are beyond rare. I hope you got plenty of ammo for it.”

I frowned sharply. I had about 220 rounds left. This was several orders of magnitude too little for the threat we faced. This was why I asked Her Majesty for energy weapons for this mission. The only flaw with cannons is I can’t plug them into my saddle and wirelessly power them via my core through the saddle’s link module.

I nodded and smiled slightly, not sure if she wanted to know if she could get some too, or was just complimenting me. “Yeah. I stopped by the MAS facility in Filly. I had the key. The main armory was basically untouched.”

Mare looked over to Wander and smiled slightly. “Even I couldn't get inside there. If you had any doubts that she wasn’t telling you the truth, well…”

Wander snorted and rolled her eyes. “Nah. I believed her from the moment I had to fix her up a bit.”

Mare turned back to me and smiled, turning her hoof for me to shake. “Hey! I’m the second closest thing to a friend Wander has. You can call me Mare Do Well. I’m also in the ‘Pre-War Ghouls Who Obsessively Hide Their Identity Club.’ Founding member, actually.”

Wander blinked, then frowned. “This is the fifth time I’ve heard you make that joke in the last two hundred years. It’s not funny anymore.”

Mare tilted her head. “What joke? It’s a real club. There’s like, eight of us. I’d have made jackets but, you know, apocalypse. I even gave you our card, remember?”

Wander gave Mare the ‘are you serious or not?’ glare of confusion, then shook herself before turning back to me. “I— Gears, I messed up back there. Kinda bad. I’m sorry. Do you, uh... f— forgive me?”

I raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Mare. “Are you forcing her to do this?”

Mare shook her head. “Nah. I just gave her a ride down here. I don’t get to talk with friends much, so I waited with her for you… I’m going to get going, I have things to do, but first…”

She cleared her throat and took a few steps closer to me. “I wasn't around when Pip or Red-Eye were active. I woke up one morning and… Just kind of wanted to see how the rest of the world was doing. Spent a few decades just flying east. Hitting up all the old countries… Like, all of them.”

I frowned. “Uh, okay?”

“The point is, I didn’t get to help when the Enclave finally descended on Equestria. I feel bad about that. Really should have been here for it… Saw it coming. Now I see something else coming. Something’s brewing. Something big. I can feel it.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah. The Tainted ‘gang’ is more of an army. They had five hundred troops to deploy to try and take Filly by force just yesterday,” I said with a dead-sounding-voice.

Mare nodded and sighed. “Yeah. I finally finished getting an estimation of their size last week. They’ve got between eight and nine thousand troops. Not even kidding.”

Wander sputtered. “WHAT?! Nine thousand!?”

I shook my head incredulously. “There’s no way that can be right.”

Mare sighed and gave us both a very, very serious blank look. “I’ve been scouting them. They’ve easily got twice the troops the NCR has. It’s a problem… One I’ve been working on… Biggest problem is that the NCR, Los Pegasus, and The Herd don't trust each other enough to work together. Your queen getting them all in one room to try and get the best deal with her might be the only way we get them to talk to each other about the problem.

“If they don’t learn to set aside their differences, the Tainted could easily sweep in and carve out some major territory for themselves, maybe even do enough damage in the process to topple the NCR. Your mission is the one thing that can help me with mine. I’ve told Wander the route I’ll be traveling for a while. Follow her, or get her to draw you a map if you don't want her hanging around, and you’ll be near me at all times.”

Mare reached into a pocket in her cape and handed me a tiny little radio. “What this?” I asked.

“Old MoA Far-Speaker. Magic Radio. Secure link, extreme range, don’t lose it we can’t get more. Clip it somewhere that’s not on that Recollector you’re wearing for a tiara. That would be... bad. Just put it on someplace, tap it twice, tell me what’s wrong, and I’ll rush over to help if I can. Okay?”

I blinked. “Wait, really? If you’ll be that close, why not just travel with me?”

Wander and Mare laughed in unison. Wander recovered first and grinned at me. “Close is relative. Time is distance. Mare Do Well is famously fast.”

Mare nodded in agreement. “I may be a disabled veteran who isn’t anywhere near as fast as she used to be, but I can still just barely scrape supersonic if I push… Hurts like Tartarus though.”

I felt my head tilt more. “You… you can hit supersonic?!”

“Sure can! I was one of Equestria’s Gold Medalists in aerial racing at the Equestria Games, before the accident. Now? Now I’m just… pretty good at flying. Used to be one of the best...” Mare sighed and looked down.

I could almost feel the shame and loss radiating off her. I felt horrible for even nudging the conversation in a direction that made her think about whatever the heck had happened to her.

I looked up at Wander and flashed her a desperate look and mouthed ‘help!’

Wander cleared her throat. “So, Gears… What do you know about ghouls?”

Topic change. Good enough!

I shrugged. “Not too much? Other than what you told me about why you get ghouls with varying levels of visible damage, the facts that they are ageless and need to eat radiation to live… and that they are all kinda cute—”

Mare’s head popped up. “Kinda cute?! Have you seen most of us?”

I nodded and smiled. “Mhm! I think the bare chassis look is cool on pony forms, and it’s not like ghouls are in pain because of it. It’s also kind of cute.”

It was neat to get to watch meat-ponies’ mechanics at work. I knew how I moved and worked, and ghouls let me know how ponies worked. The sloshy-jiggly-squishy bits all working together in harmony was truly amazing, cool, and… yeah, kind of cute!

“Elaborate,” Mare demanded.

“Oh,” I blushed, worried that my tone of voice hasn't explained it properly. “Not adorable cute. More like ‘aww, look at all those little fibers pulling together. They’re working so hard! Good girls! You go! Move that leg!’ You know? Like watching a bunch of ants work together to move sticks off their nest.”

Even with Mare’s reflective silver goggles, I could tells he was blinking incredulously at me. “Ooohhh… Right. You’re a robot!”

“Cyborg,” I corrected.

“Robot,” she objected. “The pelt you're wrapped in is dead and preserved with a necromancy charm, right? If that makes you a cyborg then any machine with leather as a covering, or bearing, or other part is a cyborg too.”

Deciding to intentionally ignore the necromancy can of bees that Mare was threatening to open up because I really, really, really didn’t want to open that one up, ever, I decided to focus on the core of the argument.

I raised a hoof to object, but Mare continued. “Besides, Equoid fits you much better, as you are a machine designed to imitate a zebra.”

I frowned in thought then nodded, acquiescing with a sigh. “Okay, that’s a good point, but… Cyborg sounds cooler.”

To my surprise, Mare nodded in agreement. “Yeah, fair. It is at least twenty percent cooler… Okay, Gears the Sexy Cyborg, back on topic we go,” Mare nodded to Wander. “Cuteness. Explain. Please.”

Wander nodde dan gestured to the bus stop’s singular wall-length wooden bench. I took a seat on the rough span of timber. Mare joined me, sitting a bit closer than I think most ponies would. Wander remained standing so she could face us.

Wander took a breath, then continued. “We ghouls worked out how we're made over the centuries. Nopony else was really interested. We’re made by a similar magical effect to poison joke. A flaw in the core design of megaspells. All of them produce magical radiation. All of them. Not just Balefire and Pink Cloud.

“Your most common ghoul in Equestria is a Balefire Ghoul, or just a Ghoul since the most common of a thing gets dibs on the noun. Balefire is a spell that destroys everything. The perfect weapon. It makes ghouls that look like classic zombies because that’s ironic. A spell meant to kill everything kills something… but also doesn't. It’s a mockery of the concept of Balefire.

“Pink Cloud melts things down to nothing. It works on everything. Canterlot Ghouls are stuck to things, but that’s not the main effect. Just a consequence of melting when being ghoulified. The real joke is that Canterlot Ghouls regenerate. It’s ironic, see? A spell meant to make everything dissolve instead heals you. A mockery of the concept of Pink Cloud.”

I nodded, understanding the concept completely and uncomfortably realizing that Celestia Prime’s ghouls probably just kept burning forever... “So, uh… W— When a megaspell makes ghouls, their properties and abilities are determined by whatever is most ironic for the spell the megaspell is amplifying?”

”Well that explains it.”

Explains what, Imaginary Dad?

”... Nothing, sweetie. Don’t worry about it.”

Mare nodded once and sighed. “Yep. I was turned by a healing spell. What’s the worst twist you can put into the concept of healing?”

I winced as a few truly horrible things one could force a pony to endure for eternity flashed through my head. “No! I don’t want to think about that!”

“It hurts you instead, right?” Mare pressed. “That’s what you’re thinking of, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, you’re wrong,” she said bitterly. “There’s a much worse way to twist it.”

I could sense she wasn’t about to tell me what it was. I didn’t want to know, in truth. If baelfire's cruel twist was “make a zombie”, something as pure and good as healing twisted would be so much w—

Wander trotted up to me, put her mouth near my heart and whispered. “Mare looks normal on the surface, but she can’t die, and she’ll never be whole again. She’s in half-healed limbo, forever. That’s her unique ghoul thing. I’ve seen her regenerate once. She screamed the whole time.”

EXECUTING HUG_THE_PONY.CS!

I took a step forward and hugged Mare to my chest as hard as I could.

It wasn’t like hugging a normal pony. Mare was smooshy. Like… It felt like hugging a huge stuffed animal with a skeleton in it. It was awesome!

It also proved she was some kind of ghoul. But even more squishy-soft. Like a big pillow, or plushie, rather than wet meat.

Poor thing! She really was in some kind of healing-limbo, and clearly her inside parts didn’t quite heal right. Meat shouldn’t feel like this to hug!

I proceed to engaged maximum overhug.

“ACK! ROBO-STRENGTH!” Mare squeaked adorably. “WANDER! HELP! I’M GONNA DIE!”

I blushed and let go of her and took a step back. “S— Sorry… You are all squish, and… Um… You know, fun to hug!”

Mare awkwardly shuffled her hooves, her body slowly filling back out to its normal shape. “Uh… Yeah…” She gave me the sheepishest of smiles then looked over to Wander and said something so fast I almost couldn't catch it. Almost.

“Hey-so-you’re-super-lucky-we’re-friends-and-I-have-to-go-do-things-elsewhere-or-I’d-totally-steal-your-crush. Bye!”

Before I could even blink, she jumped, snapped her wings open, and was gone, leaving behind an actual afterimage from her sheer speed as she managed to leave between the capture framerate of my Sweetie Eyes.

Something went boom in the sky above.

Holy Celestia’s Cake Knife, she really could break the sound barrier!

“Woah!” I exclaimed, turning to watch her fly away… and completely missing her.

Flap-flap-mare. Was. Fasts!

Also smooshy.

My ears drooped. I wanted to hug her more. It was nice and I still felt bad because Roll died and… I needed hugs too…

Come back! Homage said multiple marefriends are okay, and— WAIT!

I spun on my hooves to look at Wander. “Crush?”

Wander took a deep breath. “Well… yeah. But, like, you’re dead set on only going for stallions, and also probably hate me now for abandoning you.”

I trotted over to her and gave her a hug. Mostly because I hadn’t gotten enough hug just now.

Wander was not as squish… But still nice to hug.

“I don’t hate you…” I said as I let go. “I’m… hurt, and upset, but I don’t hate you.”

Wander nodded and sighed, and I literally saw the tension leaving her body. “Thank Luna… I— I know I don’t deserve a special somepony, but… I— I like to think that, you know, maybe we could be together. You’re pretty, and after two centuries I really don't care if you're not an organic person. Hell, Mare’s the same way. We’re too old to be picky.”

I coughed into my hoof. “Actually, I decided to flip the preference coin again because Homage was flirting with me, so I like mares now.”

Wander paused, stared at me for several long moments. Then sighed. “You don't need to say things like that to make me happy. I’m the one in the wrong here. I overreacted.”

“No. I really did,” I said deciding I had to prove it. “For example, Mare’s got a very nice sleek athletic body, and did you see those wings?”

Wander frowned slightly and shuffled her forehooves. “D— Do you think I look nice?” she asked hopefully.

I could tell that asking was hard for her, but clearly hanging out with an old friend had helped. If only she’d done that hundreds of years ago… But, well, in her defense it was very hard for a ghoul to change their mind about anything.

I bit my lip and shrugged. “Sorry, I—”

Wander hung her head and sighed. “Yeah… I know… Ugly.”

“Um, actually, I have no idea what you look like,” I elaborated.

Wander looked back up. “What do you mean? You can see me right now!”

I gave her my best deadpan stare. “Jumpsuit. Cloak. Hood. Scarf. At least two layers of cloth under that, plus armor plates you’ve got sewn in along your barrel, and pads on your legs and withers. I know what your eyes look like. That’s about it.”

“Oh… Right,” Wander groaned facehooving.

“Besides,” I stood up for a moment to grab an empty crate somepony had covered in an oil-stained tarp to use as a table and gave it a kick to slide it over towards the bench. “What’s really important is who a pony is. Not what they look like… And, well, I like you.”

I flashed her a little smile. Wander sputtered and took a step back.

“Um, I— Good, but also bad! I don't deserve—”

I gave her an angry glare. I’d had enough of her “I’m a monster” horseapples! I’d met a real monster yesterday. Wander comparing herself to him? Unacceptable!

”Damn, sweetie! When did you drink a potion of courage?”

Swigged it when she said she has a crush on me. I failed to score with Homage. I failed again back at that party. Life is clearly throwing me chances after all these years for some reason and I am not letting this one slip by like the other two!

”Whaaat about your cannon? I know you want to hump her.”

She can’t consent yet so that would be evil.

”That’s all that’s stopping you, isn’t it?”

Yes. Now shut up! I need to fix a broken mare who likes me and who I like back!

I stood up and walked over to her so I could look her right in the eyes. “Wander! I almost died twice yesterday! I made a friend. She died saving me! The pony who killed her and tried to kill me was a real monster. You? You’re a mare who made mistakes and feels bad about them! You’re trying to atone. That means you’re a good pony who did a bad thing!”

Wander started to shake her head. I grabbed it so she had to keep eye contact. “Want to know what a real monster does? A real monster guns down over a hundred ponies and then says they did the right thing and were proud of it!”

Wander winced and nodded. “Yeah, but—”

I stepped forward and poked a hoof into her barrel. I wasn’t done yet! “Then they chase a fleeing mare and filly down and blow the mare’s leg off while having the time of their lives! Then, they grab that filly by the face and use her as a hostage, tell you they will give you her back, and cut her in half with a teleport to make that into a horrible twisted evil pun!”

Wander flinched.

I continued. Still not done! “I know that. I saw all of it. I lived all of it! I was that mare! You’re not a monster, Wander! Monster’s don't feel bad about the things they do. That’s what makes a monster monstrous. You’re good! You’re nice! You’re trying to make amends for things you did, like a person. A good one. One who cares about others. That makes you good! Deal with it!”

“I— I—” Wander stammered, giving me the most distressed look I had ever seen on a pony ever.

NO! None of that! SHAME ON YOU!

I leaned until my forehead was pressing against hers, and deepened my glare configuration to the maximum setting. Normally, I reserved this setting for staring down Windigos. I was a little worried it was going to fall short anyways.

“Deal. With. It!” I demanded.

Wander squeaked. “B— But I—”

Oh. My. Celestia! Just saying it didn’t work. She needed to live it! Ugh! If only she had been with me in F—

Wait. I was still wearing that Recollector. Roll packed up mom’s stuff for me. I had both of the memory orbs. One was just mom talking about where she hid the other orb. She wouldn’t need to remember that. I could record over it.

Tatic change!

I let go of Wander and sighed, closing my eyes tightly. “Wander. Do you see how angry your horseapples is making me?”

She nodded. “Y— Yes.”

“I know ghouls can be a bit... stubborn. If I recorded a memory with this Recollector, will you watch it?” I asked as calmly as i could.

She nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Good,” I said as I rummaged in my saddlebag and took out the spare memory orb.

Wander blinked. “Wait, what’s on that?”

“My mom telling herself where she stored a password,” I replied as I slotted the gemstone into the center of my headband. “The other orb is the password. This one is fine for me to use.”

Then I focused on it.

☢★★◯★★☢

I came to some time later. The sun was a bit brighter. I’d say around noon.

I sat up and frowned. “Wait, what?! It took that long to just record?!”

Wander nodded. “Mhm. Real time recording and viewing,” she said with a sigh before looking at me. “Gears… I’ll watch it. But what I see in there won't fix me. I’m still a monster.”

I rolled my eyes and took the orb out and held it out to her. “Abomination? Yes. Monster, no. But then again, so am I according to Classical Thaumaturgic Physics.”

Mostly because I use necromancy to make at least one core system work… hahaha… Noooot thinking about that!

Wander took the orb from me in her telekinetic grasp, sighed, focused on it… and then very very creepily just kind of froze, staring into the orb.

Oh… Is that how I looked for hours? Well. That sucked. Hopefully I wasn't staring at her like that the whole time.

I trotted over to the corner of the bus stop so I wouldn’t be in Wander’s line of sight, sat down, and waited for her to finish.

☢★★◯★★☢

The afternoon sun was starting to dip down in the sky by the time Wander moved again. She set the orb down on the little makeshift table. Then she sat down, and just started to cry.

My ears and tail raised in alarm. That was not what I intended to have happen!

I rushed to her side and wrapped my forelegs around her in a tight hug. To my surprise, Wander hugged me back instantly.

“I— I had no sense of scale…” Wander stammered, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Y— you’re right, Gears… You’re right…”

I nodded and whispered. “Gale is a monster…”

“No!” Wander objected standing up to look me in the eyes. “No he is not! At least, he is, but not of… Oh, Celestia, that you had to see all of this… I—”

Wander took a moment to hold her head in her hooves then look over at me, still crying. “He was made into a monster, Gears! That moment when he hesitated on the hotel roof. You saw something was wrong with his eyes, right? You thought he got a hit of adrenaline. No! No he did not!”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “What are you saying?”

Wander took a deep breath. “So, you know how I ran nightclubs? I know all of the drugs, Gears. I tried them all at least once, and if I didn’t do them regularly, I at least knew ponies who did. He’s on one hell of a cocktail, Gears! Not like, combat stims either. Or at least, not just combat stims.

“I’m saying whoever found that stallion and replaced his suit’s medical system with several different drugs, including Rage. I’ve done plenty of Rage. Composed an album on it, even. I know what it does to you long term, and more importantly, I know what it does to your eyes when you're on it.”

Wander pointed towards Fillydelphia. “Whoever ordered him to teleport back to base has that stallion on a drug that turns your aggression up to eleven, while dialing your intellect down to, like, five tops. Based on how little he reacted to getting a hole blown through his wing, he’s also on a Med-X drip feed, which I can tell you for sure dampens your intellectual capacity, to be generous.

“At that point, you need to bring the brain back up to at least pony level intellect because you’ll basically be an animal on a blend of those two drugs at once, trust me, I know, I did them like that twice and the second time I actually chewed up an antique sofa. He’s probably also being amped up on Dash to give him that edge. If he’s lucky, or we’re unlucky, it’s a nearly even mix of Stampede and Dash. Without properly mixing everything you get these horrible side effects, like paranoia, delusions of reference, hallucinations, and—”

Wander closed her eyes tightly for a long moment then looked me in the eyes. “Gears… Somepony made Gale into what he is right now. That pony is twice the monster he is… and I— W— What…”

Her face scrunched up into a distressed grimace. “What I did is nothing compared to making a powerful psychopath even worse and unleashing them on a city!”

I gave Wander another hug and pulled her close to me so I could rest my muzzle against her neck, burying my nose in the layers of her scarf. “See? You’re not a monster.”

Wander nodded, then gently pulled away from me. “No… No I’m not. Not by Wasteland standards. Equestria standards, yeah… But we’re not in Equestria anymore. It died two hundred years ago.”

She took a deep breath and I smiled as warmth began to fill my core. I’d done it! I’d gotten her to move through her torment! Now she could finally start to heal.

“I am, however, a pretty shitty friend,” Wander said with a defeated sigh.

My ears perked in shock. “What?! NO!”

She turned and glared at me. “I am! I left you alone to face that just because you brought a pony I didn’t expect along to meet me. I never said you couldn’t bring anypony. I never told you why that would be bad. I totally exploded on you. That’s not okay. You didn’t know that I would be angry and hurt. I failed to communicate. I then abandoned you in a land I know you know nothing about over it. I was a shitty friend, and I need to apologize for it properly so I can work on fixing the real problem I have… Which is just being a shitty friend, not being an actual monster!”

I smiled, my ears perking with joy. “It worked! Yay!”

Wander rolled her eyes. “Yes. You and D— Uh, you and Mare, brought me around. Mostly you… W— Which is— Um…” Wander blushed and took a deep breath. “I— I like you because… Because you wanted to help me. Even before… Just now.”

I nodded and set a hoof on her shoulder. “Of course. Everyone deserves a good friend. Everyone needs some help.”

Wander closed her eyes. “Then let me apologize. Properly.”

I bit my lip then nodded. “Okay, but first, you should know what else happened because you left me and I didn’t have a local guide.”

Wander’s eyes opened with a look of horror. “W— What?! It’s worse than getting stuck in that battle, getting your leg blown off, and learning your uncle is alive but a literal bucking monster?!”

I nodded. “Oh yeah. A lot. You forget, that memory orb started off with me basically totaled.”

Wander’s left eye squinted shut while her right eye widened and her lips parted in the sharpest frown. “OH! Oh, buck… Yeah… Yeah it did… What the buck happened?”

I took a deep breath and sat down. “So… I started down the road to fillydelphia. Long story short, I walked into Applewood following cart tracks and got my skin ripped off by hungry ghouls. I had to keep ripping bits off and throwing them as distractions to escape.”

Wander winced. “I mentioned Applewood before we reached the tower… I told you it was only slightly better now than before the war.”

“I refuse to believe that is true,” I said with a deadpan glare configuration.

“It’s true,” Wander insisted, her tail swishing behind her with a weirdly worried little quaver.

“... Moving on, after the ghouls, I was ambushed by a Tainted squad sent specifically to kill me, shot full of holes by their snipers, then burnt half to death by a mare with a flamethrower—”

“Luna’s tits!” Wander yelped. “Where did they even find fuel for that thing?!”

“That’s your first question?” I asked slowly.

Wander nodded. “Yes! Red Eye hoarded the stuff for years. His army used it to burn down the Everfree Forest. Ponies everywhere have been scrapping flamers for years because the fuel is impossible to find now. I believe you when you say the Tainted had one, but that might have been the last bucket flamer fuel on Equis they used trying to broil you.”

I closed my eyes and growled to myself. “Oh. Lucky me then…”

I took a moment and then continued. “Then Pip, probably angry that her wife flirted with me, hit me with a flash flood out of nowhere and I got bashed all over a bunch of rocks… At the end of all that, I was out of coolant entirely, using pond water as hydraulic fluid, literally held together by duct tape from a fetish shop’s panty supplies in several critical places, and so close to dead I could take half of a step every other minute, and everything I could still feel hurt! Stuff I couldn’t even feel anymore hurt even worse!”

Wander’s head dipped as she stared at the floor for a long moment. “I— I’m sorry, Gears. I shouldn't have left you. I could have guided you safely through all of those dangers. It was my fault you got hurt. I’ll— If you give me a chance, I’ll make sure you never face anything like that alone. Ever again.”

I sighed and stood up to tilt her head back so I could look her in the eyes. “Wander… I understand you have problems with your old identity. I am upset that you left, but I understand why and can’t really hold it against you much… But what I can hold against you? What I will judge you for? It’s the fact that you met back up with me days further down the road. You were waiting for me!”

Wander sighed. “You’re upset I didn’t come back sooner?”

I nodded.

Wander’s shoulders slumped, her ears flat against her head. “I could have tried harder to find you… I admit that. Can I tell you what I did?” She asked quietly.

“Of course you can. We’re trying to work through this, right?” I asked as I sat back down on the bench.

I wasn’t really mad. Sure, I was hurt she’d left like that, but I’d already forgiven her. Unfortunately, I just knew she needed to feel like she was really being forgiven. A ‘nothing was wrong’ would feel like a hollow platitude. If our friendship was going to be restored, or ever became something more, she had to feel like I had been angry with her, then truly forgave her.

While Wander was normally very perceptive… With her this distraught, this might be the only time I could ever pull a fast one on her like this. Also the only time I really needed to. This was for her own good. I couldn't buck it up!

Wander sat up and looked me in the eyes. “I— I wandered… like I do. I’d realized I bucked up about ten minutes after I ran out of there. I— I didn’t turn back because, well… I smoke bombed! You can't just go back after that! The exit’s too dramatic. It would be the most awkward thing ever!”

I gave wander a little incredulous glare. “Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah… Look, if you ever smoke bomb out of something, you’ll understand, okay?”

I frowned and flicked my tail. She sounded so sincere about that. “Well, okay… What happened after that?”

Wander’s face scrunched up again. “I re— rea— realized you’re... You’re m— my f—”

Her muzzle scrunch twisted into a genuinely pained expression. Like she was passing a kidney stone the size of a golf ball. “Ffff— Friend.”

I winced. Her issues with that word ran way deeper than I’d realized!

Wander took a long moment to recover from saying the ‘f word’. Then, with a long sigh and a shaky smile in my direction, she continued. “I knew you’d go to Filly, and the highway is the most logical road to take on your way out of it. So I got, uh… ‘Mare’ to fly me out here. She’s real fast. Knew I’d make it here before you, knew you’d come this way, so I waited here. We waited here. For... two days.”

Wander looked down at the floor again for a moment, then back up at me. “I’m sorry you got hurt. I’m a shit friend. I was before the war, and I still am now… I don’t... I don't deserve friends. Not because I’m a monster, bit because I always hurt them. That’s why I wander alone. But—”

“But you really want that amulet, right?” I asked, face carefully blank.

Hopefully, that wasn’t the only re— No! No Mare said she had a crush on me.

“Oh, yeah! Yeah I do,” Wander said with a sharp nod, though her ears were askew with uncertainty for a moment. “It will give me enough time to learn to be a better pony than I am. It’s hard for any ghoul to change. We get stuck in our ways. Not just from age, but because our insides are as bucked up as our outsides. I was trying to change before I turned, so I think I might have a shot, but if I hadn’t been…”

I nodded and rested a hoof on her shoulder. “I know. I also know ghouls that have changed tons over the years. It’s not impossible, and you can do it if you really try!”

“So... you do forgive me, right?” Wander asked hopefully.

I paused for a moment and debated my options. How would I make this all feel real to her? How do I make it stick?

Ah. That’s how!

I looked Wander in the eyes and smiled. “Wander, I forgive you. That doesn't make it okay, but I forgive you. We can be friends. You can have a chance to make up for your mistakes.”

Wander’s lips parted in a shaky smile for a moment, then she lunged forwards and hugged me tightly to her chest. “Thank you…”

I hugged her back, then let go and offered her a kind smile. “So… We’ve been here most of the day. We should get going. Lead the way?”

Wander bit her lip then shook her head. “No! Not yet. I— I want to know if there’s anything I can say, to help smooth things over? Or is it only actions that will do it?”

Ooo! A chance to learn something about her! … No, let’s not be mean. But, since she offered, let’s not be rude either.

“It will take time for everything to be perfect, Wander,” I said as kindly and firmly as I could. “But, I can think of one thing.”

Wander’s eyes widened. “Oh… Please not my old name!” she begged, pleading at me with her eyes. “I’m really not that pony anymore…. Or, well… Not right now, at least. I— I felt good in my old club… With an old friend. I— I can’t go back yet. Maybe soon. Not now.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to know at all. I didn't care about who she was back then. I wanted to be here for the mare she was right now.

“I really don't care who you were,” I answered truthfully. “I like you! I just want to know why exactly why you care so much about ponies finding you out that you’d run away from a mare you have a crush on who only wants to be your friend, maybe more, just because she brought a pony to you who, by the way, also had no idea who you were.”

Wander triple blinked. “What?! Homage… Homage didn’t know?”

I nodded. “That’s what she told me, and I’m pretty sure your ballad mentioned that she doesn’t lie.”

Wander frowned and tilted her head. “But… She plays some of my old music sometimes! I— How does she not…” Wander took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, that’s a load off my mind…”

She looked up at me and squirmed nervously. “As for what you asked… It’s really just because I feel like I don’t deserve to have friends. Not that… Not that I don't want you to be my friend. I just feel like I haven't earned that, karmically speaking. See, I was famous before the war, and if ponies knew who I used to be, it would color all their impressions and they’d try to treat me like someone worth a buck. I know I don't deserve that. Not yet, anyways.”

Okay! More repair work needed. Or perhaps, maybe I need to make my ‘repair’ stick a bit better.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head slowly. “So, because you abandoned some friends once and regretted it so badly that you walked snout first into a chemical weapon, then stayed at their corpses’ side for so long you became one of the undead, you think you don’t deserve friendship?”

Wander frowned and slowly nodded. “Well… It sounds stupid when you say it like that. But… Yes? Yes.”

I shook my head, sighed, and hugged Wander again. “Wander, if they were alive, they would have forgiven you the moment you faced the pink cloud for them.”

Wander laughed and shook her head. “Oh, buck no they would not!” she said, still laughing.

I let her laugh for a while. Wander stopped chuckling and stepped back to flash me a genuine smile. “I mean, sure! My wife would have, and one of my friends, maybe. The other? Hay no! She’d demand I perform some convoluted penance quest with arbitrary restrictions. I forgot her birthday once, and she wouldn’t speak to me until I went to a shop in Manehattan and bought her a toy she was too embarrassed to buy herself. Wearing three umbrellas and a T-Shirt promoting a weird fandom she was into.”

I triple blinked and giggled, then covered my mouth with a hoof. “Really?”

Wander nodded again, her smile persisting. “Yeah… You remind me of her a lot. Actions mean more than words to you both... May I ask something now?”

“Of course.”

Wanderer trotted across the bus stop, taking a moment to search for words. “It always sucks when a SWAT Filly dies. They just… They’re all so energetic and upbeat. They really genuinely come across as wanting to be real heroes and fix the world. Watching one die is… really bad. You— You didn’t just watch one die. You were her friend. How are you, like… functioning right now? Like, as a person?”

I frowned as I realized I should have included that part of yesterday in the memory orb. I debated making an updated recording to let Wander see for herself in context, but realized that would take hours to set up and then let her view.

“Remember that griffon on the roof? Sviatoslav? He told me how the Talons deal with loss,” I replied slowly so Wander couldn’t possibly misinterpret anything I was about to say. “You remember their life, celebrate it. Focus on the good times you had, and resolve to keep their spirit alive by doing things you think they would do. Not all the time, you don't obsess, but you let them be an influence on you.”

Wander looked off into the distance thoughtfully. “That… That sounds nice, actually.”

I gave her a few moments to think about applying that logic to her own losses. If it had helped me, it could help her too. Maybe.

Unfortunately, Wander mentioning Roll had set a question burning in my own mind, and I knew she would have the answer. After five minutes of contemplative silence, I couldn't wait any longer, and asked. “So, SWAT Fillies… What’s the deal with them?”

Wander’s ears perked up and I could sense she was just happy to tell me another story about the Wasteland by the look in her eyes. She cleared her throat and sat down, smiling.

She took her guitar out from under her cloak, and strummed it without any particular melody in mind. Even without being a proper song, it was lovely to hear her voice backed by strings.

“When the Herd was first moving west, they found an intact police training compound in the Fetlock Mountains,” she began. “It was automated, but the computers had glitched out. Instead of denying minors entry and permitting adults in, it only accepted foals and young mares.

“Anypony younger than eighteen can enter it, but the pre-war tech in there only trains the ones it deems worthy. A lot of young ponies have run away from home to go there to try and become heroes. Some of them are pretty good at it.

“The best ones get selected by the computer to go train with an ‘Uncle Lift’ and become SWAT Fillies. The rest of them rarely leave, choosing instead to help train the best to be even better, or to help keep the compound running. The SWAT Fillies themselves hold no allegiance to anything other than the concepts of justice and heroics. Once trained, they leave, roaming the lands to try and make things safer for everypony. That’s another reason it sucks to see one die.”

Her strumming died down, ending on a bit of a sad note, and with a single fluid motion Wander put the guitar away. I nodded slowly, mostly to conceal my awkward expression as I forced myself to not mention that they were apparently being trained by a simulation of my dad.

”Awww, come on! Tell her! Even in death, I serve the Princess. It’s cool!” Dad pleaded.

I don’t want to distract her too much, I need to make sure she’s really better and not just pretending so I’ll let her stay with me.

“Yeah… it does,” I agreed as I pulled my head up from the nod. “But we shouldn’t be sad she died. We should be happy she lived, and celebrate what she did with her life.”

Wander chuckled and shuffled a hoof. “Yeah. That will be good practice for trying it with… With them.”

I frowned as something occurred to me. “You know… Now that I think about it, a long time ago you mentioned something about… a mission, I think? Something you were doing for your old friends.”

Wander winced. “I uh, yeah… Mentioned the deal, didn’t I? Buck!” she growled and stamped a hoof angrily. “Normally I’m smoother than that. I blame your fla— distracting… eyes.”

She faked a cough and adjusted her scarf to further hide what must have been quite a blush.

”Gears… Please, repeat after me, don't think about it, just do it. I promise this will help you patch things up with her, okay?”

I frowned. They often said your subconscious had better ideas than you do sometimes. I also usually mess social situations up if they weren't involved with my job… Why not?

I set a hoof on Wander’s shoulder and mindlessly repeated what imaginary dad said word for word. “Wander, if you want to be my marefriend, we should be more open with each other. You can tell me what your mission is. Maybe I can help while we’re traveling together.”

ACK! DAD! WHY?! I WASN’T READY TO SAY THAT!

”Yes you were!” he disagreed.

Wander’s eyes practically popped out of her head. “I— I— I— Uh—- Um— I—” She Inhaled sharply and flashed me the biggest smile I had ever seen her make. “Sure! I think I can do that… Not, uh, not right now. Give me a minute or two to process… that!”

I nodded. I needed a minute to process it myself…

”Oh, buck you! I’m just trying to help you with that whole ‘Woe is me, I can't get laid.’ problem of yours!” Dad huffed in my mind.

Wander took a deep breath. “Can we do a quick trust exercise?” She asked hopefully.

I nodded and smiled, glad she was moving on. “Yes! What do you have in mind?”

Wander reached beneath her cloak with her magic and offered me a small revolver. “Shoot me.”

I pushed the gun away and looked at her, concerned. “What?! No!”

Wander pressed the gun’s trigger grip against my hooves and looked me in the eyes. “I’m serious. You’re upset at me, I deserve a little pain… I made you face an ambush alone, and you got your skin melted off! Shoot me.”

“You’re helping me again!” I protested, shaking my head almost violently, my tail hiked in alarm. “I’m not shooting you, you’ll need a week of bed rest to be able to move again!”

Wander blinked then pointed to herself while staring at me like I was an idiot. “Canterlot. Ghoul. I’ll be fine in moments. It’s just a little pain while the damage lasts.”

I pushed the pistol away, this time knocking it out of her arcane grip so it clattered across the worn concrete floor. “No! I’m not going to.”

Wander smiled and picked the gun back up, tucking it away. “And now I can trust you to not hold a grudge,” she said confidently.

I blinked and looked at her in shock. “T— that’s what you wanted to know?!”

She nodded. “Mhm. If you’d shot me, that would have meant you were just manipulating my feelings to get laid. I know you’re a little obsessive about that. Now I know you actually have feelings for me… That’s…” she paused and sighed. “A little uncomfortable… But I like you. Even though I don't deserve to be liked. So… I’m pushing through it. It’s hard. I… I needed that extreme test. Okay?”

I nodded understandingly. “I understand… I also think I know a bit about your mission.”

Wander shook her head. “You probably have a small idea…”

“You're questing for redemption, aren't you? You think you need to earn their friendship back somehow,” I proposed.

Wander silently nodded. I’d gotten it exactly.

Poop… This… This was going to be a problem. For an obvious reason.

I trotted over to Wander and gently hugged her left side. “Wander… They are dead. Unless you’re a really powerful shaman, I don't see how you could even let them know what you were up to.”

Wander’s ears perked enough to push her hood upwards. “Hey! You can help! You’re a zebra! You mentioned sensing spirits. You’re also a spirit, so I imagine you’re even better than a meat-zebra! Could you talk to them for me?”

Oh, great! She just had to ask about that.

I shook my head no and bit my lip to prevent myself from wincing. “Uh… I’m actually pretty bad at Shamanism… I know how to go about it, even how to brew the potions required, but um, it probably wouldn’t work if I tried to strike up a conversation with any of them. Not after so long.”

Wander closed her eyes for a moment as if thinking hard. When she opened them, she had a desperate look on her face. “Could… Could you at least tell me if I’m crazy or not?”

I couldn't help but snicker and give her another little squeeze. “Dammit, Wander! I’m a courier, not a psychiatrist.”

“But you can talk to spirits, right? Not like ghosts. I mean spirit spirits. Nature spirits. The kind you’d use to enchant something,” Wander clarified unnecessarily.

“Duh. I am one,” I said with a little smile.

Wander’s magic reached beneath her scarf and took out the guitar pick necklace she wore around her neck. With it exposed this close to my face, I could instantly sense the entity lurking within. At this distance, its presence was overwhelming, and made me feel a bit unsafe…

Wander held the pick up between us and looked me in the eyes, her own seeming to bleed desperation. “Is there a spirit in this, and if so, how powerful is it?”

I couldn’t help but recoil from the necklace when she tried to offer it to me.

Wander’s desperate look turned to one of surprise, followed quickly by relief. “Oh thank, Luna!”

I took a deep, unnecessary breath. “Yeah… So… There is absolutely a spirit in there. I’ve felt it boost your magic before. It’s stronger than I am, by a lot. I can’t tell you how much. I have very little experience with spirits more powerful than myself by more than, say, a factor of three.”

Wander nodded. “Could you tell me if it could do certain things?”

I shrugged. “Depends? … Can you guarantee it won't eat me?”

Wander blinked then looked at the pick, seemingly concentrating hard for several seconds. “He said he can’t eat you, you’re too thick.”

“Yeah that’s a lie,” I objected with a wince.

Wander frowned. “Is it? I mean, he’s hurt.”

“... Hurt?” I asked slowly.

Wander nodded. “Yeah… I found him in Canterlot. We made a deal. No, a pact, he called it. I help him get enough power back to heal himself and… and he promised he’d let me see my friends again so I can apologize.”

I took a deep breath. It was time for Nature Spirit 101.

“Ookay!” I said with a shaky warbly voice. “First of all, that is not how offerings and bargains work. A real physical thing must be offered, and the spirit consumes it, gaining power equal to how much the mortal valued that thing. A stallion offering a pile of gems and a little filly offering her cute pegasus plushie can provide the same amount of power because they value their offerings just as much, though by convention gems are used because they’re easy to see as valuable. Once accepted, an offered item decays to nothing but spirit power and void-stuff rapidly, unless the spirit moves into it as a new home… So, with this arrangement, you’re not offering up anything physical to him for power, and—”

Wander looked unfocused for a moment then turned back to me. “He says he’s old enough to strike other kinds of bargains. Is that a real thing?”

I felt my core run cold as a wave of terror washed over me. It was indeed a real thing, but the list of spirits with power like that was… short. Short and not safe for something like me to stay near.

“Yes…” I squeaked, staring in terror at the amulet. “If he’s positively ancient… Like, I can’t do that without this body… and I was first manifested in the mortal realm during the bucking early bronze age, Wander!”

Wander looked between me and the pick nervously. “I um… Would you be okay like, talking to him yourself and finding out?”

“No,” I answered truthfully. “But… I really need to know if I’m actually safe, or at the very least, know what you’re carrying around on your neck, especially if he’s that old!”

Seriously. If Wander had found a spirit so ancient and powerful that even as a broken fragments of the being it once was it could still make a bucking pact...

I held out my hoof. “I will need to touch it. If I start to scream and writhe in pain, pull it away from me. That means he’s eating me. I might just scream in terror, ignore that. Just… if screaming and writhing starts, take it away.”

Wander nodded. “I promise,” she said as she held out the tooth.

I trusted her.

I took a deep breath, reached out, and touched the tooth.

I didn't need to push at it with my magic. I didn’t even get a chance to. It pushed its magic into me.

A rolling, boiling, ever shifting sea of madness engulfed me as if I had walked off the side of a ship into the sea. Everything that made sense stopped making sense. Everything which made no sense started falling into place like solved pieces of a puzzle. Then, halfway through, they switched back. Then they switched again, and again, and again.

Order was dead! Order was dead, and the universe feasted on its corpse and laughed!

The tooth emerged from the madness. Not stone, but enamel, flesh, and blood. It was attached to an ever shifting ball of purest madness which maintained the vague shape of an unidentifiable thing. As if an already indescribable creature had been mangled beyond recognition, and all which remained, all that existed to anchor it to reality, was that single broken-off tooth.

“O͡h c̶o̕m̧e͏ ̀n̛o̢w̨ y͞ou͠ ̢sil͜ly littl͝e th̸i͡ng̵.̴ I̶t's not t͡h̡a͝t ͡b̢a͘d h͘er͠è,” it said in a snide, bored, and bemused sounding medley of voices.

Which also radiated impossible power! OH SWEET CELESTIA I’M GONNA DIE!

The thing of chaos itself laughed at me. “̕Th̕e gho͘ul͡ a̷nd ̵I͜ are͟ ͢f̸r̷i̢en̶ds̵... ͏E̸ve͡n̨ if҉ ҉s͝h̶e wi̢l҉l ńev͢er̴ ͝admi͝t ͢i͜t.̛ E͏ven ͢i͡f͢ ̀s̨h̀e di͟dn'̷t͠ lik͠e ҉yo͟u,̢ I̕ ̢ẁoul̢dn͜'t͘ bot͏her cónsuḿi͞ng̕ ̀you͠r͘ e̢s̶s͡e̕nce. ͞It ͞w͡o͏uld p̴r̷ovid̀è ̴me̶ ̢ẁiţh s͝o̴ ̸l̵įttle̛ s͘u̴stenan͟ce th̴a͝t͠ ͠t̨h̵e ͡mere a̷ct͜ o͘f ̛cons͟u̡m̵in҉ģ yo̢u͏ ͜wo̶u̸ld be͡ a̵ ͢net ̢lo҉s͢s ͜f͏or me̡. Wh́at y͜ơu s̸ens҉e҉ ̀is ͜ą f͝ragmen͏t of t͘h͞e ̸be̶in͢g̡ I o̴n͘c͟e ̵was̢.

“Ev̡en҉ now, I̷ a͟m͢ m͟o͜re͟ pow̸eŕful̵ th̸an ͟you͢ ̡coưĺd҉ ever d͡re҉a̷m of̷ ̷be͞įn̸g̴.͘.. Tho̡u̢g͟h th̴e ͢dam̷agè d̨on̵e̴ ͠t̛o ̴my ̷v͟èry͟ ̡es͜s͢e̕ņc҉e҉ h͜as ̷cr̡i͘p͢p̕le̸d ̛m͟e,̡ an̷d͘ ͟w͘i̶th͝o҉u͜t ţh͘e ̀ģhoul͘'̵s̶ help,̡ ̛Í wouĺd ͏hav͞e͜ ͠f́àd̨e̸d i̢n͟t͠o o͡b̴l̶i͘vi҉on. ̧D̵o̢ ̨ņo͜t͢ ęnter t̷he̡ ̕P͠i͜n̕k ͢C͟l͘o̶u̕d, ̕l͘ìtt͞l͞e͢ óne. ̧I͡t ͢is ͠more ̶da̕n͜gèr̸óus̨ to ͝us s͡pir̸it̵s͝ t̀ha̕n it ͟i̵s ̶tơ the m̧órţals.”

That made no sense at all! That wasn’t even how it worked! I knew how it worked, I had lived it for thousands of years.
̵
He laughed harder. “̷L͞ive amońg th̢e ͡mort̵a̶ls fo̴r̕ a f͘ew ͢bi̶lli̷on ͘yea͞r̸s̸, a͡n҉d ̧th͝e͞ r͞ul̢e͞s c̢hańge͏.̕ Y̧ou ͜hàv͝e ̢nothi͝ng to ̧f̡e͠ar ̴f̛r̶o͟m m͡è,̶ becaus̡e҉ ͘I̵ ͜a̛m͝ ̛b͞eyo̕n̵d́ ̢y͟o͠u..̸ I̵ gai̴n ́n̷oth͡i̡n҉g ̨by hu͟r͏t̷in̕g͘ y͞ou,͏ ̀an̶d ̨I ́owe̡ t̢hįs͘ mor͝t́a͜l̸ a҉ gr̢ea̸t̸ ̧d́ea̶l. ͡Şhe̵ ̷l̶i͏k͢ȩs ̛yoų.

“͞I͏t ̷w͏ill ̵ta͘kȩ ̷Áeons͡ ̷f͜o̕r̕ m͏e ̶t̢o ret̨urn to ͏wh͞a͞t I ̷o̡n͘ce͠ was͝.̧ H̴er t͏as̕k͡ i̶s ͡to̶ ́br͠ing m̧e en̷o͟ugh̷ ̧p̸ow̴er͠ To.͡.. s҉t̀o̡p̛ ̵t͘ḩȩ ̕b͏le̶e͜d̕ing, a͞ş i̕t̨ ̧we̸re͘.̶. ̀S̕h͡e̸ has ̶don̡e͟ ̴well, a͜nd will͏ o͢ne ̀ḑa̢y͞ soo͜n͝ e͘ar͡ǹ he̕r re͝w҉ar҉d̕.̷

“͘S͜p͘e̸akińg͟ ͘t̡o͜ ͝you̶ ̴ha̶s̢ ̨been͡.̸.̡.̴ ͝dr̵a̧i͞ning̸. ҉We͝ ͝w̕il͘l n͢éver͝ ̛s̛peak aga̶in.̨”

The creature made of madness reached out towards me with an impossible limb, nudged me like it was judging the weight of a rock before a throw, and pushed—

☢★★◯★★☢

“Hey!” Wander shouted, as she shook my shoulder. “Snap out of it, you’re sobbing! It’s okay! Nothing happened!”

I yelped and jumped up, having apparently fallen over, curled up into a ball, and shivered. “AAAAA! PLEASE DON’T—” I shrieked, stopping as I realized I wasn’t in the terror-scary maelstrom of terror anymore.

I tackled Wander, hugging her close.

Wander hugged me back. “Did… Did he hurt you?”

I shook my head. “No… No, not intentionally. I… I just…”

I struggled for words to explain it. “Uh… Ever look up at the night sky, realize how small you are, and have that existential crisis?”

Wander nodded slowly, her lips pulling down into a sharp frown. “Yeah… why?”

“Imagine that, but you’re looking at someone right in front of you,” I said with a little whimper.

Wander flinched. “Oh, yikes… So uh… Can he do what he said?”

“Yes!” I answered with a fervent nod.

Then I stood up, grabbed Wander by the shoulders and proceed to metaphorically stare into her very soul. It’s not actually in the design specs of the Sweetie Eyes, but I tried. “What. Is. That. Tooth?!”

Wander cleared her throat. “Uh, well… A piece of Discord’s statue, I’m pretty certain,” she said with an apologetic smile peeking over the edges of her scarf.

I yelped and jumped back from her, staring at her neck where I knew the tooth was, tail raised in near-panic, chest heaving.

Wander took a step forward. I took a step back.

Wander hesitated for a moment then looked into my eyes. “Gears… He’s been nothing but helpful for centuries. Not even the MoM reform spells get results like that. He’s changed. You’re safe.”

“Its—” I whimpered and bit my lip hard enough to leak coolant into my mouth. “I— I know what he did. What he can do. You’ve got a fragment of the Primordial Spirit of Chaos around your neck and… And there’s a very cruel joke he could play on me.”

Wander raised an eyebrow. “He said he wouldn’t hurt you… Right?”

I nodded. “I— It’s hard to… process that. I… I’m not just a spirit bound to this frame, Wander.”

Wander’s eyes widened. “Wait, you actually do have a brain in there, but the spirit part of you is in control?!”

I shook my head. “No… I…” I took a deep breath. If Wander was revealing her secrets, it was only fair if I revealed mine. “I’m a freak accident. To make me… mom used the matrix for this platform as the anchor to bind a machine spirit to, and uh… filled in the gaps with some shreds of a young zebra mare’s soul.”

Wander‘s jaw dropped as she looked at me in horror. “You’re— What?!” She asked, staring at me with sudden uncertainty.

I looked down, squirming and flicking my tail back and forth. “I don’t… I dont like to think about it. But I know it’s true. I remember parts of… of how it happened. Some MoA monster skinned a poor zebra alive and… She looked like I do. Except less curvy. The talisman that regenerates my pelt… it was made by binding it to her hide.

“Mom’s only an apprentice Shaman. She wouldn’t have even known that using remains to make something is what makes it necromancy. She wouldn’t have known that by integrating any necromantic item with a soul attached to it, into my platform… That it would merge that soul with me.”

Wander shook in her jumpsuit, and I could see her cringing inwards under the layers she wore. “Necromantic origins aside… I— I don’t care that you’ve got some actual zebra soul in you, Gears! I just… The way you described your mom, she sounded so nice! I— I can’t picture her… doing that to some poor mare!”

I blinked. That was her only objection? I was a half spirit half undead half mechanical abomination, and she only cared about my mom having made me that way?

If only that’s how the ponies back home thought of me… Maybe then I’d have gotten to have a lover over the last few hundred years.

Still shocked, I stammered slightly. “M— Mom didn’t exactly… know.”

“How did she not?!” Wander demanded.

“Mom just wanted a tissue sample to link to the talisman,” I murmured. “Like, a little bit of skin. Or some fur. She asked for one, and believed the donor would be willing, not killed or even hurt. She sent out the request and… My pelt just came a few days later in a cardboard box. Still dripping blood. With a note saying ‘Tissue sample got. Your welcome!’ followed by a smiley. I remember mom’s exact thoughts were “Hey! This saves time growing the pelt to full size! Thanks, MoA guy!” and then she bound it to the talisman. She thought they did the cloning for her. Mom’s… a bit special. Remember?”

I closed my eyes and shivered. “I remember… almost nothing of that poor mare’s life. I do remember walking home, rounding a corner, being grabbed from behind… and then feeling my neck break…”

I felt Wander hug me tightly. I hugged her back.

We spent a few long moments like that, until I let go first. “Thank you… I don't like talking about that.”

Wander nodded and took a few steps back, then smiled. “Sooo…” she said in what sounded like an oddly playful tone, though I wasn’t sure. “You have a soul! Does that make you undead like me?”

I paused, then nodded. “I suppose it does… I didn’t know this right away. It took time to realize I had changed. Most of my pony-like behaviors and instincts are courtesy of that poor zebra mare. For a long time, I thought mom had bound me wrong, and given me more freedom by accident, but… Now I know I’m… Definitely the abomination a lot of ponies back home think I am.”

I hung my head and sighed. “That’s why I want to help you so much. You’re not the monster, or the abomination, or freak. I am…”

Wander stood there quietly for a moment, her eyes lost in thought.

“I… I don't really know what to say,” she said after a while. “I’m not even a metaphysics major. Dammit! Where’s Twilight when you need her?”

Wonder began to pace and mutter to herself. “It’s possible she’s still around. She did briefly possess that one alicorn to help Pip. Her consciousness persisted without a body. I doubt it fully dissipated. Note to self: ask the next alicorn we meet if they can channel Purple Smart for a bit, so we can ask her what’s up with your soul. Uh, if that’s a thing they can still do…”

“Fun fact,” I said bitterly. “The reason I can’t do shamanism right is because I’ve got a soul… and a spirit. It also messes with my spirit magic a little. For example, I pushed through a few things while running dry on magic via sheer willpower. Downside, I get less power from offerings than I used to.”

Based on everything troopers gave me at that party, I got quite a bit less. If that much salt and liquor had been offered up to my old windmill in Zebrica, I’d have been running for at least a day, even if there wasn’t so much as a breeze.

Wander hummed as her ears perked. “What can spirits do?”

Grateful for the topic change, I smiled shakily and answered her immediately. “Depends on what kind. Machine spirits can control machines, duh. We can make them work better than they normally should, or make them do things they shouldn’t do. Many of us were bound to Zebrican weapons to make bullets burn or explode. That’s an easy example.”

“Ah, so that’s how Pip’s rifle worked,“ Wander mused. “I’ve always been interested in Zebra magic. What can you still do? Can you show me?””

I shook my head. “No. All I can do is make my body keep going for a bit longer when it’s broken. Not too broken, though. Any catastrophic or critical damage and that’s it for me. But I could make a broken servo keep working. I— I’ve ignored my spirit magic for decades… It withered, and I need to start caring for it again. That was a mistake.”

“Why would you do that?” Wander asked with a shocked look on her face. “That would be like me just not using magic!”

I looked down at the concrete floor and shrugged. “I feel a little obligated to be a normal zebra mare to give her something, you know?”

Wander nodded, paused, then smiled. “So, you can will yourself to push past pain and keep going. That sounds like a person thing to me. I don’t think she’d mind you doing it. Especially since, you know, it’s her life too.”

I considered that line of logic for a moment. It was pretty solid, to be honest…

I nodded heastently. “I... I suppose? May I ask why you’re okay with me? Most ponies are not, and the fact that I’ve got a zebra soul stuck in me is common knowledge back home. I’d like to know why you seem to still like me now that you know.”

Wander sighed and sat down on the bench behind her. “Give me a bit. It’s not hard to explain, I just have to find the right way to say it.”

I nodded and waited for her.

A few minutes later, Wander’s eyes lit up and she nodded to herself before turning towards me and asking, “What is a ghoul?”

“A pony twisted by a megaspell into a unique type of undead sustained by thaumic radiation,” I answered honestly.

“No! A miserable little pile of secrets!” Wander exclaimed, producing a small glass cup form under her cloak and throwing it to the floor, where it shattered.

I blinked several times and stared at her, then at the pile of glass shards, then back at her, then the shards… “Uhhhh….”

Wander’s ears drooped as she put on the most adorable sad dorky face I’d ever seen her make. “Uh… Videogame reference. Skip it! Point is, I’m an abomination, by the definition of every textbook about magic ever. That’s why you don’t bother me. We’re… like sisters! I mean, in the fellowship sense.”

I opened my mouth to object, then stopped. Wander was right. We were the same kind of being. Ghouls were not evil. Or bad. Not inherently, at least. They were just people who had been unfortunate enough to be made into what they were now.

Just like me.

“Huh,” I said, slowly smiling. “I… I actually never thought of it that way before. Thank you!”

I rested my hoof on my chin to think more. Maybe I should think of myself as a zebra ghoul?

Something deep deep deep down inside of me felt extremely distressed at not identifying as an exceptionally hot robo-pony, and demanded I cease that line of thought immediately. Not in words. In extremely strong feelings.

Cannons-are-sexy levels of strong feelings.

Understood, zebra-soul-me! Ya mashina!

Wait a minute! Did I know that phrase because she knew it? Ugh! Why couldn’t I access her memories?! Or were they my memories?

“Yeah, well, there’s more,” Wander said, interrupting my thoughts. “I’m a Canterlot Ghoul.”

I looked up at her, curious as to what she could add to our mutual therapy session.

“Because while most ghouls made by balefire were still people,” Wander continued. “At least they were for a little while. Few days, or a few hours for the unlucky ones… Most Canterlot ghouls were zombies right from the beginning because the pink cloud was so intense it scrambled their brains. I’m not. I’m a person still. I’m as much of a freak occurrence as you. Especially since I’ve still got all my fur and I’m not stuck to a… I don’t know, a gazebo!”

Wander stopped and frowned before scuffing the floor with her front-left hoof. “Aww… I just realized if that were the case I’d be a dread gazebo. Now I’m kinda sad I’m not— No. No I’m not sad that I’m not architecture. Stop being a geek, Wander!”

I giggled. Those little moments of geek under her ‘cool mare’ persona were adorable. Even if I didn’t get the jokes.

“Yeah. I guess we are pretty similar, then. Only real difference is you were a total accident whereas I was just, like, a mistake.”

Wander sighed and gave me a sympathetic look over her scarf. “So, this subject is kinda uncomfortable for both of us, right?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“In that case, new topic. Do you remember being whatever you were before you were a zebra?” Wander asked curiously. “Do like, you have memories of being a catapult or something?”

I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t remember very much from before. Spirits lose most of our memories every time we’re bound to something new, and every time we manifest in the mortal realm we lose even more. But… Since you said you were interested, would you like to ask me anything? I’ll answer, if I can.”

Wander’s ears perked. I could see she was excited by how she squirmed form flank to flank. It was bucking adorable!

“Do you remember what the spirit realm is like?” Wander asked eagerly. “I did all kind of drugs back in the day, trying to see it, or awaken my soul, or whatever shamans call it.”

Oh wow! She was trying to do a vision quest? When she said she always liked zebras, she was serious!

Better tell her the truth then.

I looked Wander dead in the eyes, nodded, and gave her the answer. “It’s torment.”

She frowned sharply. “What?”

“The spirit realm is torment,” I repeated. “There is no time. There is no space. Everything is... Well, you don't need an everywhere or every when, just ‘every’. It is infinite overlapping pockets of chaos and order. Everything is everywhere, everyone is inside you and you are inside of them. There is no privacy, no peace, and no… anything you’d think of as normal.

“In spite of this, you’re not omniscient. You’re not even really a you. You’re an it. You are the realm. Imagine being aware you were just a cell in some pony’s body, but you were also that pony. It makes no sense at all, and that hurts. Since emotions and bodies are one and the same there, your distress becomes real physical pain, and if you’re me, you scream in agony for eternity, begging to be let free and desperately hoping that nothing like that tooth of yours decides to eat you.”

Wander flinched and gave me a sympathetic look. “That's why you were panicking over almost dying to those bandits. I was wondering why someone who reincarnates would ever be afraid to die. Thank you. That’s been bothering me.”

“Well…” I said with a worried squirm. “Since I have a soul grafted onto me, there’s no guarantee that if I die I’ll return to the spirit realm. I might get to learn what happens when ponies like you die. Or, I may just stop existing. Whatever happens to me, I just hope I don’t go back there. I’ve waited for an eternity to get to live in the mortal realm, and now I get to to be here! I’m close enough to mortal that I can sometimes forget what I really am and enjoy life, just like you!”

Wander smirked and pulled down her scarf so I could see her lower face in its entirety. “Heh… We’ve got even more in common, then? I imagine you get to forget more than I do. First escape I had was back at the club a few days ago.”

I gave Wander my best sympathetic and loving look. “I’ll make sure you have them regularly from now on.”

Wander blushed. “I recognize that look. That’s a lover’s look… You really do like me too...”

I felt my cheeks burn as I nodded. “I told you.. I flipped the coin again because a mare was flirting with me...”

Wander raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Now this I gotta hear!”

I turned away from her and scuffed the ground with a hoof. I noticed that the broken glass was gone. Deciding to ignore the how and why of that for the sake of my sanity, I focused in on our conversation. “No! It’s too embarrassing.”

Because I forgot to have sex with her… I spent 200 years complaining, and then at the first opportunity, totally forgot to do the thing! Dumbest. Mare. Ever!

“Awww, come on!” Wander pressed, standing up and trotting over to me to drape herself over my left shoulder. “Do it for a fellow abomination.”

Eeeee! Cuddles! The step up from hug! So comfy.

Yus! This is good…

I should reward good behavior right? But I really really really don't want to admit I forgot to get laid… Oh! We’ll trade.

“If I do, you have to tell me what your mission is first,” I insisted. “You dodged explaining the details of it by making me touch the Pick of Terror.”

Wander snickered and briefly touched the pick under her jumpsuit. “We had a very very long argument over what to call it. We settled on the Pick of Destiny…” she sighed and stood up to give me a serious look. “The quest doesn't involve you. He said you already cause enough chaos.”

I blinked and gave Wander my best smirk. “Of all the things you could have said to dissuade me from wanting to know…”

“I know. I panicked...“ Wander admitted with bashful smile. “Okay, fine. You win… We’ll talk about it.”

“And it is… What, exactly?”

“My music,” Wander mumbled.

“Uh… Okay?” I asked raising an eyebrow. “Do you have to reclaim every album you ever produced, or something?”

Wander sputtered, her eyes widening as if I’d said the most horrifying thing she’d ever imagined. “No! Thank, Celestia! That would take forever! Remember how I made a shield by playing my music?”

I nodded. I had an idea where this was going now.

“My music acts as a carrier wave, letting him work his magic even though he’s hurt,” Wander explained as she sat back down. “I'm not sure how, and he won't say, but when I play, he gets to cause a little bit of chaos here and there. Sometimes, a pony listening is predisposed to running into strange events, or they could use a bit of a shakeup in their life, so he makes sure something really weird or silly, but never deadly, happens to them.

“Each time that happens, he heals a little more. I tried to play over the radio, but… It doesn't work. They have to hear it in person. One day, he’ll be able to live without the odd chaos infusion, and in return, he’ll let me see my friends again.”

I didn’t want to make Wander worried… But I felt she should know something. “Deals with spirits of Chaos do not usually work out well… Especially not if they are the Primordial.”

Wander shrugged and went back to cuddling on my shoulder. Yey!

“I don’t care,” she said firmly. “I’m going to anyways.”

I nodded slowly and leaned against Wander’s head gently. “That’s fine… Uh, it may take him a millennia or two to regain power you remember him having. I know he was loose in Equestria for a while. Whatever you remember him doing, he won't be that powerful for a long, long time.”

“Why not?” Wander asked with genuine curiosity, and a hint of fear.

“Because he’s been stripped down to just—” I stopped mid sentence and cleared my throat. “Uh, Shaman reasons.”

Wander pulled back from me just to give me a glare of annoyance.

I sighed. “Even if you fed him all the power he needs, and put the shattered fragments of his avatar back together… It just takes time to regain power. Trust me, I’ve had to do it three times that I can remember. For a spirit like me, with roughly the magical power of a unicorn wizard or pegasus stormcaller, it took a few years. For him… Well, it’s going to be a long while.”

“So, he won't be able to do anything at all for a long time until after I’m done?” Wander asked slowly.

I shook my head, not wanting to crush all of her hopes. Besides, it wasn’t true that he would be helpless. I knew that full well from the little touch of power I’d gotten to see there...

“No. He’ll be able to do somethings, but if you’re expecting him to reach beyond the veil and actually raise them from the dead, that will take a long time. If you want to just apologize to them verbally, and hear them, he could probably do that right away.”

Wander shrugged. “Meh. I’m immortal. I’ll just wait as long as I need to.”

I blinked. How someone that loyal to a group of dead ponies couldn’t see they were a good friend at heart was beyond me. Or at least, it was until I remembered my marefriend was neurotic.

Eeee! I’d thought of her as my marefriend. Yey! Hopefully she thought of me as her—

Oh no! My eyes widened in terror as I realized something horrible.

I gulped and squirmed under Wander a moment before asking, “So… uh… Do I have to tell you my thing now too?”

Wander nodded and gave me a stern look. “Mhm. Fair is fair. I showed you mine, you show me yours.”

I giggled at her crudely lewd joke. Then I bit my lip and slumped sadly. “So uh… Homage spent the entire day flirting with me… and I did the mental gymnastics needed to be okay with switching to liking mares for her sake… and um… I— Uh…”

Wander grinned happily. “You finally got laid?”

“Noooo…” I admitted loosely. “I uh… I forgot to ask her if we could before leaving Tenpony…”

Wander pulled back from me and looked me dead in the eyes. “You... Forgot.”

I nodded. “Yeah…”

Wander bit her lip to hold in a laugh. “You, the mare who told me she’s had a 200 year long dry spell, had a chance to buck, and forgot to do it?”

I nodded again and gave her a hurt look. “I was low on coolant and thus stupider, okay?!”

Wander took a deep breath and closed her eyes tightly. “I… have… a... solution,” she said slowly, as if it hurt her to think about it.

I frowned for a moment then smiled as a ray of hope shown through the embarrassment. “Is it to call Mare back and have her fly me to Tenpony? Do you think she’d mind?”

Wander shook her head. “No! You’re my marefriend!” She protested, then blushed brightly. “I uh, I mean if that’s okay? I don't deserve one, but you do, and I should help ponies to make up for things so… I should be your marefriend. I think.”

Twisted logic, but I’d accept it for now and work on it later. Mostly because: Eeeeeee! She thought that way too!

“Yes!” I agreed with a grin. “Um, but I thought it was okay to have more than one?”

Wander blinked and frowned a little, but her ears perked up. I wasn't quite sure what she was feeling.. “It is… Do you want to? I mean, that’s kinda kinky. I’m okay with it. Tried to pull it off pre-war. Wife wasn’t into it.”

“I think I would like to,” I admitted. “What if one of us finds somepony else we like? It feels like it would be mean to force somepony I loved to not be allowed to love others too.”

Wander nodded, and gave me a quick happy hug. “Yeah, okay. That’s fair. Open relationship, then.”

“Yes,” I agreed with a smile and happy-wiggle.

Wander sat down and figured a little bit then coughed. “Uh… Soooo… You do realize I was offering sex just now, right?”

I blinked. She had? When?! “Wait, really?!”

Wander facehooved and groaned into her frog. “Yes! For me, that was always the best way to see if I had deep feelings or just wanted to bang somepony.”

I stood up and wrapped Wander in a loving hug. “I’d love to!” I said with a big grin, which faded as I realized something. “So uh. How do we… you know, like, mechanically…”

Wander facehooved harder and groaned again. “Oh, Celestia… Buck it, I’ll just show you.”

Wander’s horn glowed as she pulled took off her cloak. I could see her entire head for the first time.

She had a mane which reminded me a lot of Homage, only if I unfaded it with my mind’s eye, it was much brighter blue and had a super bright blue streak running through it. Also, without the shadows form her hood, her gaunt features weren't as pronounced. She still looked like an ill mare, but a pretty one. Probably due to a lack of shadows.

…

No, it’s because she was pretty. Silly brain. Needing reasons for self-evident things.

Then she slipped out of her jumpsuit and shrugged off the armor under it.

She did have a full coat of fur! Lovely, soft, white fur, with a cute little eighth note cutiemark and an awesomely cute set of bubble-flanks.

Must. Cuddle. NOW!

Wander paused and then shivered. “Wow! I feel weird naked…”

“You should feel sexy,” I said honestly.

Wander blinked, grinned, and spread her cloak out on the ground. “Okay, now I want to do this for more than just figuring out if it’s love or lust. Come here, filly!”

I zipped over to her as fast as I could.

YES!!!! It was about bucking time!

Heh! Literally.

☢★★◯★★☢

“Mmmm… Definitely not lust!” Wander said as she cuddled up against my side.

“How do you know?” I asked while giving her a loving ear nibble.

“Cuz I wanna keep cuddling,” she murmured into my shoulder.

I smiled and nuzzled into her neck. The moon was rising. Had we really been at it that long?

Wander moved slightly, then sat up. “Sooo… I know that was a bit short—”

I laughed. “Short? It’s been… I don't know, three hours?”

“Yeah, short,” Wander said again.

I blinked twice. “How long is normal?”

“For me? Like, half the day,” she replied honestly. “We’d take breaks. Get food or something, talk a bit, then go back to the bedroom… But uh, this isn't a safe place to spend the night, so we should probably get dressed and get moving…”

I nodded and stood up, but not before giving Wander another kiss. “Thank you. That was as nice as I thought it would be.”

“It was nicer than I thought it would be,” Wander admitted sheepishly as she slipped back into her jumpsuit.

That made me sad. Not her thoughts. The ‘her being dressed’ thing.

Boo! Bad clothes. Stop existing!

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“Because… I didn’t feel bad. Or like I shouldn’t get to do it. I think… I think my messed up brain will let me love you,” Wander answered shyly.

Then she coughed and pointed to my right side. “Though, uh… Next time, can you take that grenade launcher off?”

I flattened my ears against my skull and narrowed my eyes. “No!”

Wander nodded and held up her hooves defensively. “Okay! Noted: My mare loves cannons. Get that mare another cannon.”

A few minutes later we were packed up and headed down the road, walking towards a mysterious needle-like tower soaring up into the sky…

But I didn’t care about that.

I’d finally gotten laid!

I couldn’t help but wonder if that tower up ahead was something Wander would consider a safe location...

17 - Any%

Of all the things I had expected might interrupt my travels with Wander, an NCR patrol asking to see our IDs had not been on the list. Like, at all.

So of course that had happened. Thank goodness Wander was able to explain away my lack of ID via my reputation as ‘The Machine’...

“Everything seems in order,” the NCR trooper said as he handed Wander back a crumpled bundle of identification papers and her NCR passport. “Stay safe.”

“We’ll be fine,” Wander commented before tucking the papers away and simply starting off down the road.

I trotted after her quickly. It seemed so odd to run into an actual road patrol. With how seemingly ordinary Wander had treated it, I knew that such things had to be common here. Still, back home you’d only show your ID entering a town.

Maybe it was because of the whole “The Tainted are a massive army and attacking us now” thing?

”No maybe about it.”

Imaginary dad was right. That had to be it.

Wander and I crested the hill we’d been walking towards. The massive tower was so close now. In fact, once we walked down the hill we would pass right by its base. Odd for such a thing to be this close to the highway’s ed—

I gasped as I saw the ground around the tower’s base was littered with debris. Crashed airships. Filing cabinets. Power armor skeletons. All kinds of debris. As if an entire military base had fallen from the clouds.

The guards we’d run into must have been here because the ground for easily a kilometer in any given direction was practically carpeted with unexploded ordnance, and based on the plating left on that power armor, even after all these years there was still stuff left to scavenge!

Wander’s ears swiveled as I gasped. She turned her head and frowned at me. I was glad she’d started wrapping her scarf lower around her neck instead of hiding her face. It made it easier to tell how pretty she was. More importantly, I could tell she was actually confused.

“What,” Wander said slowly. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a battlefield before.”

“It looks more like a pegasus city crashed,” I said as I took a few careful steps forward while still staring at the debris.

Wander chuckled, “Well yes, but actually no.”

One of the suit of power armor caught my eye. Or, more accurately, its helmet. Its bug-eye, insect-like helmet.

“That’s Enclave armor!” I gasped out loud.

Wander frowned slightly, then shook her head. “Yeah it is. I suppose you’d know about them. Their armor was developed up north, right?”

I nodded. That was true enough, but… I’d never seen it before some of their troopers came to Lith. I wanted to tell Wander about that, but Her Majesty was quite insistent on me not mentioning the Enclave’s visit to anyone. I trusted Wander, but I had my orders.

“Yes,” I said to confirm my nod was an answer to her question and quickly pointing up at the tower. “Did they have a town or base up there?”

Wander sighed. “Yeah. We’re standing in the remains of Neighvarro. One of the few Enclave ruins not fully looted. It’s… Very political. A lot of good stuff is just rotting here because idiots think the tools of the enemy are evil. It’s not like this stuff runs on dark magic! They’re just tools evil ponies used. We could put it all to better use if they’d just stop whining...”

I nodded and opened my mouth to agree with her, but was interrupted as Wander pointed up to the top of the smooth ivory tower, right to the needle-like tip. No, not the tip. To the little bump just below it.

“Also, Pip’s up in there, and some ponies think salvaging this stuff would bother her with all the noise,” Wander added in a tone that indicated she thought that reason was even stupider.

I frowned. “Oh… So uh, then this isn’t exactly what you’d call a private and safe location?”

Wander blinked twice, then blushed. “Uh, Gears? It’s been like, five hours.”

I felt my own cheeks flush. “It was so good though! And you said that was short for you.”

Wander coughed. “Be that as it may, with that mare being omniscient via a birds eye view, I am so not going to do anything without a roof!”

My ears drooped flat against my head. “W— What about cuddles?”

“Sure, that’s okay,” Wander said as her cheeks burned even more. “Look, I know you’ve had a two hundred year dry spell… So have I! I get it, but we can’t just make up for lost time all in one go!”

“Why not?” I asked, my tail lashing anxiously. “We’re both immortal, and Her Majesty didn’t give me a date these packages had to be delivered by! I’m sure she’d understand psychologically necessary delays!”

Wander snickered and bit her lip to prevent herself from laughing. “Immortal, yes. Organic, also yes. I have about a week of Aqua Cura left, Gears. I’ll need to pick some more up before then.”

I shook my head. “Not necessary! We could open up my barrel plates and remove a piece of my core’s shielding. That would let you keep going for as long as I do!”

Wander paused for a moment, nodded a little while giving me a thoughtful look, then suddenly frowned. “Wouldn’t that hurt you?”

“Well, yes. A little bit, but only for the removal process,” I replied with a hopeful smile. “I’ve got my blueprints right here! We can—”

Wander suddenly shook her head. “No! No… Even with that problem solved it doesn't address the other issues,” she said flatly before turning white as a sheet. “I uh, I mean—”

I tilted my head. “What other issues?”

Wander bit her lip harder, then her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay, so… That half a day thing? That was like, slow and loving, with lot of breaks. Mostly cuddling. You literally just kept going like a machine!” she flashed me a grin. “Awesome as that was, I’m pretty worn out.”

I blinked. “But, you just walked about ten kilometers. You have plenty of energy!”

Wander facehooved and groaned. “Not that kind of worn out!”

I frowned, doing my best to understand. A thousand different possibilities flashed through my mind before I settled on the most likely one. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to injure you. How long does your regeneration require to perform the repairs?”

Wander grinned and shook her head. “Gears… I— I lo—” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I enjoy your company. But, you’ve got a lot to learn about adult relationships. I meant emotionally worn out. Ask again tomorrow, okay?”

“Ohhhh! There’s a cooldown period!” I exclaimed, grinning ear to ear as I filed that critical bit of information away.

I’d have to work out what exactly that time was so I could ask at reasonable intervals. My grin slowly became a frown. “What about cuddles? Is there a cooldown on cuddles?”

Wander giggled and shook her head. “No. We shouldn’t delay through here, though. I don’t want to bother Pip and we’re basically in her yard.”

I nodded understandingly and trotted forwards to give her a loving hug. “Sorry… I’ll do my best to follow all the rules, okay?”

Wander returned the hug and silently nuzzled into my neck.

“Awww!” sompony cooed from behind me.

I yelped and spun around. Wander’s head popped up. Bad Trip came free from her holster. A small sprite-bot floating a few meters away from us laughed. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you. You’re just so cute together! You have a twiggy yin, voluptuous yang thing going on.”

It took me a second to place the voice thanks to the tinny speaker hidden behind the spritebot’s grill.

Pip!

I narrowed my eyes and pointed a hoof at the robot as threateningly as I could. “You!” I shouted, making sure my ears remained flat. “I was nice to you! Homage is cute and I like her but we didn’t do anything!”

The bot bobbed in the air, but remained motionless. “You really didn’t have to turn her down. I don’t mind. She needs love just like everypony else.”

I lowered my hoof as my face flushed with embarrassment. “I didn't turn her down… I... I forgot to ask...”

Wander snickered. “I still can’t believe you forgot that of all things… But seriously, you shouldn’t be mad at the weather-not-goddess. That’s not a good idea.”

I turned to look at Wander and waved a hoof at the bot, my anger returning. “She tried to drown me with a flash flood!”

I turned back to the bot and glared. “Joke’s on you, I don’t breathe! I just simulate it so ponies don't wonder why my chest and barrel don’t move!”

The sprite-bot moved backwards slightly and dipped in the air. “I didn’t do that,” Pip said with what sounded like sincerity. “I mean, not intentionally.”

I frowned and lowered my hoof for a second time. “You didn’t?”

The bot swiveled like a pony shaking their head. “Nope! When and where was this?”

“Just outside of Suggervale,” I answered. “About three days ago.”

“I wasn’t doing anything there,” Pip said. “Uh, that said… Weather is super-complicated! It’s like trying to reboot a PipBuck’s matrix with another’s that’s half broken. I was making sure it rained enough for the farms that day. I might have accidentally caused that flood… But I wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt you just because my wife thinks your cute.”

Wander nodded in agreement. “Yeah that’s not her at all. If she was really that mad at you over it she’d probably hit you with lightning.”

I winced. Pip coughed. Not a sick cough, but a ‘please don’t bring that up cough’.

“I don’t kill ponies anymore,” Pip said adamantly.

Wander frowned. “Didn’t you smite that one slaver?”

“Not on purpose,” Pip replied immediately. “I was trying to scare him away form the town… I— I’m not going to talk about—”

Pip’s voice cracked as she fell into a fit of violent coughing. Violent, wet coughing.

I trotted forwards and hugged the sprite-bot she was talking through before realizing that wasn’t actually her and letting it go with an awkward frown and tail swish.

“Thanks,” Pip said quietly, much to my surprise. “It’s nice to be held… Uh, well, you know. Kind of. Still, nice...”

I cleared my throat. “Well, um, sorry for accusing you, then. It’s just, everypony says you can see everything in the Wasteland, and you do kind of control the weather.” I said to try and steer the conversation away from things that might make her too emotional.

Pretty sure whatever way her body reacted to her emotions about having killed ponies before triggered that coughing fit. After all, there were some things Mom couldn’t talk about without having minor system failures due to the stress.

Wander’s ears perked up. “Yeah! About that, how much do you see? Cuz, um, no offense but I’m kind of glad I don't have to go to the bathroom anymore.”

Pip laughed and her sprite-bot shook in the air. Then, after a few wet coughs, Pip floated closer to Wander. “I can’t look at everything at once. I can look out from maybe four cameras at once, and one of them is always P-not-P, that’s my wife’s sprite-bot. The other three are for keeping an eye on big picture things. Usually places where I’m working on the weather. I very rarely look at, like, pony-scale things.”

“Oh! Good,” Wander said with a sigh of relief.

“So uh… Weather’s hard to control, huh?” I asked, wanting to see if she wouldn’t mind telling me about how in the world she was even able to do that from up there.

The science-mare in me needed to know!

Pip chuckled nervously and floated her bot over towards me. “Uh, yeah… about that! Weather is really, really, REALLY complicated! Rainbow Dash had a cool idea, but in practice the SPP is pretty hard to use. At least, for a unicorn. I imagine back in her day that there were plenty of pegasi with actual degrees in meteorology to work this thing… I uh… Well, I’m a PipBuck technician. I can just barely not make everything one huge thunderstorm.”

I was pretty sure the way Pip said that last sentence made it a joke.

Wander frowned for a moment. “Wait, didn’t you do that once?”

“That was an accident!” Pip insisted firmly. “A spider got in here and crawled up my leg.”

Wander giggled. “Ha! Okay, so you told Spike not to barbecue any more spiders, right?”

“Yep,” Pip answered flatly. “I… I probably shouldn’t have included how to get in here in my story, huh?”

Wander shrugged. “Hey, well, the door is a dragon, so even though ponies know, it’s still pretty secure. Even if you had mentioned where his cave is. Which… I don't’ think you did?”

I sighed and wished I could participate in this conversation. It sucked not knowing something so basic as its recent history about the nation I was in!

My ears pierced up as I thought of something I could do involving Pip, though!

I cleared my throat and looked into her robot’s grill. “Sorry to interrupt but, I’m a mailmare. I remember Homage mentioning you wanted the Pipites to stop praying to you. I could deliver a letter to them, if you’d like and think that might help.”

Pip groaned and the bot sank almost all the way to the ground. “It won’t,” she said with a long, terrible, flemmy sigh.

I winced. Because of the sigh. “S— Sorry. I just wanted to help.”

“So, big-picture view of the west right now? I can see a big group of them out near Twin Oaks writing a long prayer into the ground with… I don’t know, something flammable,” Pip rambled. “I can’t not see it, because each letter is like, ten meters tall! They want me to smite a raider gang. Smite! Like I’m a goddess! You can’t reason with ponies like that.”

Given that suicide bomber, making huge flaming messages to commune with the goddess seemed… Underwhelmingly on note.

Wait… If flamer fuel was rare, what were they burning? Flamer fuel is any liquid that goes fwoosh, really.

Wander nodded in agreement and flicked her tail side to side. “Pretty sure if we got one of them into her room they’d still insist that only she could use the stupid thing.”

“Oh…” I frowned and sighed, shaking my head slowly. “So, they’re zealots?”

“Yeah,” Pip sighed. “Just— Let them do their thing and ignore them. If you tell them to stop, they will do things even harder. If you encourage them, they do things even harder! You can’t win. Just leave them alone… In fact, don’t deliver a radio to them. They’ll just use it to bother your queen with demands to integrate them as your state religion. Like the Herd did.”

Oh, Celestia… They were a state religion?! That bomber committed an act of war, then. Great!

I reached out and hugged her robot again. “I’m sorry… I wish I could help.”

“You are!” Pip insisted so firmly I let go of her robot in surprise.

“I— I am?” I asked with a confused frown and re-hugged the bot.

“Yes!” Pip said firmly, making her bot squirm free from my grip so it could float at a point where it could look into my eyes. “Long story short, the Wasteland still mostly sucks. A lot of ponies were inspired by me, and that’s good. But they need some more good role models. You may just be a mailmare, but what you did for Sire’s Hollow, and saving that squad of Talon—”

Another violent coughing fit interrupted Pip’s sentence. Fortunately, I understood what she was getting at. I’d done a few things to give ponies hope. Even though they were mostly accidents. And little things.

Still, if they were helping, that was good!

Wander cleared her throat. “Hey so, you sound like you’re super sick. You don’t have to talk to us if it hurts to talk.”

Pip stopped coughing and spit something out that wasn’t entirely liquid. Wander and I grimaced in unison at the loud, dull, wet splat sound as whatever it was hit the floor.

“Ew…” Pip whispered. “Okay um… Maybe I should stop talking. I need to get back to making sure Shattered Hoof won't have a fatal heatwave tomorrow, anyways.

I nodded in agreement. In fact, I had never agreed with anything so completely in my life. “You really should… And maybe see if there’s any way for you to get to see a doctor?”

Pip snorted. “If Velvet couldn’t help me when I could still walk, nopony can…”

Wander turned and waved her hoof at me while mouthing, ‘No! Stop! Abort!’

Realizing what I’d just made the poor dying mare in a tube think about, I took a step back and cleared my throat. “Uh, I’m sorry I accused you of hitting me with a flood on purpose.”

“It’s okay. I know how it must have looked,” Pip said, sounding like it really was okay. Good.

Her bot swiveled to face Wander. “Before I go… You sound really familiar. Do I know you?”

I swore I heard the fur on the back of Wander’s neck stand up before she rapidly shook her head. “No! I mean, nopony knows me. I am a bard though. You probably saw me perform once. And I keep yelling at you.”

“Oh, okay. I was wondering about—” Pip once again fell into a truly gut churning bad wet coughing fit.

Wander and I silently and extremely uncomfortable waited it out.

“I need to go,” Pip said quietly a few moments after her coughing subsided. “Goodbye! Don’t worry! The road to Canterlot is currently safe. No monsters, no bad ponies.”

“Thanks, Pip,” Wander said with a nod as the sprite bot started to floats away.

It moved without any apparent direction, just going. Weaving through the debris of Neighvarro like a lost soul.

“Bye!” I said as I waved up to the top of the tower, hoping she could still see from there since she was definitely no longer remote controlling the sprite bot.

I sighed and looked down at the road for a long moment before turning to Wander. “I feel bad for thinking ill of her,” I admitted. “She seems so nice!”

“Yeah,” Wander said quietly as she turned to start walking back down the road. “Shame she had such a hard time realizing she’s a good pony… And still thinks she’s a monster for everything she did.”

I bit my lip to do my best to avoid pointing out that Wander was one coat recolor from the pot calling the kettle black there.

”Too bad there’s no way we’re going to get access to the S.P.P. hub,” dad remarked in the back of my mind. ”If the memory orb you made helped snap your marefriend out of her funk, it might work on the not-goddess too.”

That’s a good point! I’ll hold onto it. It might be useful if Her Majesty and Homage can work out a plan to keep her alive.

I jogged for a moment to catch up to Wander and resume our walk. With the tower behind us, the next biggest landmark on the forest covered horizon was a huge mountain which soared upwards until its peak disappeared into the clouds.

It stood on its own, or at least, it appeared to. I knew it was actually part of a pair of mountains which rested on the opposite banks of the Celestial River. Everypony knew that.

Even in Lith, there wasn’t a pony who didn’t know what Mount Canterlot looked like.

I turned around and looked at the tower, which was apparently called the ‘SPP’... Whatever that meant.

Wait. How had I known that for dad to mention?

…

Someone must have mentioned it a while back.

I frowned and turned my head back around to look at Wander. I was tired of not knowing things. It was time I learned everything.

“You know, you still haven’t told me the full story. And nopony else has, and we have another day of walking at least,” I said adamantly.

Wander groaned and gave me the most distressed look I’d seen her make, shy of when I asked her about her past when we first met.

“Do I have to?” Wander asked, pleading at me with her beautiful eyes.

I was about to nod and say yes, when I realized it might be better to make a bargain with her.

”Good girl! You will marriage well one day,” Dad praised, confirming I’d made the right decision.

“If you do, I’ll brew a potion for you,” I promised. “I can give you a path into the Spirit Realm so you may undertake the Vision Quest you wanted to undertake. You know. The kind you apparently thought recreational drugs could provide. Like a silly filly!”

I may have been terrabad at shamanism, but anypony could make a potion if they knew how. In this case, I knew how. It might have to wait ‘til we returned to Lith… But I could!

Wander’s eyes lit up with more excitement than I had ever seen in them before. She grinned and nodded, loudly shouting, “Deal!”

I smiled. She stopped walking and took a deep breath. “If, you also give me a kiss,” she insisted.

I smiled, trotted over to her, and gave her a kiss on the nose.

Wander’s ears drooped. “Nose? Really?”

I frowned and tilted my head. “I’m sorry… Was that wrong?”

“Lips are like, the romantic place. That’s a mom place,” Wander said with an awkward smile.

I blushed and kissed her on the lips. “S— sorry…”

“It’s fine,” Wander said as she returned my kiss.

Wander took another deep breath, cleared her throat, and then focused on a spell. Her horn glowed brightly for several long seconds, then she exhaled, and began to speak, her voice now matching Pip’s perfectly.

“If I’m going to tell you about the adventure of my life — explain how I got to this place with these people, and why I did what I’m going to do next — I should probably start by explaining a little bit about PipBucks.

“What is a PipBuck? A PipBuck is a device, worn on a foreleg just above the hoof, issued to every pony in a Stable when they become old enough to start work. A blending of unicorn pony magic and science, your PipBuck will keep a constant measure of your health and even help administer healing poultices and other medicine, track and organize everything in your saddlebags, assist in repairs, and keep all manner of notes and maps available at a hoof tap. Plus, it allows you to listen to the Stable broadcast whenever you would like as it can tune into and decrypt just about any radio frequency. And that’s not all.”

Wander started to trot off while spewing the unfiltered, exact thought trains of Pip, who had apparently been extremely talkative once upon a non-fluid-filled-respiratory-system.

Oh.

Sweet.

Celestia!

This is why you don’t like telling the story. I’m so sorry! This is going to be pure torture, isn’t it?

Wander continued talking, and in spite of my fears, ten minutes into the story, I was hooked!

☢★★◯★★☢

Mount Canterlot had been much further away than it had appeared from the base of the SPP tower. I thought we would have made it to the mountain in a day.

Nope. Probably two more at this rate.

Fortunately, Pip’s story was awesome and Wander was still telling it! She hadn’t stopped since yesterday.

“...On the opposite wall was another copy of the recruitment poster. (“You too can be a Steel Ranger!”) I realized where I must be. Lifting my PipBuck, I checked the automap. SteelHooves Shack. I collapsed back onto the bed, feeling unbearably exhausted, physically and mentally.

“And, even worse, I felt horny. Which was not a sensation that mixed well with illness. Maybe it was having Velvet Remedy so close, her head pressing against my flank as she slept partially on my bed. My stomach twisted in warning. I didn’t care.

“I was too hot, too sick. But still, as I lay back, I tried to summon up daydreams that would relieve at least one of my symptoms, my hooves beneath my blankets. I turned to face away from Velvet Remedy in shame.”

Wander stopped talking. The sudden silence made me spin around and check our flanks for signs of danger. While I turned and looked around Wander tapped my shoulder.

I turned, and she cast another spell to change her voice back to normal. “Throat hurts. Stopping for now.”

I frowned and gave her a hug. “Sorry… How much more is there?”

“Two days,” Wander answered bluntly.

I blinked and stared at her in shock. “Uh, beg pardon?”

Wander looked into my eyes emotionlessly. “Story long. Sixty five hours. No talk. Regen throat. Hurts.”

I nodded and gave her a quick hug. “Sorry… But, it is important I know.”

I looked off into the distance for a moment before returning my eyes to hers. “You could just summarize the rest for me.”

Wander shook her head. “No. Whole thing. Never do again. Quiet now, please.”

I nodded and we walked together in silence for what seemed like an eternity. The road sloped up and down, moving through the rolling hills which seemed to define the Heartlands in their entirety. Nothing but the clip-clop of eight hooves on asphalt.

After a whole day of talking, the silence was maddening.

I bit my lip, took a deep breath, turned to Wander and asked, “Could you maybe turn on your radio?”

Wander nodded, stopped for a moment to roll up her sleeve and flipped the radio on. Some rather nice classical music filled the silence between us. I closed my eyes and walked for a while, losing myself in the expertly played violins as they danced with a flute.

A flute which suddenly fell silent as the radio crackled and Homage’s DJ Pon3 voice came from Wander’s PipBuck.

“Sorry to interrupt the song, ladies and gentle ponies, but we have some breaking news of critical importance to anypony in the Canterlot area.”

”Oh hey, it’s Plot Exposition News again,” Dad remarked with a snort. ”I thought only Pinkie Pie herself could do that.”

Huh… Yeah it is a bit weird how we keep tuning in right on time for the news. I wonder how frequently she interrupts the music?

”Next time you speak to her, please ask. If this is coincidental, it’s gonna drive me nuts!”

Wander stopped walking, frowned, and looked at her PipBuck, her tail swishing with worry.

“Everypony remember the situation with Stable 88? Yeah. Me neither. It’s pretty hard to keep the smaller news in mind when something big happens. Like, say, the Tainted are actually an army and just attacked Fillydelphia en masse,” Homage continued with a weary sigh. “This bit of news is interesting, but especially critical for anypony traveling through the Canterlot area. Stable 88 opened its doors, and Overmare Platinum was nice enough to radio little old me with an apology.”

I frowned, trying to figure out why that would be critical information for us to know.

“Remember last week when she threatened to let their soldier out to make our diplomats leave if they wouldn’t go on their own? Well, the diplomats and their guards didn’t go on their own. Of course they didn’t. Why would they? That was just an empty threat, right? Wrong. Horribly wrong,” Homage said with a bitter twinge to her voice. “I’m going to play the Overmare’s recording for you. Before I do, if you are in the Canterlot area, either bunker down or check your ammo and make sure your gun’s ready for a quick draw. You see, 88 let its soldier out, but not back in.”

Homage really didn’t need to say anymore than that.

I drew my pistol, and flipped the switch for it to charge, then put it back into my holster. It wasn’t good for the crystals to keep them charged all the time, but if Homage felt the need to tell everypony in this region to get ready for battle…

The radio clicked and hissed as the Overmare’s recording began to play. “This is Overmare Platinum Vein, and I am sorry. We’ve let a monster loose in your home. We cannot let her back in. Not after what she did. Not after what happened while she did it. We are a peaceful Stable. We swore off the violence our ancestors embraced. All except for her. We don’t have anypony who could stop her if she wanted to kill us all.”

The Overmare’s voice was sullen, hollow, and clearly tinged with panic. Wander and I shared a worried glance before she started to look around the horizon, scanning the shadows for any sign of an ambush.

Nopony spoke like that unless something was horribly wrong.

“You need to know what happened, and the best way is for me to share our security recordings with you,” The Overmare said slowly.

The radio clicked, and perhaps it was because I had been hearing a vividly told story for the last day, but the simple security recording swept me away, and my imagination decided to put me in the same Stable entrance the microphone had sat in.

A stallion sighed. His voice held a mixture of anger and annoyance. “Overmare, we’ve been here for weeks. You have to make a deal. The only other choice is to remain stuck in your Stable forever. We both know that Stables were not meant to sustain a community indefinitely.”

A mare’s voice, Overmare Platnum's, sighed. It sounded crackly, clearly coming through an intercom. “And I have told you that Thestrals are different. Our ancestors lived underground for their entire lives. We have quarried great halls within the stone beneath your hooves. Our Stable was once small, now it is a city to rival Ponyville, as it stood before the war. We do not need to rejoin the world above. We are safe, we are comfortable, we have no need of you.”

A hoof scraped against the stone. “Your ancestors swore an oath to serve Equestria,” The stallion pressed. “We need your help now!”

“You are not Equestria,” the Overmare laughed. “You are a bunch of ponies playing nation-state in her rubble. You read the story of Pip to us. Princess Celestia herself is alive. Well, sort of. We would honor our oath if she asked it of us, because she is Equestria. All of it that is left. We are not beholden to you.”

“Perhaps not, but you are sitting in your hole and letting ponies starve! You said you have an abundance of food. We can trade medicine for food!” The stallion practically yelled. “Why are you so stubborn?! We can help each other and both live better lives than on our own.”

“Honeyed words opened this door once before, and death came inside. There is nothing you can say that will make it open for you to enter,” the Overmare said as if it were something she had said millions of times. “Besides, I doubt you’d even recognize our food as food.”

The stallion made an odd sound. He was surprised. This was the first time he had heard that.

“Oh? What do you eat? Fruit? We’ve done what research we can on your tribe, we know your diet.”

“Be honest, you’ve never seen a single piece of fruit before, have you?”

“Well, no. Not a fresh one at least.”

“A third of our ponies can only eat fruit,” the Overmare said casually. “The majority of us subsist on nectar… The rest, well… The rest of us are throwbacks. Holdovers from a time before Celestia, if you can believe that.”

The stallion sighed. “We eat meat up here too. Ponies are omnivores. We’ll happily buy meat.”

“Not meat,” The overmare remarked. “You’re thinking like a pony. Understandable, since you're talking to ponies… But we are not pegasi. Perhaps we shared a common ancestor in ages long past, but they chose the path of light. They bask in the sun. We took the path of darkness and take comfort in the dark of the night. We have never eaten flesh. You need to think like a bat.”

“Then... What?” The stallion asked heastently.

“A week ago I asked you to leave,” the Overmare said slowly and firmly as she seemingly changed the subject. “I warned you there would be consequences.”

A drop of water fell from a stalactite and splashed across the cave floor, as if to punctuate the moment.

The stallion remained silent.

“I will open the door now, trooper. But not to let you in.”

A metallic thud echoed through the cave. A dozen ponies began to speak in hushed murmurs. Several guns clicked as their owners chambered rounds.

“Steady, colts!” the stallion shouted. “Do not fire! This is progress.”

“Sir, with all due respect—”

The new stallion’s voice was cut off as what must have been a hundred tons of steel screeched as it was pulled along a steel floor.

“Do not fire unless they do!” The stallion ordered.

“Yes, sir!” several voices chimed back.

Metal rattled. Stone creaked. The Stable door began to inch open.

Then, almost lost in the noise of the door opening, something small, tiny, and metallic clinked against stone.

The sound of the door opening was lost in a single calamitous bang. Ponies screamed. The microphone rang with the echoes of the blast. A loud gun fired twice. There was less screaming.

“Rip and Tear!” a mare’s voice screeched.

A weapon clicked twice. Two more gunshots peaked the microphone. Click-click, boom-boom. The dull metallic sound of a simple shotgun. The Stable door hissed, groaned, and began to creep shut.

Amid the gunfire, a dozen hooves could be heard rushing and running. Running from the sound of gunfire. From the drumming of buckshot blasting apart flesh, bone, and stone.

A new gun joined the fray. Its report was sharp, concussive. A rifle. One shot. Two. Three.

Click-click, boom-boom.

The rifle went silent. The screams continued, moving ever further away. As did the gunfire.

Faintly, as if from a great distance, something wet snapped and a pony screamed in agony. The scream was followed by the sound of terrified sobbing, and the stallion’s voice as he begged. “Please! No!”

“Sorry, but you’re threatening my friends and home. Also, I’m hungry,” the mare said in the same tone of voice a pony might use to inform you the sky was blue.

Click-click, boom-boom.

There was no more screaming. Now there was happy humming, the sound of something wet and heavy being drug across stone, and an occasional slurping, sucking, gut-churning sound only a surgeon could identify by ear alone.

The sounds got louder, and louder, approaching the microphone…

The mare gasped. “WOAH! I— It happened! HAHAHA! EEEEEE!”

Hooves thundered against stone as the mare rushed back to the door. “Mom! Mom! Did you see?! I got my cutiemark!”

The intercom was silent.

“Wait, do I have to press the button down?”

A hoof scraped against metal. Something clicked. “MOM! I did it! They’re gone, and I got my cutiemark!”

“I saw,” The Overmare said in a hollow voice.

It had to be hollow. Too much terror filled her words for anything else to fit in them.

“I always wondered why I didn’t get it in there! I knew fighting had to be my talent, nothing else lets me feel alive… Except maybe music? But I don't like to play it and I don't think you can have a talent for just listening to music, but who cares! Dream Pods don't count, obviously! First real fight and boom! Cutiemark! Isn’t it awesome? That is the prettiest IGA 20 12 gauge ever! I don’t even own one of those! I should get one… OH! And the barrel smoke? Bucking sweeeeet!”

It was impossible to not hear the joy and excitement in the mare’s voice. Of course she was happy. It’s not everyday you find out what you were meant to do…

“Why did you drink his blood?” The Overmare asked, her voice quavering.

“I was hungry and thought I wouldn’t let it go to waste?” the mare said with a confused little quaver of her own. “Are you worried about like, diseases? He smelled clean… Sorry, it’s just there’s blood coating like, EVERYTHING! You know that one time you walked into the neighbor’s room and he was grilling mangos? I finally get why you just started drooling. I’m still feeling hungry… Can I come in before I eat too much and start to put on weight?”

“No,” the Overmare said firmly.

“Sooo I can come in after I clean it all up?” her daughter asked, sounding extremely confused.

“No. You’re not coming back in. Not after what you just did!”

“B— But you told me to kill them!”

“I said you could if you had too!”

“If they wouldn’t leave because you asked them to they sure as hay wouldn’t go because I asked them to, and tactically speaking it’s much harder to clear a room after you’ve opened the door instead of during the breach.”

“Do you feel anything?!”

“Confused? Kinda hungry still?” she said, her every breath oozing genuine perplexity. Like a newborn foal trying to understand where an object went after it left their sight. “I did what you wanted. Why are you mad at me?”

“Do you— Do you feel anything at all for having murdered them all?”

“Oh! Yes. Happy! They threatened my friends, they were therefore bad ponies, and they are dead now. They won't hurt you. This is good! Why are you mad?! You said I could!”

“You crushed that pony’s head flat underhoof!”

“Well, yeah! I was reloading. What would you have done? Let him get a shot off?”

“Speed Run, you’re banished. Leave now and never come back.”

The mare was silent for several long moments. “I— But—”

“Leave!”

“C— Can I get my stuff?” the mare asked, her voice trembling as she held back tears.

“You’re wearing everything you value, monster! Leave!”

“N— no I’m not!” The mare stammered, all of the bravado gone, replaced by the quivering terror of a foal in the dark. “I’ve just got my kit and— I— I don’t have all of my music, and blankets, and everything else!”

There was no replay from the Overmare.

“Why? What did I do wrong?”

Silence.

Flesh hit stone as the mare presumably fell over, or perhaps dropped to her knees. Full-scale nose-running, eye-watering bawling echoed through the cave for what seemed like an eternity.

Then, quietly, she spoke. “C— Can you please tell me what I did wrong? I’ll not do it again. I promise!”

Again, there was no reply.

A pained sob echoed through the cave. “F— Fine! I— I’ll go. B— but my things! Can you put them in a box and leave them outside? Please?”

Silence.

“O— Okay… Then I’ll go in and get them. You think I can’t, but somewhere up there is Stable-Tec’s Headquarters,” the mare said, her voice sounded dead as she spoke. “There’s always a master key. I will be back for my things. It would be nice of you to put them in a box and leave them outside while I am gone.”

Leather rustled. Plastic clicked against a hoof. Something metallic scraped and shushed. The plastic rattled again, and a few clicks later a song began to play over a tinny PipBuck speaker. It slowly faded into the distance along with the mare’s hoofsteps.

“I moved out to Canterlot recently
with a plain and simple dream;
Wanna infiltrate some Zeeb-ruled state,
and topple their regime.

Those mares in black with their matching suitcases;
where everything's on a need-to-know basis...
Agents got that swagger;
everypony so cloak and dagger!

I'm feelin' nervous but I'm really kinda wishing
for an undercover mission...

That's when the red alert came on the radio,
and I put my earpiece on!
Got my dark sunglasses on!
And I had my weapon drawn!

So I get my hoofcuffs,
my cyanide pills,
my classified dossier!

Tappin' the phones like yeah.
Shreddin' the files like yeah.
I memorized all the enemy spies I've gotta neutralize today.
Yeeeaaahhh, it's a party in the MoA!

I stared at Wander’s PipBuck in terror. The shotgun blasts and reloads had to have been from a double barreled shotgun, nothing else sounded like that. Except, the gun had been firing so fast I swore it had to have had a magazine!

Wander nodded to me and drew Bad Trip, keeping it held ready to fire at her side.

The radio clicked as Homage’s voice came back with a long sigh. “So… If you’ve gotten the jist, 88’s resident soldier is a psychopathic vampire-bat whose special talent is killing, is currently extremely emotionally distressed, and her reaction to being banished from home is to vow to return for her belongings with a thinly veiled threat, then walk away while listening to a Cheese Sandwich song. Probably unironically.

“There were two dozen NCR troopers in that cave. None of them survived, and as far as we can tell, not a one of them even winged her. If you’re in the Canterlot area… Get out.”

The radio hissed again as the music resumed. Wander glared over her shoulder in Manehatten’s general direction. “Oh! You know Cheese Sandwich by ear, but you don’t know me?! Horseapples!”

I raised an eyebrow as I took in Wander’s glare of pure rage she was sending Homage’s way.

Were all mares this confusing?

”Yes,” imaginary dad said, his tone suggesting he intended that statement to be helpful.

It was not.

I sighed and trotted over to Wander. “Hon, first, I thought you didn’t want to be known. Second, your voice sounds fine… If you wanted to take a break you could have just said so!”

Wander looked at me sheepishly. “I don’t… Just, professional pride! I did original work but she knows the parody artist and not me. That hurts!”

“Like your throat?” I said with a suspiciously raised eyebrow.

Wander shook her head. “It only took a few minutes to heal,” she admitted sheepishly. “Then I did want a break. I’d continue now, but… We should be quiet and keep an eye out.”

Wander switched off her PipBuck’s radio. I nodded in agreement.

“Yeah… you check the right flank, I’ll check the left.”

We resumed our journey. Silent. Eyes peeled.

Every bush, every rock, every tree, every burnt out wagon could be hiding a monster.

It was not a good feeling.

☢★★◯★★☢

The sun plunged down behind Mount Canterlot. Twilight had arrived. I gulped nervously. Spending an entire day looking around for a possible ambush was stressful enough. I really, really really didn’t want to have to do that all night, too.

Wander suddenly stopped walking and took a deep breath.

I immediately looked up and drew my pistol.

“No. Not that,” Wander said with a quiet hiss.

“What is it?” I asked with a worried wince.

“I… I need to rest. My joints have been scraping for the last hour. I know you don’t need to sleep or rest ever, and I know you forget that I do need a little rest from time to time, and I know this is a bad time for it, but... I can’t go further. Not without being unable to fight if we have too.”

I bit my lip and took a deep breath. Bad timing, but that couldn’t be helped.

“Okay… Let’s find a safe place to camp,” I said as I looked out across the horizon.

A small grove of willow trees caught my eye. I pointed it out to Wander, and she nodded approvingly. It didn’t provide much cover, but it did break line of sight. A few minutes later and I’d set up a few tripwires and can traps while Wander set up her bedroll and lay down.

I was a little jealous of a spell she had. It was this neat little pulse of magic which flowed down her body from her horn and just pushed all of the little pebbles and twigs away from where she’d been standing. It had made a nice flat spot for her to lay down.

Sometimes I couldn't help but be jealous of unicorns.

Feeling the need to do something cool too, after Wander had been laying down for a while I asked, “Hey… Do you want to eat something?”

Wander paused pursed her lips then nodded. “Yeah. That would be relaxing. Unfortunately, all I have is a few cans of soup. A fire would be a bad idea.”

I nodded in agreement. “A fire, yes. But what about a hot rock?” I asked as I picked up a small flat-ish piece of granite which had been laying by the roots of one of the willows.

Wander’s ears perked. “Now that is a good idea. How will you heat it though?”

I set the rock down, smiled, charged my eye laser and fired it into the rock. A small plume of smoke wafted up form the flat surface. “I can keep shooting it as needed. Put your soup on the rock. Just leave me a firing line.”

Wander raised an eyebrow. “You mean line of sight?” she asked slowly.

I was about to facehoof and agree with her when somepony said, “Actually, your zebra friend’s correct!”

Wander rolled over, Bad Trip whipping around to fire. I stood up and got ready to aim Feature at what was hopefully not the psycho-soldier.

Unfortunately, I could see the mare’s outline in the moonlight. Short, but muscular. Floofy tufted ears. Wings made from dragon-like flaps of skin and bone rather than plumage.

Yay! Nini-flap-flap!

Wait, no! That’s a bad thing this time. BUCK!

Wut do?!

Something feeling deep deep deep down demanded I cuddle the batpone. I ignored the suicidal impulse and tried to think of something actually helpful.

“We don't want any trouble,” Wander said as calmly as she could manage.

Did she think we couldn’t take her? Actually, we probably couldn’t. She’d taken down two dozen ponies in a few seconds.

I nervously shifted my stance. I had to calculate the point of aim just right. We wouldn’t get a second shot.

“Uh, okay?” the mare said, trotting forwards enough for me to see her fanged maw was frowning while her brow wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sorry, is just like, shooting ponies on sight a surfacer thing?”

“It used to be,” Wander said carefully.

Locking on target…

For a super-deadly psychopath, she was kinda pretty. Griffon blue fur, a silky gray mane that was actually cut and styled. By Celestia, that mane! It flowed and billowed even in the almost non-existent breeze.

I want one like that! Stupid mohawk won't take any real styling...

Ack! No! Focus on not being killed by her, you idiot!

Target: Equine hind-leg.
Range: 2.51472 meters.

ERROR! Gun within blast radius.

“Shit!” I swore under my breath.

The mare looked up at me and frowned. “I uh… I thought we were friends? I mean, you sounded like friends.”

Oh. Right. Bat ears. She could probably tell I was aiming my gun at her.

Hold on, did she say friends?

I frowned and lowered my weapon. “So uh… There was kind of a radio broadcast about you… You’re not going to just, kill us all in some kind of anger-murder-party, are you?”

She shook her head and frowned sharply, genuinely perplexed. “No? Why would I? You’re not bad-ponies.”

Wander blinked once and lowered her gun too. The way the mare had said that made her sound like a simpleton. You can't fake that kind of matter of fact bluntness. Or at least, it’s really hard to.

“Also, if I wanted to kill you, why would I give you a chance to fight back?” she added helpfully with a little confused tip of her head.

Wander holstered her pistol. “That’s a good point… So Uh… What’s your name?”

I sat down slowly. I wasn’t quite as sure as Wander that this was a good idea… I hoped it was, but now that she was out of the shadows and in the moonlight properly I could see that she was wearing armor. Bloodstained armor.

She hadn’t bothered to clean off the silver breastplate she had on over her Stable suit. I couldn’t read the emblem or rank marking on her pauldrons through the gore… The only clean part of her clothes was her beret. The dark green hat was in pristine condition, and the special forces badge pinned to it had been polished.

That meant she’d realized she was dirty, and decided specifically to only clean her hat…

Not even her face. Just her hat.

“Oh! I’m Speed Run,” she said as she sat down across the clearing from us, apparently understanding that neither of us was exactly comfortable around her. “What are your names?”

“Whirling Gears,” I said slowly, not wanting to break eye contact with Speed at all.

Speed sighed and frowned. She reached back with one of her wings, used the little claws in the middle to open her double barreled shotgun without drawing it, and removed the shells. “Is that better?”

Actually, yes. That was better. I nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

She cleared her throat and smiled timidly. “Soooo, I’m Speed Run.”

“Whirling Gears,” I introduced… again. “Most ponies call me Gears since Whirling is a colt name.”

“Ponies call me Wander,” Wander said as she turned to face Speed without standing up.

The fact she wasn’t standing up in this situation meant she was definitely actually exhausted. If this went wrong, it would be down to just me… If I charged my shield I could handle the grenade burst, and Wander would regenerate…

No! She’s being nice. Maybe we shouldn’t judge a book by its bloodstained cover.

Except that saying is dumb and the entire point of a book’s cover is to help you judge the contents of the book to determine if it’s something you’d like to read…

Speed squinted at Wander and frowned. “I’m sorry but, are you sick or something? I have a few trauma kits in my saddlebags and qualified as a field medic! I can help.”

I triple blinked. Okay, nevermind, she was actually nice, apparently!

Wander laughed. “Unless you got a drug in there that un-ghoulifies a pony, no thank you.”

Speed frowned sharpy. “Wait, you’re a ghoul? I thought you were supposed to look... deadder?”

“Wander’s a special case,” I informed.

“Also not be people,” Speed added hastily.

“Most of us aren't anymore,” Wander sighed and moved just enough for her hood to be pushed up slightly.

Speed’s eyes widened as she got a good look at Wander’s face. “Wait!” she exclaimed, jumping up fast enough to make me panic. “If you’re a ghoul, then you’re from before the war, right? I knew you looked familiar!”

Wander’s ears stood up straight as she squeaked. “Oh, Luna, no!”

Speed tilted her head to one side, clearly confused. “Huh? But… Nopony’s detonated megaspells after the war, right? When else could you be from?”

Wander squeaked and shuffled backwards. That was the last piece I needed to understand what was happening fell into place.

“Speed, she’s from when you think, and she’s probably who you think she is, but she’s got major psychological issues and cannot handle ponies knowing who she used to be. So, you have no idea, right?” I said doing my best to keep my voice even and unthreatening.

That was hard to do. A pony was terrifying my marefriend!

Also me. But that was much less important.

Speed sat down, her ears drooping backward in sympathy. “Oh. Sorry… I… I have problems too.”

Wander squeaked something as she shrank further back from Speed.

Speed squirmed a little and tapped her hooves together. “C— Can I still like, listen and sing your stuff? I really like it.”

Wander made another terrified little squeak. I hopped up, rushed to her side and hugged her as tightly as I could.

“It’s okay! She won’t tell anypony,” I said as I turned to give Speed my best glare. “Right?”

To my surprise, she nodded, teared up, and began to babble as if I had a gun to her head “Of course not! I don't like hurting my friends… I’m sorry I know! I can’t just forget things. I mean, not unless I used like, all of the drugs, but I don't have any LSD so I can't use all of them. I won't say anything to anypony! I promise.”

The way she babbled shook Wander out of her terror-panic enough for her to laugh bitterly. “Oh. Good. She’s as bucked up as I am…”

Speed started to actually cry as she hung her head in what looked and felt like real distress. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to know!”

Wander and I shared a quick look. This was the mare who just killed a bunch of soldiers like it was nothing?!

Wander gulped and looked over at Speed, doing her best to not flinch and look away. “J— Just don’t tell anypony. Please.”

“O— Okay!” Speed stammered. “I’m sorry! C— Can I still… you know?”

Wander closed her eyes tightly and inhaled. “Yeah. You can play them. Just… don’t tell anypony I wrote them. Please.”

“I won't!” Speed exclaimed instantly. “I promise!”

Wander sighed in relief and slumped down on her bedroll. “So… this is probably the most emotionally distressing thing I’ve gone through this century. Let’s just rip the band-aid off in one go and never bring it up again. What do you want signed, and hit me with all the questions.”

Speed frowned. “But… But talking about that hurts you? I don’t like hurting my friends. I can feel things for them, so, you know, it isn’t fun.”

I raised an eyebrow at that and subtly moved to make it easier to draw my pistol. “Sooo, about this friends thing. We just met.”

Speed nodded twice. “Uh huh! Sorry. I um… I’m used to ponies already knowing,” she cleared her throat. “Sooo, I have this thing that my brain does. Either I like a pony right away when I see them, or I never-ever will. I call ponies I can feel emotions for friends. Because there's not many to choose from, so I choose them all.”

“Wait,” Wander said quietly. “When you say feel nothing, what do you mean?”

“Oh! Uh... It’s like they aren't ponies,” Speed explained, scratching the back of her head awkwardly with a wing. “I’m not sure I can explain to others? I’ve tried a lot but um… Most ponies are just objects to me. I don’t care about them any more than I do a coffee cup. Which doesn't mean I can’t care, I really really like one of my coffee cups. But... I mean, if I broke it, oh well! I’ll get a new one. No big deal. Nothing to cry about, right?”

Speed tapped her hooves together and squirmed a little. “I know that makes me sound scary to normal ponies…”

“Extremely,” Wander said quietly.

Speed’s eyes widened in alarm. Her wings flared. “You’re safe!” she yelped. “I heard you making camp and when I found you, you looked cold, and I felt that and wanted to help you stay warm, and Gears, you looked annoyed that you had to stop to rest and I felt like telling you it would be okay because I understood you were annoyed but this forest isn’t so bad. I feel things for you guys. I can’t do anything bad to you! You’re not coffee cups, you’re ponies. You know?”

“Actually, I’m a zebra,” I said stupidly, cringing halfway through my sentence.

Speed giggled and smiled at me. “Nah, you’re a stripy-pone!” she giggled, flashing me a fanged smile. “Of course I know you’re a zebra. It’s just stupid to not think of zebras as ponies. This one time that kind of ended the world, so let’s not?”

“Huh,” I said with a little smile.

It was nice to know somepony thought that. Even if they were a dangerous psychopath with a history of violence. Actually, no. That made it better. Like it was so obvious somepony who liked to kill could tell you what was a dumb reason to kill others.

Wander looked Speed in the eyes, an odd, serious yet intrigued look came over her face. Before I could figure out if Wander was about to shoot Speed or not, she asked. “Can you hold a hoof over your head, please?”

Speed Immediately raised her left hoof over her head. “Yes. Why?”

Wander nodded. “Hold it out in front of you.”

Speed complied instantly, then frowned even more. “Is this a test? You know I’d do anything for you…”

“Can I see your shotgun?” Wander asked casually.

Speed drew the shotgun from its back-holster with her wing-claws, and held it out to Wander. “Sure. I’ve got three more, would you like one?”

“No, I just want to have a look,” Wander said as she took the weapon via her magic and turned it over, pretending to look it over but not really since I could tell her eyes remained on Speed.

Who seemed totally comfortable handing her weapon over, even though she only had the one in a holster. If she really did have other guns, they were in her two saddlebags… Or the field pack she had on her back. They weren't readily accessible…

Oh! I got it. Wander was seeing if she’d be comfortable completely unarmed around us. If she was, that meant she wasn't planning on hurting us at all. That was brilliant!

Wander smiled, picked the shells up from the ground, loaded the shotgun and passed it back to Speed. “Cool,” she said with an eerie calm. “Shoot me.”

Speed’s eyes shrank in horror. My jaw dropped.

“W— What?! Why?!” We demanded in unison.

Oh, Celestia! This was because of her stupid mental issues, wasn’t it? Wander knew that Speed knew who she was and needed pain because of it. I’d been too focused on the possible danger to think about Wander's own needs.

I had to do something!

Wander shook the shotgun at Speed. “Shoot me, please. Don't hit my scarf. If you do I will be very upset.”

Speed’s eyes widened “B— But you're my friend! I can’t—”

I frowned and did my best to step between them but Wander pushed me to the side. “Gears, this is important. Back off! Speed, shoot me. Please. I want you to.”

I grit my teeth angrily. “Don’t be stupid, you past-obsessed idiot! You don't need to be hurt because somepony knows who you are!”

“It’s not about that!” Wander snapped as she glared at me. “Speed, shoot me. Now!”

Speed choked back a sob, and fired. Buckshot ripped thigh Wander’s chest, throwing her backwards across the ground where she lay in a heap.

I took a deep breath and growled angrily at Wander. “You, absolute, thick headed, idiot!”

I hoped she could hear me. She deserved that!

Speed’s choked back sob returned, this time escaping her throat as she dropped the gun and grabbed me. I yelped, fearing she’d snap my neck. Instead she pulled herself against my barrel to cry into my shoulder.

“WHY?! WHY DID SHE MAKE ME DO THAT?!” Speed demanded between sobs.

I honestly didn’t have an answer. Fortunately, I didn’t need to give her one.

Wander gasped and sat back up with a sound of a re-inflating lung. “Ow…” she groaned, rubbing the new hole in her jumpsuit.

Before I could say anything, Speed let go of me and began to frantically dig through her saddlebag. “Oh, thank, Luna! I’ve got a trauma-kit, hold on, don’t bleed out, I swore I put the shot through your heart. Do you have that thing where your organs are backwards? I need to know so I can fix it. I’m so sorry! Why did you make me do that? Please don't do that again! Come on, where’s the stupid trauma pack?!”

I marched over to Wander and glared at her. “What the buck where you trying to prove?!”

“That she’ll do anything I ask her to,” Wander said as she stood up all the way and flexed her shoulder to test it.

“That she’ll do anything you’ll…” My jaw dropped as I tried to comprehend literally any of Wander’s logic. “What kind of test was that then?! She likes to kill things!”

“Not my friends! That is the opposite of fun!” Speed shouted as she continued to dig through her bag, tossing bits of kit this way and that.

Wander trotted over to her and gently set a hoof on her shoulder. “Hey? Kid? It’s okay. I regenerate, like a comic book character. Ever read Z-Mares?”

Speed looked up, immediately grabbed Wander and inspected the hole in her jumpsuit before taking a deep breath, then letting it out. “Please don't make me do that again… I— I don’t like hurting ponies I can like…”

Wander nodded and gave her a little hug. “I won't. Speed, stay right there for a little bit, okay? We’ll be back. I need to talk to Gears privately.”

Speed nodded. “Okay!”

I looked up at Wander with a worried frown but stood up too. Was she planning on making a break for it? Even if that was her plan her stupid shoot me test had been beyond cruel!

Wander trotted off into the willow grove, nodding for me to follow. We walked for a few minutes until Wander sighed and flicked her tail. “This should be out of her hearing range.”

I blinked. “We’re easily two hundred meters away… We left hearing range a minute ago!”

“Not for a batpony,” Wander commented as she turned around and gave me a distressed but serious look. “Gears, we need to be nice to her.”

I nodded immediately. “Um, duh! She’s a killing machine!” I said before narrowing my eyes. “Also, if that’s what you think, that test was even stupider than I thought a minute ago!”

Wander shook her head violently. “No! That was important and also fast. Look, my dad ran a mental hospital. Speed is clearly not a normal mare. I needed to confirm my suspicions and work out exactly what her deal was. I don’t exactly have a copy of the DSM-5 and three months to do psychoanalysis! Or a degree in that field.”

I felt my ears twitch curiously. Wander so rarely talked about her past that even under these circumstances I was eager to learn anything about her I could! Also, the fact that Wander could use a mental hospital now made her dad’s former occupation almost hilariously ironic.

“Wait, your dad ran a mental hospital, and you think that makes you qualified to diagnose a pony with something?”

Wander took a deep breath and lashed her tail. “No. I’m not qualified to diagnose. I do have experience with lots of different disorders, and I recognize this one… My dad ran the Hollow Shades Care Home and two ponies with a condition that Speed almost definitely has lived there. I helped dad run the place all through high school.”

I bit my lip then sighed. “Okay. But there’s a big difference in recognizing some symptoms and—”

Wander raised a hoof to cut me off. “Look, we’re not in a good situation here. Not because she’s dangerous to us, far from it. We’ve got a major ethics problem. See, based on what she said, how she reacted in that recording, and the fact she actually shot me when I asked her to in spite of all that distress over it... There’s no mistaking Cinnamon's Syndrome.”

I frowned as I wracked my brain for any thing I may have read about that particular disorder. Nothing came to mind, other than the fact that mom’s library’s mental care section was surprisingly lacking.

“What’s that?” I tilted my head. “I mean, obviously, it’s a form of psychopathy, but—”

Wander shook her head. “No. Psychopathy isn’t a thing. Not really. It’s an umbrella term for lots of different personality disorders which create antisocial individuals who are sometimes dangerous or violent. That said, it’s really the only commonly used term for ponies like that. So, just, file it away in your brain that Psychopathy cannot be equated with extreme violence or serial killing. In fact, “psychopaths” do not even usually appear different from other ponies, nor are they unilaterally dangerous. Usually, they’re just self absorbed assholes.”

I felt my frown steepen as I tried and failed to understand what she meant. “Then what’s Cinnamon's Syndrome?”

“A neurological disorder which prevents her brain from forming emotional bonds with others in a very weird way,” Wander elaborated. “If I am right, she’s not crazy, she’s... missing hardware. To use a metaphor a robopony might understand.”

“Oh…” I said with a sincere frown and a glance back at the camp. “Poor mare.”

“That’s a massive understatement,” Wander said as she scuffed the ground with a hoof. “If Speed has it she can still form real emotional attachments to others… Buuuut not consciously, intentionally, or in what you or I would see as a logical way. She just does, and if she doesn't do it immediately on meeting a new pony, she never will.”

I took a moment to think about that. Speed did say that herself… But, she came from a Stable. Maybe she had seen an actual psychologist?

“Something about us made her subconsciously like us enough to have empathy for us right away,” Wander continued. “Probably because I am me and you’re obviously with me… Uh, long story short, if we ditch her, she’ll be crushed. As far as she can feel about it, we’ve been lifelong friends, the BEST of friends, almost family, maybe even lovers. Ponies with Cinnamon’s Syndrome either feel absolutely nothing for you, or they feel everything!”

Wander trotted over to me and rested a hoof on my shoulder. “Gears, a standard psychopath couldn’t fake those tears. They are good at manipulating, but actually tearing up on command? Nah, she’d have been pissed at me for being tricked, not crying because she was scared she lost me.”

I wasn’t any stranger to mental conditions. Nopony who helped care for mom could be. The only thing I felt uncertain about was Wander’s diagnosis.

“I see…” I groaned. “If we ditch her she’ll be depressed, angry, and since she can’t care if most ponies get hurt, and has killed already—”

“Lets not forget that someone she loved already did that to her today. If we did, she’d probably kill the next pony she meets since she likes fighting and would be emotionally destroyed... That murder would be our fault! There’s no telling how long she’d continue before finding another ‘friend’,” Wander said with her eyes closed. “If I’m right, we’re completely safe…”

“But why us?” I asked. I knew she’d already given me an answer to that, but… it was just such a weird disorder!

“As I said,” Wander said, her voice twinged with annoyance. “We know that she already “knew” me. You’re probably the first zebra she’s ever seen, and are stupidly-sexy. That may be enough if she thinks you’re pretty or exotic. But notice how she didn’t comment on it? Like it had always been that way, totally normal?”

Now that Wander mentioned it, Mare Do Well had blurted out she thought I was pretty. If that’s what my upgrades had done for me, then wouldn’t Speed also have done that? Unless she really did feel like she’d always known me.

“Yeah, now what you mention it,” I agreed with a nod.

“She feels like we’ve been together forever,” Wander repeated as she glanced back at camp. “You saw how distressed she got over my panic-attack. You saw how she actually shot me when I asked. That’s not how a pony who just met you reacts.”

“No, it’s not. But how sure are you she has it?” I asked carefully.

Wander laughed. “I used to help my dad out at the care home and a pony like her decided she was my friend. She would talk about us doing things together when she was little, replacing ponies she really knew with me in her memories. Trust me, I know the condition.”

“Wait, you’ve been friends with a pony like her before?” I asked.

That meant Wander probably really knew what she was talking about here.

Wander nodded and flicked her tail. “Yeah, I know that must seem like a hell of a coincidence. Especially seeing as how the syndrome is rare. That said, I am almost three hundred years old and it’s much more common in thestrils than any other tribe. Statistically speaking, this isn’t too unlikely.”

Wander closed her eyes tightly for a moment, and from how her whole body slumped, I understood I needed to be quiet.

“Gears… That mare I was friends with?” Wander asked after a few seconds of silence. “When I left for college, she jumped out a window.”

My tail raised in alarm as I realized the severity of the situation clearly for the first time.

“Oh… Oh, Celestia! If we ditch her, she’ll take it like family disowning her,” I exclaimed, looking over my shoulder back towards camp again.

The poor thing!

Wander nodded. “Now you get it…” She sighed bitterly and looked over towards camp herself. “It’s not a good situation, but we have to take her with us. There's no cure, no treatment, no therapy. Nothing works for them. They never grew part of the brain, and pre-war doctors never even figured out which part. The good news is that Speed won’t do anything that would upset us. At least, not if she thinks we’ll find out.”

“Still,” I said with a wince. “Even if most “psychopaths” are not actually violent, she is. You heard the recording! She was happy while murdering those ponies. She even got her cutiemark during that!”

Wander nodded again, this time while giving me a half-smile. “Yep! She sure did. Thing is, she’s emotionally bonded with us. She’s completely loyal, to us. Or at least, to me. Though she said she liked you too. I saw your memory orb, Gears. Don’t you think that having a genuine murder machine totally loyal to us is a good idea? Especially since the Tainted have a murder machine that’s totally hostile to us?”

That… That was a pretty good point.

I nodded in agreement and sighed. “Okay. I trust you… Is there anything special I need to keep in mind?”

“Yes! Be very very very careful with your word choice with her. She’ll interpret things you say very literally and we both know she’s happy to commit murder if asked.”

I looked back at camp. Given everything, I couldn’t see her as a monster anymore. Just an abused mare in need of hugs… And a punching bag or something.

“Come on, let’s head back to camp,” Wander said as she turned and began to walk back.

I followed along wordlessly, doing my best to process everything and come up with the best way I could make sure that everypony here would be comfortable and safe. I should probably call Homage later and let her know that 88’s Soldier was not as dangerous as first expected.

At least, I hoped not. Wander’s firm belief in her diagnosis was something, but—

Speed’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. We were close enough to camp to not only hear her, but see her. The tiny bat-pony had clamped her hooves over her ears and was singing loudly, presumably to not overhear us.

”It was a futuristic prehistoric throw down,
But it was quiet because in space there is no sound.
Did we mention that this took place in space?
It did, so shut your face!
Also, there were robots and sharks.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's a goddamn dinosaur laser fight!
In space, with sharks, it's a balls-out dinosaur laser fight!

It's bucking science!
Just ask Nightmare Moon, she invented space...”

I nearly walked face first into Wander’s plot as she stopped dead in her tracks. Nearly... Sadface!

“Oh, goddesses, no!” Wander yelped while staring wide-eyed at Speed.

I groaned inwardly and moaned into my left frog. “Wander, we already know she likes your mu—”

Wander spun around and grabbed me by my shoulders as she looked me dead in the eyes. “No! You don’t get it! She likes the stuff I made in Highschool with Rainbow! I thought she liked my stuff I made as a grown mare as DJ Pon3!”

I frowned. “So?”

“The cringe!” Wander whimpered, pleading at me with her eyes. “We need to run!”

I gave her a dirty look. “Go be nice to her like you said we should, or I will smack you!”

Wander sighed, closed her eyes, turned around and trotted back into the camp at the speed of a pony desperate to not relive her youth. Before I could get so much as another verse of the song, Wander shook Speed’s shoulder and she stopped singing.

“Oh! Uh… Sorry,” Speed said with a slight hanging of her head. “I could still hear you so, I had to drown things out because that conversation about my mental health was meant to be private and I guess I left my headphones in my room?”

“It’s okay,” Wander promised, then tilted her head “For future reference, how far can you hear things?”

“On a quiet night like this?” Speed asked, then giggled and gave Wander a mischievous look. “In your lyrics, ‘Thaaaat, shit’s faaaar!’.”

I walked back into the clearing and sat down as Wonder groaned and held her head in her hooves. “Why do you have to like my early stuff?”

Speed frowned. “I’m sorry… Do you not like it anymore?”

Wander sat down next to her and shrugged. “It’s just… I was sort of writing to get through pent up teenage hormones and deal with lesbian problems like ‘no daughter of mine is going to be into mares!’ and ‘I don't know if my best friend is straight or not and this is really bothering me because I am crushing super-hard.’ You know?”

Speed shook her head. “No? Sorry.”

I started to take the radio out of my bag to report the situation to Homage. That way, if any NCR troopers were being called out to hunt her down, we could put a stop to that. Speed started to dig into her bag as well.

“Oh, hey, so I overheard you talking about your joints hurting. I have something for that,” she remarked.

Wander snorted. “Meh, keep it. You’re the only pony here who will need to rest for a long time. You might need it later.”

“Nah, I got like, twelve kilos,” Speed remarked before looking up at me and frowning. “Wait, are you a pretty-ghoul too?”

“No,” I answered, then after a moment’s hesitation decided to tell the truth. “I’m a cyborg.”

Speed’s eyes lit up like a colt in a candy store. Or in her case, a gunshop. “That’s awesome!”

“Robopony,” Wander corrected, rising a hoof. “Mare was right. Your pelt is necromanticly preserved. That doesn't count as living tissue.”

“Equally awesome!” Speed squeaked.

I flinched. Her squee was really high pitched!

I flashed Wander my best pouty-sad-face. “B— But cyborgs are cooler!”

“Roboponies are cuter,” Wander countered immediately.

I blushed. There was no counter to that…

“Ah ha! Here it is!” Speed said as she removed a large bag from her saddlebag, along with a small metal pipe with what looked like an auto-igniter attached to the bowl.

Wander looked over to the bag, then back up to me to bat her eyes flirtatiously, only to then snap her attention back to the bag. “Woah! Is that—”

“Yep!” Speed said with a grin as she took a small bunch of sticky greenish leaves out from the bag. “Want some?”

I sniffed the air, then blinked as I placed the scent. “Is that hemp?”

Wander shook her head. “No! When it’s meant for smoking it’s called marijuana. Anyways, yes I want some! I haven't had a bowl in two-hundred-bucking-years! Wait a minute, you have twelve kilos?! How and why?”

I frowned and nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Didn’t Stable-Tec prohibit recreational drugs?”

Speed nodded twice. “Mhm! But one of my ancestors didn’t give a buck. The first megaspells dropped and we realized that, you know, everything was bucked. So we stopped our crazy drug experiments and then somepony who smuggled in some plants was like ‘Screw it, wanna just grow a whole bunch of this?’ The Overmare thought it would help morale, and like… You know. Flavor text!”

Wander and I shared a look, trying to figure out if she’d actually just said flavor text to explain something. She… had, it seemed.

”Yup, she totally just did that.”

Speed looked up at me and smiled. “Do you want some? I can roll some in paper for you so could be awesome and light it with your laser eye!”

I shook my head. “No thanks, I don’t smoke.”

Wander, who had at some point I’d not noticed taken the pipe offered to her and started to smoke, blew a smoke ring and asked, “Can you even?”

I frowned sheepishly. “No,” I cleared my throat. “Mom didn’t really think I’d need to simulate smoking, so I can’t… Sooo, Speed? You didn’t really explain why you had what based on Wander’s reaction, is like a ton of that drug. Or even what it does.”

Wander laughed. “It’s a relaxant. Like booze, but even milder. Also makes you kinda hungry.”

“Oh,” I said with a satisfied nod.

I had no problems with her using something like that.

Speed nodded in agreement and took out a second pipe, this one without an auto-igniter, and packed a bowl for herself. “Yeah. I sort of got excited and took a year’s supply of everything my rank allowed me to take for the mission. Including drugs. You know, the mission I got kicked out of home for doing even though I did what they asked me to…”

I nodded slowly and gave Speed an uneasy glance. Even with her seemingly just a big kid with a mental problem… That recording was still bucking terrifying! “Yeah… About that, uh, you’re sort of the only pony here who needs to eat. Can you eat anything other than—”

“Blood? Yes. I’ll get sick if I eat other things, though. Don’t worry! There’s plenty of bad ponies up here, right?”

Wander laughed. “This is true… You’re kind of lucky you ran into us first.”

Speed giggled. “I didn’t run into you first.”

Wander and I sat up, ears perking in alarm. “Who—” I began to ask.

Speed waved a hoof nonchalantly. “Some bad-ponies in green flak vests who thought it was okay to try and mug a crying mare,” she said as she took a canteen from her bag and opened it.

The canteen was definitely full of blood. There was no mistaking that smell.

“I made them dinner,” Speed finished.

Wander mmmhummed reeeeally slowly, then looked over to me. I looked into her eyes, and knew she understood my concerns. Wander nodded and went back to Watching Speed smoke. “Sooo… Your mom had a name related to mining. Why is yours related to videogames?”

Speed blushed. “Oh um, in my Stable your name is changed when you grow up to reflect something important you did for the Stable or notable about you. Mom found a vein of platinum in the mines. I’m really really good at speedrunning military simulations. Hundred-percent glitchless, obviously. Other categories are horseapples!”

“It seems a little odd for a mare from a Stable full of pacifists to like fighting as much as you seem to,” I said carefully as I gestured to her armor and jumpsuit. “Do… you need something to clean that up with?”

To my surprise, Speed nodded. “Uh huh! Turns out a years supply of wet-wipes is enough to clean your hat, and the hat comes first or Drill Sergeants yell at you.”

Wander lay down on her back to look up at the stars as the sky finally began to darken properly. “Sooo… Mind telling us about what you did this morning? You know, your ‘mission’?”

Speed’s ears drooped as a confused little frown overtook her face. “Oh… You weren't there when I left? Ugh! I hate when my brain makes me remember ponies being places they weren't!” she growled as she stamped a hoof into the grass.

“We only met a few minutes ago, Speed,” I clarified for her.

“Thanks,” She said with an irritated sigh. “Okay, so… For the last few months, a bunch of ponies from some gang called the NCR have been camped out in front of our door, demanding we trade with them, right? Mom kept telling them to go away, but they wouldn’t. A week ago, she tried to threaten them with me, which made sense since I can fight really, really, really well. It was an empty threat though.”

Speed lay back to watch the stars herself. I continued setting up the radio base station.

“I spent the week trying to tell mom she should let me take care of them,” Speed continued. “I overheard one of them suggest they hack the lock and force their way in. I get that they wanted to make contact before any other gang did—”

“The NCR is a nation, actually,” Wander corrected. “It’s big enough. It has towns, a couple cities…”

“Oh…” Speed said with a little frown. “Well, anyways, they wouldn’t leave us alone and were threatening to force the door open. That’s not okay. I was a filly last time the door was opened and I remember how those ponies just like, killed everypony they saw, took everything they wanted, and only left because they were afraid the Stable might like, explode… Or something dumb like that.”

I frowned. “Explode?”

Wander laughed bitterly. “Remember Pip’s story?”

“Yes… Please don’t tell me every Stable ever had something horrible happen to it!”

“Nah, not all of them, just... most,” Wander said with a sad sigh.

Speed cleared her throat. “So this morning my friend Lilac came to my room and told me that mom had changed her mind and wanted me to make them leave. I was super excited because I spent the whole time since that raid training so I could stop the next one and make sure my friends were okay.”

“Also, you know, combat sims are just so much more fun than Dream Pod games… Except maybe Omen! Omen is awesome!” Speed said her orange eyes practically sparkling as she mentioned the game. “Uh, anyways, I went to mom and asked her how she wanted me to make them leave, and she said that I was to ask them to leave, and if that didn’t work, I could use force. I asked if that meant I could kill them, and she said yes.”

Speed squirmed to get a little more comfortable. “My Stable was for Princess Luna’s Marines. They used it as a barracks before the war to help justify the cost. So I went to the armory to get all of the equipment I’d gotten access to from the training sims I’d passed. Our Stable didn’t have everything I should have gotten, cuz like, some stuff was used up over the centuries for other stuff. Sort of like how we turned the experimental drug horticulture wing into a pot farm… But like, I swapped out my normal PipBuck for my military one, cuz mom wouldn’t let me wear this one around even though I bucking earned it! Then, I got my shotgun, armor, field supplies, everything I could! I know I didn’t actually need all of it but I wanted to decorate my room with it and have a supply available at hoof in case next time I had to fight the vending machines were not working.”

I took a moment to take a look at Speed’s PipBuck. I hadn’t actually noticed it was different from the ones I had seen before. It was.

Your typical PipBuck is a model 3000 Mark 1-A. Stable-Tec made thousands if not millions of them before the war. Super popular, super durable, also cheap. The 3000 series had a few other models and each model had a few different variations. Typical things like some with an automapper and others without.

Speed’s PipBuck, on the other hoof, was not a model I had ever seen before. It was painted black and used thicker metal, hinting that it was hardened and armored. Instead of three buttons below the screen, it used a series of knobs which looked like they were meant to be used with the little claws on a batpony’s wing joint. The screen was also larger, and rectangular instead of square.

I wasn’t sure about the internals, but it was probably more robust in general, as well as more feature rich. Especially since it had a slight bulge on the back where I knew the spell chips in a 3000 series PipBuck were located. If they were in the same place, that would mean it had more spell chips than the civilian models.

That just made sense. What with it being the military model and all

I nodded, deciding to talk so she’d know I was paying attention. I read in a book that ponies normally did that. I also forgot it a lot. “How did you take care of the NCR troopers?”

“Oh, that was easy,” Speed said with a wistful sigh. “I threw a flashbang out then charged. Caught them by surprise and gave them all a good dose of buckshot or hoof to hoof combat. They like, sucked. Real bad! Not a one of them even tried to use the cave’s terrain and parkour to escape or get to cover, and like, their DPS was just the worst!.”

Speed sighed wistfully as she smiled up at the sky. “Even so… I got to actually protect everypony! Best day of my life. Took everything I felt and got to put into actions for them to see… I— I just…” Speed looked down, balled up and shook as she tried not to cry. “I just… don't understand what I did wrong…”

I stood up, trotted over to Speed and gave her a hug. “You did nothing wrong. They did something wrong. You’re a good pony.”

Wander sat up and nodded in agreement. “My marefriend’s right. You just scared them really bad.”

“I did?” Speed asked with a frown then groaned and leaned her face into her hooves. “Oh… I did didn’t I? I was just… so happy I could finally do something for them! They don’t let me do anything other then train because… Because they’ve always been afraid I’d hurt somepony…”

Speed’s ears drooped as she came to that realization. “Oh…”

Wander trotted over and joined me in Speed hugs.

“I promise you, I’ll super appreciate it if you keep Gears safe. Even if you’re very scary when doing it,” Wander said firmly.

I nodded in agreement. “Same for me, except for keeping her safe.”

Speed smiled faintly. “Uh, so, about that… How much damage can you take before dying?”

Wander sat down and frowned. “Good question. Canterlot Ghouls die if we’re decapitated, but I’ve regenerated form a bullet to the head once or twice… It might only be if our head is cut off? I’m not sure and don’t want to test it. Point is, Gears is much less durable and when we inevitably get attacked in the future, I'd appreciate it if you looked out for her.”

Speed snapped a hoof up into a salute. “Yes, Vi—” Her eyes went wide with panic. “I uh, I mean Yes, Ma’am!”

I smiled, shook my head, and returned my attention to the radio. Speed was definitely harmless. At least, to us.

Within a few short moments, I had the radio ready to transmit. Homage had to know we’d taken care of the possible roving murder-hobo problem.

“Homage? Gears to Homage, are you there, over?” I asked.

To my surprise, she answered immediately. “Hey! I’m here. I was just about to deliver some news. Can this wait?”

“Well, this is news actually. Wander and I are in the Canterlot area and—”

“Oh-my-gosh! Gears, you need to be careful! There’s—”

“A pretty much harmless mare who, while scary in combat, only attacks ‘bad ponies’ which in her own words are…” I held the radio out to Speed and nodded, hoping she’d understand I wanted her to talk into the hoofset.

“Oh!” Speed said and cleared her throat. “Bad-ponies are anyone my friends say are bad-ponies, or who try to hurt me or other ponies.”

“Huh…” Homage remarked quietly. “Are you sure she’s telling the truth?”

“Completely. Wander’s identified her mental disorder. Speed Run has a condition called—”

“Cinnamon's Syndrome,” Speed interrupted. “I could have told you that. I didn’t think surface ponies would know what it meant… Sorry for being elevationist!”

“Yeah,” I continued, shaking my head at the concept of racism, only based on how far above or below sea level a pony lived. “That. So. here’s the full story…”

Author's Note

Speed Run has joined the party.

Party Statistics

Whirling Gears
Level 8
Cyberpony - You're more Machine now, than mare. Fortunately, twisted and evil is entirely optional. NOTE: There are more drawbacks then perks...
Artic Nomad - You're adapted for long journeys outside in the cold. Too bad Equestria is in a temperate zone.
Good Natured - You're a kind soul, a hard worker, and assume the best of everypony. How the hay are you alive in the wasteland?
Spiritually Awakened - You can see and interact with the spirit realm. Hopefully a Shaman taught you what not to do.
Arctic Mail Mare - If it's on a map, you can get to it. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, and monsters be damned! NOTE: remaining alive for long after arriving is not likely.
Dire Luck - Most ponies panic when facing something bigger and meaner than they are. You do too, but you're just a bit luckier than the average Wastelander. +10% Crit Chance vs enemies of a higher level.
Celestial Aid - Looks like some higher power has taken a liking to you! Once per session, you have the option of re-rolling a failed roll, but you must accept the results of the re-roll.
Iron Within - You’ve been burned. You’ve been bled. You’ve been beaten. You’ve been broken. That’s all behind you now. Any time there would be a penalty caused by pain or damage, the penalty is halved.
Cyberpony Mk II - Harder, better, faster, stronger! You’ve been improved across the board! But not by much. All of your SPECIALs are raised by 1. Additionally, you have gained several new systems

Wander
Level 12
Canterlot Ghoul - You have quite a lot in common with the Highlander. Unfortunately, you don't have the accent or badflank sword.
Wasteland Guru - You know everything there is to know about surviving in the Wasteland. Shame others rarely listen to you.
Wild Wasteland - If it's crazy, strange, or bizarre, you've seen it, done it, or had it happen to you.
Sniperpony - Penalties for called ranged shots are halved.
Future Soldier - Pew pew pew! Gotcha... All Energy Weapons are much more effective in your hooves.
Permanent Psychosis - Nopony can know your name. Not a single one. Not ever. You must prevent them from finding out at all costs! If they learn who you are they'll like you. You don't deserve friends!You don't deserve fame!You abandoned us to die! Monster! You're a monster...

Speed Run
Level 💀
Drug-Free Super Soldier- You’ve literally done nothing but train to fight for your entire life. It’s quite possible nopony ever has been as well trained as you. +20% to all combat related skills.
Batpon-eeee - You don’t just hear things, you see them. With your ears. You treat your hearing as it it were not merely radar, but 360 degree vision. It’s almost like living via a third person camera.
Doom Marine - You have the weirdest knack for finding weapons and ammo just laying around. Once per day, you may declare you’ve found a weapon or a cache of ammo. If you declare you have found a weapon, the GM will award you a single weapon, rolled randomly form a list of weapons you do not yet have. If you declare you have found a cache of ammo, the GM will instead award you a randomly rolled amount of ammo for a weapon you already have.
Terror to Behold - Sweet Celestia, your fighting is beyond merely terrifying! Everypony who watches you fight must make a hard Endurance check or incur Dire sanity loss.
Parkour! - You know how to move through even the harshest forms of terrain along exactly the route you want to move, even at full speed. You are unaffected by difficult terrain, and all other forms of movement impairment, so long as you are not wounded.
Foal at Heart - You’re just a big kid, really. You gain +10 to Negotiation when dealing with a child, adult children included. The disposition of children is one higher for you.
Tarantino's Disciple - Battle is wonderful in your mind. You are at home in the mud, blood, and spent shell casings. For every enemy you can see, you deal an additional ½ die of damage.
Shotgun Diplomacy - A shotgun to the face is the perfect cure for being an asshole! +3% Crit Chance with any shotgun, and +15 to Negotiation checks when holding a loaded shotgun.
Permanent Psychosis - You are unable to naturally form emotional bonds. Thank goodness your party members are hot and just, so, loveable!
Lead Rain - The AP cost of attacking with firearms is reduced by 5 to a minimum of 1. Stacks with drug induced effects.
Ninja - The Ninja perk grants you the power of the fabled shadow warriors of Neighpone. When sneaking, you gain a +15% Critical Chance on all Melee and Unarmed attacks. Additionally, Sneak attack criticals do 25% more damage than normal.
Reaper Pony’s Gallop - If you kill a target, you gain a free attack with the last weapon you used (can be spent later in the turn).
Basic Power Armor Training - You can now use Power Armor.
Advanced Power Armor Training - Gain +1 PER. AGl penalty is reduced by 1 (when wearing PA). Armor accounts 100% for its wg.
Woo’s Blessing! - You suffer no penalties for holding multiple weapons at once, gain +20 to Explosives and 15 temp HP per level if there are doves nearby, and anything that could flow in the wind you happen to be wearing does (even if it’s not windy, or should be too windy).
Expert Power Armor Training - Gain +2 PER when wearing PA.
Sweet Celestia, why?! - Whenever you finish an opponent off with a melee strike, the part of the body you hit explodes into a gore pile.
Power Armor Mastery - +3 PER and AGl penalty reduced by 1 when wearing Power Armor, +5% DR; you have learned how to get the utmost out of your armor’s systems.
Action Filly - You know your targeting spell like the back of your hoof, making you about 20% cooler in combat. For each level of this perk, you gain +30 max AP in S.A.T.S. These points cannot be used for movement.
What’s a Friendship? - You really only know how the military works. Social situations might as well be alien civilization rituals to you. At least you can do basic chit-chat and barracks room banter…
Party Mare! - You are immune to addiction, and drug’s effects last twice as long for you.
Rip and Tear - Your Unarmed and Melee attacks against armored opponents ignore their DT if the armor is not fully enclosed. You find that gap.
Until It Is Done - Gain 10 AP for every enemy alive at the beginning of your turn.
Wachowskis’ Talents - +2 AGI when using Dash, but you can't write good dialogue to save your life until the drug wears off.
Codex Noncompliant - Who cares if the Codex Astartes doesn’t support this action? It supports your coffee table just fine, and Guilliman is an asshole anyways. Equipment you “find” is considered fully repaired. FOR THE PRINCESS!

18 - Location, Location, Location

I learned two important things that night. First, Speed’s comment about battle making her hungry was more than understandable, and not actually that terrifying. Apparently a once rare genetic quirk amongst Thestrils had become quite a common trait in her stable. Speed was a hemovore, just like a small percentage of her non-pony bat cousins had been long ago.

Well, assuming any of them had survived the apocalypse anywhere other than Stable 88.

In light of that, I honestly could see how stepping onto the battlefield would be like trotting into a kitchen while somepony was making an amazingly good soup for her.

Sure, she’d explained that she ate it as her diet earlier that evening, but learning the trait was so common was... interesting. Maybe her Stable wasn’t as well… stable as they thought.

So the first thing I learned was that Speed drinking the blood of her enemies was way more normal than it sounded. The second thing I learned was that the mare was weird.

She had seemed super-alert the previous night, so we asked if she would need to sleep when the sun rose. After all, it made sense for a batpony to be nocturnal. Wander honestly couldn’t remember if they were. The tribe had been quite rare in pre-war Equestria, it would seem. Speed’s answer to the question?

“I don’t sleep. I wait.”

“What?” I’d asked incredulously.

“Oh, um, I’ve got the standard special forces augmentations. Tweak a few parts of the brain with a scalpel, chemically alter the thyroid, remove a gland or two, and bam! You release a small but constant supply of the hormones you would while sleeping.”

“Then how the heck do you use a dream pod?” Wander asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I can sleep if I want to. I just don’t need to.”

By wait, it turned out she meant she’d stand there and stare off at nothing for a few hours. A specific number of hours, in fact. I’d clocked her waiting for three hours last night to ‘take a little break from talking’. She’d waited exactly three hours, then went right back to talking.

Three hours. On the dot. To the second. When we had a moment, I was going to have to check her for cyberware.

You’d think that if like apparently all of Equestria’s pre-war special forces had at least some cybernetic implants, she’d have gotten a few augmentations. At the very least, if they’d bothered to prevent her from having to sleep, they’d also do something to boost endurance.

I’d asked about that, and nope!

We’d started walking again as the moon set, and a mere six hours later, Speed had needed to stop for a few minutes. Just a few minutes, then she was able to go again, and we were still trotting down the road towards the Canterlot Ruins hours later as the sun loomed overhead… But, still!

I shook my head and looked up at the afternoon sun as it dipped behind Mount Canterlot for the first time today. At least, for us. Walking along the edge of the mountain meant sunset for us came around noon thirty, not well, when the clock said dusk was. Giant stone walls and what not.

The mountain top looked lovely. Whatever stone the mountain was made from shone purpleish in the sun’s light, and its peaks were so tall they were capped with snow, even in this heat. It was nice to see snow again. I was starting to feel just a little homesick.

Speaking of homes, it had occurred to me that Stable 88 counted as an independent government. That meant I had a radio for them. Unfortunately, delivery was not possible due to a lack of address. Speed’s pathological inability to not do something a friend asked her to do apparently didn't override prior instructions.

Her mother had ordered her not to tell anypony where the Stable was if she ever left it for any reason. It wasn’t that Speed just wouldn’t tell me, she couldn’t tell me. That was more than a little frustrating...

I turned to look back at the road we’d taken. The ancient highway was decrepit, festooned with too many conveniently hoof-sized holes for me to take my eyes off of where I was going for long.

Speed was walking at the front of our group, having insisted on taking point. Wander reluctantly agreed, since we were following the road anyways, though she did make it clear that pathfinding was ‘her job in this outfit’.

We’d then explained what we were doing to Speed. That was when I’d truly decided she was weird. Who the heck learns they’re tagging along with a mailmare and then groans with genuine distress and moans, “I hate escort quests!”? That just makes no sense.

”It makes perfect sense, dear. You just never got to play video games,” Imaginary dad chimed in.

Fair… She did basically grow up in one.

”Makes you wonder if she knows Wander’s music from a game. Most games had music, some even had full soundtracks.”

I blinked and stepped around a pile of rocks which may or may not have been a burial marker once. It was too old and rain-worn to tell, but there were a few bits of pony bone under the stacked rocks. Either a cairn or a tragic accident, then.

Wander’s music. Speed had known it, and Wander had revealed something rather interesting about herself. I hadn't really processed it last night, thanks to being focused on the giant weirdo-dork of a mare who I’d been worried was going to kill me at the time. Wander had probably let it slip thanks to that same fear.

I bit my lip and looked over my left shoulder towards Wander. Her face was obscured by the shadow of her hood. I couldn't tell what her mood was without a better look at her eyes. I gulped, fidgeted for a moment, then sighed and asked. “Sooo… Wander?”

“Yea?” she replied quietly.

I frowned as I realised that since we were near Canterlot, where she’d been “reborn” and her friends had died, she might not be in the best of moods.

“Uh, nevermind.”

“No, please. I could go for a distraction. What was it?” Wander asked, turning to look my way.

I could see her eyes through the shadows, now. She was pleading with me. Well, okay then.

“So uh, last night you mentioned you used to be the DJ Pon3. Did you start the tradition?” I asked with a smile, hoping I had phrased it in a way which made it sound like I was asking about post-war-her.

Wander’s eyes closed tightly. She turned away from me and walked down the ancient highway in silence, eyes on the uneven ground.

I hung my head, realizing I’d bucked up. Badly.

”Hold it together, hun, you’ve got this! Remember, if all else fails, hug!”

Not helping right now. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. That might get misread.

“Not directly,” Wander said after a while. “My voice-change spell was popular pre-war. Somepony in Tenpony with access to its radio system must have thought that ponies would feel safer if a familiar voice reached out to them through the radio with news. The voice they use is one of the templates I used in a lot of my music, any time we needed a stallion for a song’s vocals I’d just tweak the pitch and use that. It was cheaper than hiring somepony.”

I nodded slowly and frowned. “I see…”

“That’s why I thought Homage would for sure know who I was,” Wander added slowly. “She knows the voice, she’s using my old stage name, the original Wastelander DJ Pon3 has to have been a big fan of my work. You get the picture. I expected there to be, like, a shrine to me in her closet or something.”

“Why would you make your fanfilly shrine in a closet?” Speed asked, her head craned almost all the way around in a pose that definitely looked like it had to hurt.

Wander and I hissed in unison. I pointed to her neck. “Uh, we can stop if you want to look at us and talk.”

Speed laughed, gracefully rotated every part of her body but her head, and kept walking. Backwards. Without breaking stride, or tripping on the chunks of pavement. How in the—

”Bat-vision,” Dad stated bluntly.

Right! Sight’s secondary for her. Thank you! I need to remember that.

Wander cleared her throat. “To be honest, I never made any fanfilly shrines. I know that Rainbow had one for Spitfire, but that was more of a role model thing than a fanfilly thing. She kept it in her closet, you know, so other ponies wouldn't see it.”

“That’s dumb,” Speed said bluntly. “Ponies should know what you like. I kept yours right next to my dream pod on a little podium I made from some rock I found once.”

Even with her face in shadows, I saw Wander’s face go pale.

I, on the other hoof, giggled and had to cover my mouth. “So uh… What kind of songs of hers do you like?” I asked Speed with a smile, hoping to maybe hear some more pre-ministry music.

Speed hummed. “Well, I only know the stuff she did under the name Mare Estrus Rut. I’d love to hear the rest some time!”

I triple blinked. “Uh, under the name what?”

That name! Who the hay would honestly go by that?

“T— That’s what Rainbow and I called our garageband,” Wander said a little too quickly.

Speed shook her head instantly. “Nooo, that was your stage name!” she said firmly before tilting her head a little. “Do ghouls have memory problems?”

Wander sighed so hard she had to stop walking. “No… It’s just… really really really embarrassing that I thought the name was cool when I was younger,” she muttered as she resumed trotting down the road.

I giggled. “If that was your stage name, what was your band called?”

“Nothing!” Wander yelped.

“Awww, come on! It’s a cool name!” Speed pressed with an adorable little frowny face. You wouldn’t think that visible fangs could be so adorable. They should be frightening, not cute!

Note to self: get her to teach you how to make that look. It will be an upgrade from the SweetieBelle.config I use now.

Wander groaned and hong her head as she caved. “Okay… Fine… We called it ‘Luna’s Epic Moonbase’. Happy?”

It was my turn to frown and raise an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with that name? It’s good!”

“Yeah!” Speed agreed with a happy little wing flap.

“Well, first of all,” Wander said hollowly, “we called it that before Princess Luna’s return. Which meant that we were in fact turbonerds who knew that Nightmare Moon, the Mare in the Moon, and Princess Luna were one and the same. No cool band is named after an obscure mythology reference. Second, we named our band after a banished Princess who was also possessed by some kind of demon and therefore evil. You know, typical rebellious teenage angst stuff. Basically, we overcompensated for being turbonerds by being turbodorks.”

Speed pursed her lips and gave Wander a hard look. “I have a super hard time picturing Rainbow Dash as any kind of nerd. She’s a jock, if ever there was one.”

“A jock who could tell you the exact stats of every Wonderbolt ever,” Wander remarked casually. “Who could do flight calculations in her head. Who spent five months training herself to walk with the same slow-rolling-strut as Commander Spitfire because, and I quote “It just looks about twenty-percent cooler than a normal walk, okay?” end quote. Also, she was the lead vocalist and backup cowbell for a garageband called Luna’s Epic Moonbase.”

Speed giggled. “Okay, that’s a good argument.”

I smiled and swished my tail. “I’ll take Speed’s word for it.”

“Even through all of that, though,” Speed rambled as she looked at Wander with a very serious look in her eyes. “It’s still a good name.”

“Why?” Wander asked with a frown that I glimpsed within her shadowy hood.

“Because it’s cool!” Speed said, using her wings to help her rear up so she could strike a silly pose I am sure she thought was cool to declare, “Also, Luna is best Princess.”

Wander’s frown turned into an incredulous blink and a slight stumble on an loose bit of pavement. “W— what? Why?”

I shook my head slightly. “That statement doesn't’ even make any sense. How can somepony be the best Princess? There’s nothing to really measure that b—”

“False!” Speed proclaimed as she lowered herself back to all fours.

Oh! Right! Height. Because Alicorns. Duh!

“If we can measure this at all, then Celestia was the best Princess,” Wander interrupted with a scoffing snort. “Luna didn’t make a utopia out of a war-torn land while at least sixteen kingdoms fought over it.”

Speed shook her head sharply. “Actually, she did!”

Wander shook her head right back. “No, she didn't.”

“Totally did,” Speed said matter-of-factly as she continued to trot backwards with confidence. “Celestia did the diplomacy and magic, which is important but not actually kingdom-founding on its own. It was Luna who led the armies on the battlefields and actually conquered the territories that became Equestria. Luna united the lands in the first place, which is way more difficult than managing a nation that already exists. Very few ponies will violently resist a slight change of economic policy. The forging of Classical Equestria was a joint operation, wherein Luna did the lion’s share of the work…”

Speed trailed off frowned, then smiled as if she had an epiphany. “Come to think of it, that’s probably why the last war got so bad! All of Luna’s previous wartime experience said that raising cities, looting towns, burning crops, and demanding personal tribute with the enemy's request to surrender were all normal things to do in wartime. Outdated tactics, you know? Anyways, Luna is obviously best Princess because she is blue.”

Wander and I stopped walking and stared at Speed for several long moments while she nervously squirmed, coming to a stop a few paces ahead of us, unsure as to what our stares meant.

In truth, I didn’t quite know either.

“D— Do you ascribe the quality of a pony’s abilities to their fur color, or something?” Wander asked, her jaw hanging open.

Speed shook her head while frowning slightly, one ear drooped down to the side. “N— No? That’s stupid. Blue is just a better color than kind-of-pink-but-not-really-actually-mostly-white, and way better than normal boring pink.”

“Soooo,” I said slowly as I tried to process the logic. “Luna is best Princess because she’s your favorite color?”

Before Speed could reply a gunshot split the air.

My head snapped up. I’d been so focused on our conversation that I hadn’t noticed we’d reached the mouth of a two lane off-ramp from the highway which would have lead up the mountainside to Canterlot if the road hadn’t been demolished in the artillery barrage that had toppled the city from the mountainside. The off-ramp entrance was fortified with a layer of auto-wagon shells, and even a few pony-pulled wagons, which had been tipped on their sides to form a crude wall in front of a rather junky-looking camp.

A camp which, at the moment, was occupied by about fifteen various mares and stallions, all of whom were dressed in the Tainted’s uniform.

Of the six soldiers, the one next to the unicorn who had just fired the warning shot was perhaps the most terrifying, and also the most interesting. He was a somewhat tall one-winged pegasus who had an olive green long coat and pointed cap rather than a flak-vest, and of course, a battle saddle containing a pair of multi-barreled plasma rifles.

“Oh… poop,” I groaned as I told my link-module it was time for battle.

At least they didn’t recognise me on sight.

Speed frowned and turned around. “Wait, you hadn't seen them?”

“Good evening, my friends,” the long-coat clad pegasus called as he gave us a faux-friendly wave and smiled with a row of perfectly white teeth. “I’m afraid this is a toll road. Normally, the toll is everything you have, but, seeing as how your Zebra friend’s cannon might give us a little trouble in relieving you of all your belongings, if you’d simply hand over any food you might be carrying, we’ll let you be on your way.”

Wander froze in place. In spite of her telekinesis, she couldn’t exactly manage a stealthful drawing of Bad Trip. I was the only pony with my weapons out and pointed at the enemy.

The six of them were standing just close enough for me to take them out with two, maybe three grenades. Unfortunately, they had friends behind the wall who had cover and would likely be able to snipe us off as we fled.

Even worse, we didn’t have any food and I knew for a fact they wouldn’t believe us if we said so.

“All I got is three canteens of blood. Do you drink blood?” Speed offered kindly as she turned around to face the Tainted squad.

The pegasus sighed. “Do you really want to do things the hard way? Come now, give us your rations and avoid trouble.”

Wander cleared her throat. “I’m a ghoul, my zebra friend brews a potion that keeps her fed for a month at a time, and our thestral friend is a hemovore. We really are only carrying blood for her to drink.”

“Speed,” I asked quietly. “Do you like any of those ponies?”

I need to be sure…

“What ponies?” Speed asked honestly confused.

Oh! Good. That’s our little murder-machine being scary at a good moment for a change.

“I’m going to count to three,” the officer said as she slowly shook his head. “If you don’t start going through your saddlebags and leaving your rations on the ground, I will treat you to a plasma-bath. Ahem; One…”

Speed frowned, and I could tell by the flick of her fluffy ears when it finally clicked for her that we were being robbed.

“Two…” The officer continued, his eyes narrowing.

I shifted position and got ready to fire.

”Gears! Shields!”

Oh, right! I have those!

I closed my eyes to quickly focus on activating my Gale Shield. I opened them in time to see the light purple shimmer as they activated. And also just in time to watch Speed make her opening move.

With what I could only describe as a mighty squee, Speed drew her shotgun while jumping up and off to her left, using her wings to force herself into a roll which somehow brought her to a point just above the three bright green plasma bolts which sizzled through the air below her.

Not wanting to see what plasma would do to a Canterlot Ghoul, I jumped in front of Wander so she’d have me and my shield for cover, and began to recalculate my targeting solutions.

I heard Wander’s cloak rustle and then the raptor-like shriek of Bad Trip joined the dozens of gunshots. Bullets plinked against my shield, making it crackle and spark. I could feel its limited energy draining faster than my core could power its magical prot—

Speed’s shotgun thundered. Both barrels flashed in unison. The officer’s head vanished in a spray of viscera, his hat sailing halfway back to the wall. Speed’s hooves touched down for the first time since she began her jump.

I caught a blur of Speed’s left wing as she snapped her shotgun’s barrels open, then closed, and then fired again in one smooth motion, deleting the left flank of a poor mare who’d been armed with a switchblade and a fake revolver which had a painted tin can for a cylinder so the weapon still looked functional.

Before I could entirely process what I’d just seen, Speed dropped down, reloaded, fired a third pair of shells which blew another soldier's flack-vested ribcage apart, then reloaded again.

Celestia’s bucking cake fetish! She could work that shotgun fast as a single action revolver!

Not wanting to hit Speed with a grenade, I took aim with my LAER and fired at the right-most soldier who had been reaching for their chest in order to throw a grenade of her own at me. The lightning bolt missed her, but she dropped to the ground where a follow up shot from Wander pegged her squarely between the eyes.

Speed turned, ran for one of the tipped over auto-wagons, and with exactly three deft movements she jumped up its underside and vanished over the top of the wagon to take on the bulk of the enemy in the camp.

“She’s clear, fire!” Wander shouted. She didn’t have to tell me twice.

Speed was clear, but the two surviving Tainted who had been part of the squad we’d initially faced were too busy running for the hills in opposite directions for me to hit both with one shot. Rude!

“I got the one on the left,” I announced and started to turn.

As I turned to fire, through the camp’s gate I saw a red earth pony with an assault rifle fire off half a mag while looking beyond horrified.

Something in the camp exploded with a sharp bang.

I winced, hoping Speed hadn’t taken any of those bullets or shrapnel from the explosion as I unleashed Feature’s wrath on the fleeing mare in my sights. She vanished in a fireball, and I turned back to the Camp, ready to move in if I had to.

“Got mine,” Wander announced. “Advance to the wall! We need to cover Speed so she can re—”

A pair of shotgun blasts cut Wander off. We ran towards the gate, knowing there was no way Speed could handle what had sounded like fifteen ponies on her own.

Sure, she’d cleared out everypony in the cave in front of her stable, but that was after using a flashbang on them. In a cave! No way those ponies weren’t totally disoriented for the entire fire fight.

I ran to the gate and peeked inside. The camp was pretty simple. Firepit. A few tents. A couple shacks made from scrap metal. Seven tainted corpses with massive holes in them scattered about as decoration… Wait…

“Concentrate your fire! She can’t dodge us all!” a stallion shouted.

“Yes I can! What are those bullets using, black powder?” Speed laughed.

That same red one from before! I saw him take cover behind an old engine block a second after firing.

I turned my head quickly, trying to see where Speed was so I could tell if I could fire Feature safely or not. Speed was hunched over an enemy’s corpse. Her pipbuck was glowing with a dim white light, almost like a unicorn's horn. An accompanying glow surrounded her shotgun, which was floating by her side while she wrenched a chainsaw from the dead pony’s hooves.

Oh! It must have a military TK spell-chip. Nice!

I turned away from Speed, and saw a group of three Tainted as they got ready to fire. Feature shot first. The round sailed through the air and hit the mare at the front of the group square in the heart. Which was pretty bad, I thought, because I’d been aiming for her right lung.

The group vanished in a flash of fire and shrapnel.

Now. Where was assault rifle pony?

I peeked further around the corner.

Speed finished ripping the chainsaw out of the corpse’s deathgrip. “Ah! A chainsaw,” she said happily.

I got a look around the side of the engine block. Red was no longer behind it. Where had he gone?

One of the shacks wasn't too far away, and its door was open.

I hummed and started to line a shot up to arc through the shack’s window. The shack was big enough that one grenade wouldn’t cover the whole interior. I’d need to put one in each corner. How to do that and get each one to explode in—

“The great communicator!” Speed exclaimed as she reared up, spread her wings for balance, and revved the chainsaw before rushing headlong into the shack on her hind legs, saw gripped firmly with her forehooves. “Allow me to communicate to you my desire to have your gun!”

Okay, I guess I don’t need to shoot the shack. There’s four unaccounted for. Where—

A burst of rifle rounds cut through the air and punched a series of holes through the shack’s tin roof. The chainsaw revved loudly.

“HEY! Cut that out, playtime isn’t over!” Speed yelled over the roar of the chainsaw. Somehow the squeaky tone of her voice carried clearly over gunshot and engine alike. “We’re playing Tag You’re Bucking Dead!”

My thought process derailed as the air was filled with a stallions screams and the wet, visceral, squelching sound of a chainsaw tearing through flesh.

“Luna’s blood,” Wander whispered in terror as one of Red’s legs flew out the shack’s window.

It wasn’t the goriest’ thing I’d seen in the Heartlands… but it was definitely up there. “No, that guy’s blood,” I corrected reflexively.

Speed laughed shortly after the leg hit the ground. “Oh, I see you already know how to play!”

A bullet smacked into my shield and shattered it. I yelped and turned to see where the shot had come from. Wander was faster and fired three shots, dropping the stallion who had fired at us.

“Awww, dang it!” Speed exclaimed loudly.

My head whipped around to look back at the shack. Speed stood in the doorway, still balanced on her hind legs, gore-coated chainsaw in hoof, shotgun and assault rifle floating at her sides. I ran my eyes up and down her blood-soaked Stable jumpsuit searching for any sign of injury. That was much easier said than done. It looked like half of Red’s blood and guts had splashed across her barrel while she was carving him up.

“Were you hit?” I asked as I turned to keep an eye on the tents.

There were four ponies unaccounted for…

“No,” Speed sighed as she flicked the gore off of her hat. “You got the last one. I wanted to try out my new gun!”

“Last?” Wander said with a worried frown. “I heard about fourteen—”

Speed shook her head and pointed towards the wall, to a point we couldn’t see form our spot in the camp’s gateway. “I landed on top of one there, broke his neck with my thighs, shot his friend over there, took out those guys as they left the tent by shooting one of their grenades, then two of them threw down their guns and ran away… I thought I could probably hit them but then I remembered Princess Luna said you should let fleeing foes go so I decided to get a new toy instead.”

I frowned and stepped inside to take a look. Sure enough, two ponies’ bodies were slumped against the wall. One without a head, the other with an exceptionally broken neck… Since the head had come almost completely off.

I felt like I should be bothered more by the carnage left in Speed’s wake, but to be honest, after seeing Gale turn a whole crowd of ponies to mulch… I think my bar for being horrified by actual viscera had been greatly raised.

My imagination had definitely made her out to be worse than she actually was.

Then again… She did seem disappointed by the lack of more enemies.

I shivered and turned my head back towards Speed to ask a question. She used her PipBuck granted Telekinesis to spin her shotgun around like a cowpony holstering a revolver, and slid it into her back-holster while sliding the chainsaw into a sheath on the opposite side, and slinging the assault rifle’s strap over her shoulder so her new weapons formed an x across her back with her shotgun.

Wander and I blinked.

“Where did you get a chainsaw scabbard?” Wander asked for both of us.

“That guy,” Speed answered pointing to the pony she’d taken the chainsaw from in the first place.

“About that,” I asked, doing my best to try and not panic. She was our friend. “I know you just killed like, eleven ponies in about thirty seconds—”

Speed sighed sadly and looked down at her hooves. “I know! They sucked so much! I was hoping it would be a little fun but like, that wasn’t even a challenge,” she whined before looking up with a cheerful smile. “It was still nice to run through a new battle, though! I like how in real life I don't get to loop things thousands of times to perfect them. It keeps everything so much more fresh and interesting!”

“Is that why you thought it was a good idea to loot in the middle of a battle?” I asked.

I hoped that didn’t sound too mom-ish but—

Speed nodded. “Mhm! Don’t worry! I knew I was fine. The guy who gave me this,” she paused to pat the stock of her new rifle, “Couldn’t shoot for shit! Spray and pray all the way. Given the typical spread of an Ironshod Firearms G-113 and how poorly he was controlling is recoil, he didn’t have a chance of hitting a smol target at twenty yards with it set to full-auto, and I could hear where he was amining anyways. Also like, holy Luna, their bullets are so slow! I had plenty of time to roll over and throw his friend’s corpse up to take the bullets for me if I had to.”

Wander and I stood there in silence for a long moment, processing that, as well as the full extent of the gore-strewn camp we were standing in. It didn’t look like three mares had assaulted the camp. It looked like a squad of Applejack’s Rangers had airdropped into the middle of the camp and had a raider-stomping party. I heard they do that when they can.

“Uh… J— Just be more careful in the future,” I said slowly.

“Yeah,” Wander added quietly. “You never know when one of them might get lucky.”

Speed waved a forehoof dismissively and giggled. “Please! They didn’t stand a chance. I mean, plasma-shotgun-pony almost did. He sounded like he could have pegged me with a follow-up shot if he got the chance. That why I deleted his head. How about you girls? Are you hit?”

I shook my head. “No. I have shields and armor.”

Wander smirked. “I was… But, as a Highlander—”

“You’re from the Equestrian highlands?” Speed and I asked in unison, both equally excited.

Speed, because she was well, Speed. I, on the other hoof, was delighted to learn anything new about my marefr—

Wander sighed and closed her eyes tightly. “You know what sucks the most about being a ghoul? Not only will nopony get your jokes, but you can’t track down a copy of a movie to show them so they get them,” she grumbled while glaring off to the south. “Bucking Zebras… Couldn’t have waited another week. Then I could have gotten to see the sequel!”

I cleared my throat and give Wander a loving hug. “It’s okay.”

“It’s so not,” Wander sighed before hugging me back. “I wanted to see that movie so bad. Point is, I don’t need to worry about being shot. Just about losing my head.”

“I still don’t like you getting shot,” I said, increasing my hug’s squeeze factor by fourteen percent.

Speed shifted from hoof to hoof. “I don't like my friends getting shot either. That’s why I decided to draw all the fire… C— Can I have one of those?”

Wander blinked in surprise and turned to look at Speed with a frown. “You mean a hug?”

“Yeah! That’s what that is? That!” Speed confirmed with a nod. “It looks... nice.”

Wander and I shared a look. On one hoof, Speed not knowing what a hug was probably explained most everything about her. On the other hoof… Aside from her hat she was filthy with unspeakable gore.

Wander shook her head for me. “Let’s get you cleaned up first. You’re kinda, uh… covered in… Look, I don’t want to wash my cloak, and Celestia’ won't save you from what I’ll do to you if you get my last scarf dirty!” Wander exclaimed.

Speed’s tufted ears drooped. “Oh… S— sorry. I’ll try to keep clean in the future.”

“We should keep going. There’s a river she can take a quick bath in not too far from here, right?” I asked Wander hopefully.

Speed might like the smell of a slaughterhouse. I did not.

Wander mhmed and pointed up the ramp. “Yeah, just across that ridge we’ll go over the river, hit Glyphmark, then Canterlot will be… Uh, well, at the bottom of the mountain now. Downside, I don’t know where exactly their ‘graves’ are in the rubble pile…”

I felt my ears droop down. “D— Do you want to visit them?”

Wander nodded and let go of me, and began to walk through the camp. “Yeah… I try to every time I pass by.”

I opened my mouth to reply but was cut off by two bright flashes of red light on the mountainside. I snapped my head up, ready to put half a belt of grenades into the attackers. Nothing. There was nothing.

The MoA communicator I’d clipped to my armor’s collar chirped and Mare Do Well’s voice quietly whispered to me. “Hey kid. Saw your fight. The two that got away were setting up a sniper’s nest. I took care of them for ya.”

I eeped and reached down to press the comm so I could talk. “Thanks, Mare!”

“No problem… Also tell that cutie in the hat she’s gotta show me how she did that neck-break sometime. That was awesome! Oh, and, you now owe me one!” Mare teased before her voice went dead.

Speed triple blinked. “Do hoods count as hats?”

Wander shook her head. “Nope.”

“So, she thinks I’m cute?” Speed asked with a frown. “What’s cute mean?”

Wander stopped mid-step and groaned. I gave her my best sympathetic look. I finally understood something.

“This is how you feel when telling me about sex-stuff, isn’t it?”

“Yep…” Wander sighed. “Come on, you can explain what ‘cute’ is to her while we’re on the road to Glyphmark. With Tainted this close, somepony needs to make sure they’re okay?”

“What’s Glyphmark?” Speed and I asked together.

Huh. We keep doing that…

“You’ll like it. Only zebra town remaining in the NCR,” Wander said as she waved for us to get moving. “Come on! I want to make sure the only source of potions in the NCR is safe.”

Zebra town? With potion brewing infrastructure? Now that gave me an idea!

“Anyways,” Wander announced loudly. “Where was I?”

Her horn glowed as she reactivated her voice-changing spell. It was story time! Yey!

“Ahem,” Wander cleared her throat, speaking in Pip’s voice. “There was an odd orange glow on the horizon, like an angry dawn was approaching. But the glow was from the wrong direction, and there were many hours before the first hints of daylight. The sun and the moon had gone wild, raising and setting by their own whims, but even those whims seemed to have a clockwork precision.

“What are we looking at?”

“Fires,” Calamity answered. “That out there’s the Everfree Forest. Looks like Red Eye’s got the whole backside ablaze.”

Xenith queried, “Do you think Red Eye’s troops might be near Stable Two?”

“Naw, not a chance,” Calamity answered. “Those fires are over a day away. Wouldn’t make no sense for ‘em t’ be anywhere near Ponyville.”.”

Speed cleared her throat and waved a hoof to get Wander’s attention. “Hey! Uh, can you do the other character’s voices for their lines?”

“Yes,” Wander said while still using Pip’s voice. “But, I’m not gonna. Now be quiet and listen! I leaned against Velvet Remedy, using her soft body for physical support…”

☢★★◯★★☢

When Wander had said Glyphmark was a zebra town, I had imagined a town. With houses, people, and… Well, things!

Glyphmark was not a town.

Glyphmark was a series of shanty-shacks that could only barely called a dwellings scattered around a tetanus-paradise of a junkyard and surrounded by a defensive wall so poorly constructed and crumbling I was pretty sure that I could shoulder my way right through it in the middle of a charge.

Before the upgrades…... Or the repairs...

The only structure in the entire town I could comfortably call a building was the half-collapsed ruins of a place which, based on the road signs we had passed on the way into town, was once an Angel Bunny Pharmaceuticals. I honestly couldn’t tell what the original building had looked like. The crumbling concrete structure looked like someone had hit it with balefire. Twice.

Here and there amongst the squallor (and that was squallor by wasteland standards), dots of actual civilization could be seen. Old aquariums repurposed as single-crop mini-greenhouses, old soda-bottles and pans cut and wonder-glued to form alchemical equipment, sometimes even on a bench! I even saw an ancient, decaying, patched up tarp set up in a hole to form a crude solar still.

Either Glyphmark was home to the laziest zebras ever, or nopony here understood how to price potions. Or market potions. Seriously how do you be a poor alchemist?

Honestly, the entire town seemed like an insult to my adopted species. I’d been looking forward to giving them a radio and seeing what would come from our shamen trading lore and ingredients. But they had no shamen. They barely had enough to keep themselves alive.

Large scale trade with Glyphmark was out of the question.

On the upside, after talking to a few of the shockingly young zebras who inhabited it, the Tainted had not attacked their settlement. Probably because it did not look like there was anything to be gained here.

Hopefully I could at the very least get some potion ingredients here. I did promise Wander I’d brew one for her.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Wander said with a smile as she began to walk away from the young stallion who’d come out to greet us.

He nodded, making his dreadlocked mane wiggle. “You have our thanks for taking care of them. They wouldn’t have left us alone forever.”

Speed flashed him a fanged smile. “You’re welcome!”

She and Wander began to trot away. I, on the other hoof, had one more question.

I cleared my throat politely and looked the young zebra in the eyes. “Is there any chance I could get the ingredients for a fairly simple potion? My friend has been wanting to try a vision quest since before the war.”

To my surprise, the young stallion nodded. “Of course! We keep everything you’ll need for the Spirit’s Draught on hoof. “

Wander’s ears perked, lifting her hood. “Oh yeah! You said you could brew that for me. How soon can we do that?”

“If they have everything I need? Tonight, if you’d like,” I answered with a smile.

It wasn’t necessarily a good idea to use it tonight. But... the brewing process only took about twenty minutes. It could conceivably be done over a campfire, too. You only needed one pot.

The young stallion pointed down the trail of loose dirt and rust-dust I was going to generously call a path and cleared his throat. “You want that hut there. Madam Orma is in charge of our potion store.”

Another thing to dislike about Glyphmark. Everyone here was a Zebra. Maybe the settlement was a happy, thriving, fun-loving community most of the time… But they certainly weren’t going to be happy when a spirit-zebra hybrid was standing nearby…

After all, the nervous little gulp he’d made made it very clear he was uncomfortable talking to me.

“Thank you,” I said with a smile before trotting down the path to the slightly-better-constructed shanty he’d indicated.

Unlike most of them, it had a solid roof. It had been made from some old tarps and sailcloth. Probably because it needed to keep the potion ingredients dry. I ducked through the half-rotten bedsheets which served as a door and was immediately assaulted by the smell of several hundred different ingredients in their processed forms!

The smell was positively overwhelming. It was like sticking my muzzle into a box of ground spices. Which spices? All of them, of course!

The shanty’s interior was filled with boxes, jars, cans, and every other form of container, each filled with ingredients and carefully labeled. I had been wrong. There was something valuable to steal from this town. Not enough to trade, but certainly worth taking from them by force.

Maybe they kept the town appearing as it did to make ponies disbelieve any notion of such a stockpile of potion ingredients existed within the town’s ramshackle walls. Or maybe, this was the first bit of infrastructure Glyphmark had developed and it had been finished, like, yesterday.

“Can I help you?” a rather rough and raspy mare’s voice asked.

I peered through the dimly lit (sunlight even at this late hour, via several cracks in the walls) room and my eyes fell upon a very old zebra mare with one eye dressed in an ancient, nearly worn out, Zebrican State Alchemist’s uniform.

I nodded, cleared my throat, and asked, “Yes, ma’am. I need to make the Spirit’s Draught for my ghoulish friend. Are you willing to sell me the ingredients?”

“That I am, that I am…” the ancient zebra cooed, stroked her muzzle then nodded as she smiled at me hungrily. “That said, such a potion would not help your friend in the way you’d think.”

“What?” Wander asked worriedly.

I raised an eyebrow. “Why not? I’ve seen it work for ponies hundreds of times.”

“Ah, for ponies yes… But she is not truly a pony. She is one of the new undead,” Madam Orma said with a slim smile. “Of the kind who once lived on the mountain above us, if I am not mistaken.”

“We’re not immune to poisons,” Wander remarked. “Potions should work on us still. Hell, I can even get drunk! After… well, after a lot more than it used to take.”

“So you can, so you can,” Madam Orma said with a slow nod. “And just as you can be drunk, you can benefit from the Spirit’s Draught, if you imbibe another potion first. A tonic, to be precise. A recent formulation, though older than I am. One which will, for a few hours, make you feel and act as if you were alive inside once more.”

I raised my other eyebrow. If correct, that tonic’s recipe would prove invaluable to Lith! It could conceivably restore sanity to a feral ghoul for a few hours. If we did that, then administered a bloodice amulet, maybe we could lock them in a mentally stable state and—

“Uh, couldn’t that cause major problems?” Wander asked slowly, raising her foreleg and pulling back the sleeve of her jumpsuit to reveal her own integral hardware. “Like, say, if I had a PipBuck fuzed to my leg, and my body acted as if it were alive—”

“Our Lady Pip is alive, and she has one fused to her leg,” Madam Orma said with that same thin smile. “Such an injury will not kill you. Though, of course, if there is something in your heart, or head, well… Yes, you would perish.”

“How much are we talking for the tonic?” I asked suspiciously.

“For anyone else?” the old zebra mare said with a friendly smile. “Five hundred caps. For you? I’m willing to give a distant cousin a discount. I can accept no less than three hundred caps for the tonic, three twenty for the tonic with the ingredients, and I will give you the tonic in its final, drinkable form, and all of the ingredients you will need to brew the Draught ready to mix.”

I gave her a suspicious look. This felt like a scam. There was no way that you would need to partially restore a ghoul to life just to make a potion work on them.

Apparently that look was all Speed needed. Leather rustled as she drew her shotgun, snapped open the barrels, chambered two shells, then snapped it closed before anypony could react.

“I don’t like it when my friends are getting conned,” Speed said emotionlessly as she cradled her shotgun, its twin barrels pointed at the floor so with one little twitch of her neck, the barrels would be aimed squarely at the old mare’s heart.

My eyes widened in terror, partially because an old mare, dishonest or not, didn’t deserve to die over a scam I saw through. Partially because if Speed fired that in here, some of the more volatile ingredients could conceivably ignite!

Madam Orma laughed as the shotgun was pointed in her direction and gave Speed a more genuine smile. “Relax, soldier… Relax! You can hardly blame an old mare for wanting her grandfoals to eat, can you?”

Speed blinked. “Yes I can?”

“She’s... Not quite right in the head,” I summarized. “She's very trigger-happy though. I don't want to sound like I am threatening you, but I would rather she didn’t fire that thing in a room which, based on the smell, contains powdered pyrostone.”

Speed frowned and lowered her shotgun slightly. “Wait, there’s flammable stuff in here?”

“Yes,” I said with a slow nod. “So please, put the shotgun away.”

Speed nodded, sheathed her shotgun, and drew her chainsaw.

The zebra mare laughed again. “Ah, to be young again… Or even so foolish as to believe a gun of all things would frighten me when standing eye to eye with an abomination does not,” she said with a glimmer in her eyes.

My ears twitched irritably. Yep. That’s how the first two generations of zebras in Lith treated me. Thanks for the reminder, bitch!

“There is a version of the potion which will have the intended effect upon a Canterlot Ghoul,” Madam Orma continued. “A slight twist on the ancient recipe to compensate for the powerful necromantic energies within her body. I will tell it to you for forty caps, and give you the ingredients for a further thirty. Seventy in all.”

“Deal,” I said and turned my head to open my saddlebag and take out some caps.

Speed smiled to herself and sheathed her chainsaw.

“I got this,” Wander said as she passed a small cloth bag to Madam Orma with her magic. “There’s enough there for the recipe, and four doses of the potion. I might want to do more than one, you know?”

The ancient zebra and I turned to face Wander at the same time, both aghast at the thought. “No you will not!” we said together.

Wander pursed her lips. “Ooookay,” she said slowly. “Keep the change then. Buy your town guard a blade to stick on her lead pipe or something.”

Madam Orma nodded, tucked the bag of caps into her uniform’s tasseled jacket, then turned around and handed me everything I’d expected, plus a small bundle of what looked like a single stock of Bear's-Head Tooth Mushroom.

“Brew the potion as you normally would, but at the end, chop the stalk into small rings and add them to the potion. Simmer until they fully dissolve, else the potion will simply kill her rather than grant her a vision,” Madam Orma said slowly and carefully.

As if I were eight years old.

Yes. That’s what messing up any stage of the potion brewing would do… I’m not an amateur! I am good at this one thing, dammit!

“Thank you,” I said, taking everything and tucking the ingredients into my saddlebags.

“Uh… So, you won't buck that up, right?” Wander asked with a worried little grin.

I smiled. “Nope. I’ve brewed more than enough to know to not serve anypony anything with chunks still in it.”

“Good,” Madam Orma said with a sage nod. “I have other business to attend, and I am certain you do as well. I suggest you go about it.”

I could tell by her tone of voice that as well as she had taken Speed’s threat, she didn’t like us much at all. I gave the mare a half-respectful bow and turned, leaving her shop.

I had the feeling that if the addition of the mushroom stalk didn’t help, I was pretty sure Speed would be paying her a second, much less pleasant, visit.

I was almost okay with that idea.

☢★★◯★★☢

We reached the Canterlot Ruins by sunset. I hadn’t really known what to expect. Rubble? There was plenty of it. Chunks of buildings? Plenty of those to go around as well. They jutted up from the rubble pile like broken teeth protruding from decaying gums.

Here and there, a partially intact golden dome could be seen standing or laying amidst the dusty graying marble which lay in a massive heap at the base of the mountain.

I’d expected that.

What I hadn't expected was the rivlets of pink liquid that seeped through the cracks between the stones like blood leaking from the mangled carcass of an animal. The distant unearthly moans and howls of trapped ghouls which had regenerated in the rubble, mixed with the faint hiss and pop of the liquified Pink Cloud flashing back into a gas which blanketed the rubble in a thin pinkish fog.

That’s everything a pony would see. I wasn’t a pony.

The rubble itself radiated with a low, pulsating, necromantic energy. The very spirit which had once inhabited the ancient city’s stone had not only died in the Cloud, it had been twisted in its death, corrupted, and reborn as… Some kind of spirit-ghoul!

Gah! No! The tooth was right!

“Yeah! Okay! He was right! Not going into that cloud!” I shouted as I took a step back from the mangled undead ruin which lay in a broken heap, probably waiting for unsuspecting spirits to enter it so they could be devoured.

Somepony needed to perform a banishing ritual to end all banishment rituals on the ruins. Before this thing animated itself one day and started to roam the land murdering… well… everything!

”Hon, you’re being overly worried.”

AM I?! AM I REALLY?!

”Yes. We both know that can’t actually happen.”

Wander blinked. “Uh, why would I take you two into the ruins? We don’t have to go in there… For all I know she… she wound up on the edge anyways,” she murmured quietly.

“Who?” Speed whispered into my ear.

“Her wife from before the war died here,” I replied quietly.

“Codex updated. Thanks!” Speed whispered happily.

I stared at Speed for a moment. What do you even mean by that you weirdo floofball?

Speed cleared her throat and trotted over to where Wander stood, staring out at the rubble from the top of the hill the highway ended on.

“Sooo,” Speed asked slowly. “What is the cloud and why does Gears not want to go in it? Is she afraid of pink?”

Wander snickered. “What?”

“You know, pink. The color,” Speed said with a little explanatory role of her hoof. “Lots of colts seem to be afraid of it. I figure some fillies have to be too, right?”

“You should be afraid of that pink,” Wander said with a chuckle. “It will either kill you, turn you into a ghoul like me, or permanently meld whatever you were wearing to your body, even into your body.”

Speed’s ears perked. “It can stick things to you? That’s pretty interesting… Wait! Ranger training! That’s Pink Cloud, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Wander said drly. “You can tell by how it’s pink, and is a cloud.”

I trotted up to the two of them and smiled. “The Zebra name for it translates as the Devourer of Flesh and Soul.”

“That sounds way better and also worse!” Wander exclaimed with a shiver.

Speed nodded. “I know what you mean…” she said as she drew her shotgun and then held it against her left foreleg so the barrels were flush with her hoof. “Hummm…”

Oh… Oh no…

I took a deep breath and put a hoof on her right shoulder. “Speed, that is a terrible idea.”

“Or is it?” Speed said with a quizzical smile.

“It’s a horrible idea,” Wander agreed as she rubbed her pipbuck-infused-leg.

Speed hummed and pursed her lips. “I don’t see how having a motherbucking gun for a hoof is any kind of bad, other than the cool kind of bad.”

“It won't fire without you pulling the trigger,” Wander said as she gave Speed a very serious look. “It will still function like it does now. I can’t control my pipbuck with my mind. That’s not how it works.”

Speed’s lips pulled back in a pointy, adorable frown. “Sooo, I couldn’t eat shotgun shells and then blow things to hell with a wave of my hoof?”

“No!” Wander and I said together.

Speed’s spirits fell so far I was worried she might drop dead from pure sadness. “Aww…”

Wander sighed in relief then turned to me. “So… Potion! Vision quest! Let’s get on that.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Here?”

In the rubble of a fallen city where your strongest memories are ones that haunt you with regrets? Why in the world would—

”Remember how I mentioned mares being, to the last, very crazy?” Imaginary dad sounded smug…

Dad. I’m a mare. I’m not crazy.

”Nopony is ever crazy from their own point of view. I would like to point out you’ve been doing nothing but delivering the mail for two centuries.”

But I like being a mailmare!

Wander nodded as if she were proposing we do something sensible. “Yep. You said you could do it tonight.”

“Yes, I did,” I replied evenly. “I thought there would be a town, or a shack, or something. You’ll be unconscious for at least an hour. It’s a terrible idea to drink it out in the open!”

A very seriously major bad idea. Sure, she’d have Speed and I to protect her, but if some monster or bandit had any kind of ability to lay waste to a large area at once, she’d be a literal sleeping ghoul!

“Please brew it anyways,” Wander more ordered than asked.

I could see the look in her eyes. That was the same kind of iron will that she showed any time I was pushing too far against any of her major issues.

“Wander, I’m serious. It’s a bad idea. Can you please wait ‘til we’re in a town?” I asked trying to give her back my own adamant glare configuration of doom.

She shook her head. Impervious, again!

“I want to try it near where they died,” Wander said adamantly. “If there’s even a chance to talk to a fragment of them, I want to get that chance.”

Buck!

“Can we at least find a safer place to make our camp?” Speed asked hopefully.

Wander nodded and gave her a look which carried a serious questioning of her intelligence. “Of course. I’m not a total idiot! You and Gears can keep me safe for a measly hour. Especially since Gears can and should call Mare Do Well up and ask her to give us an eye in the sky.”

My ears perked up. “Oh! That’s actually a good idea and does help… Okay. I’ll brew the potion if we can find a mostly sheltered area.”

“I know just the place,” Wander said as she turned towards the mountain. “Come on.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Half an hour later we reached a small cave-like overhang of rock which Wander apparently used as her campsite every time she came to pay her friends a visit since the Fall. It was large enough for the three of us to set up a small camp with a fire and be visible from just one side.

Which was good, because Mare hadn’t answered my radio calls. Whatever her mission was, she must have been on it at the moment.

I was still very nervous about lighting a fire in the middle of the wasteland, but with Speed laying prone with her assault-rifle set to single-fire covering the only approach up the hill to the shelter, I felt like the risk was pretty minimal. Especially if none of us stood directly next to the fire where a sniper could get a good shot on one of us thanks to the light.

I had managed to use a few of the odds and ends Wander had found while savanging the ruins below us for firewood to make a small tripod I could hang Wander’s cooking pot over for brewing in. Spirit’s Draught was simple enough to brew. Easier than coffee, technically.

It didn’t need to be filtered or strained, or anything more than a little stirring. Everything dissolved fully into the water. The only trick was to add the ingredients in the right order, at the correct times. You had some leeway with timing, of course. It was the sort of potion a zebra could brew by accident while trying to make a crude soup out of some common but not typically paired ingredients to stave off hunger pains. Legend has it, that’s how it was first discovered.

That poor zeeb must have been really, really traumatized by the entire affair, but she’d had the presence of mind to write down her findings regardless.

Wander sat and watched while I brewed. I could tell she was fascinated by the process but didn’t want to interrupt. So I’d started telling her what I was doing as I did it.

“Okay, the film on the top is dissolving now. That means it’s time for the yam,” I said as I added the powdered yam to the mixture. “That’s right. This was once a yam. It could be made with a fresh yam, but that would increase the brewing time until it fully dissolved.”

That first zeeb must have also been the worst cook on Equus.

“Hey, uh, Gears?” Speed asked uncertainty.

I turned to look her way. “Is someone approaching?”

Wander drew Bad Trip from under her cloak. “Focus on the potion. Don’t buck it up.”

Speed cleared her throat. “Yeah, but they don’t look hostile… Hold on, those are uniforms!”

“NCR?” Wander asked curiously.

“Nah. No creepy gas masks that make them look like generic grinding mobs,” Speed said with a dismissive flick of her tail. “I… I think that’s… No, it's not the Royal Hussars, humm…”

Speed’s tail stood straight up as it came to her. “OH! That’s the Neighdian Gurkhas! Uh… Sooo, they don’t look hostile, but they are moving in a scouting formation and are probably here to check on the fire. Want me to go say hello?”

“Do you mean actually talk to them?” Wander asked, seeking the critically important information.

“I do now,” Speed replied evenly.

“If they started to come up the hill to attack us, and are more than just ponies who have those old uniforms, would they be a problem for you to drive off?” I asked carefully, not looking away formth epotion since the next ingredient would be added any second now.

“They could be, yes,” Speed admitted honestly. “They’ve got a nasty play dead trick involving an overdose of healing potion delivered via stim-pack, so you can blast their skulls open but a few moments later they sit back up and kill you, then take an antidote so they don't heal until they are one huge tumor. I can’t be sure if any of them have done that, or will do that during or just before a fight.”

“Yeah… Go find out who they are,” Wander ordered with a nervous twinge in her voice. “Detain, Question, Decide. It’s the only fair policy for anypony in a uniform that’s not Enclave or Tainted.”

“On it!” Speed announced before vanishing into the night.

I wasn’t looking at her, but based on how after a few hoofsteps Wander gasped, I had to assume that’s what happened.

I had work to do. Namely… “Now, we add the ground sagebrush leaves,” I said as I tossed the next bunch of powder into the pot.

Five minutes later, just as the bubbling liquid was beginning to turn a violent shade of red which made you question why anypony would willingly eat or drink it after this point, my ears twitched. The distinct sound of three sets of hooves marching in unison caught my ears.

Since the potion was a few minutes from a critical stage and didn’t really need more stirring, I turned and watched as Speed marched three mares into camp using her PipBuck’s TK module to hold them at the points of their own guns, which looked like some variety of light machine guns or select-fire marksmare rifles from the land of egregious overcompensation.

They were dressed in what were most definitely uniforms. Simple jungle green helmets, domed, covered the head but not the face or ears with a little silver phoenix with the wings spread as a decorative badge on the forehead. The same ballistic plate material was used to fashion a breastplate and a pair of slightly overbuilt pauldrons. Beneath the armor, each had a khaki jacket, with slightly darker khaki tactical harnesses festooned with brown leather pouches resting over the plates.

Furthering the military uniform image was the simple white rank stripes on their shoulders, and name tags (which were blacked out with some tape) and even what appeared to be a division pin on their jacket’s collars. They also had tall brown leather boots which seemed to have some ballistic plating over the knees, and thigh-high socks which looked like wool, but had an odd synthetic shine to them.

The weirdest thing to me was their uniforms didn’t appear to be used. Clothing in the Heartlands all had some level of wear and tear to it. Not these mares. Their uniforms were a little dirty, but otherwise looked new. I could tell that the violently-pink mare had even recently pressed her socks!

The three mares were all earth ponies. One pink, one even more violently pink, and one slightly less pink than the first. I could tell they were sisters based on their face shapes… And also that they were terrified out of their minds.

“Turns out they’re not Gurka,” Speed said calmly, though I could see the disappointment in her eyes.

“I’ll say they’re not,” Wander said her ears standing up in alarm. “They’re Los Pegasus Rangers. What are you guys doing way up here? Is a barge stuck in the river?”

“N— No, ma’am!” The group’s leader stammered. “W— we’re protecting an archeological expedition searching f— for Royal Relics, Ma’am. We were ordered to c— check the fire to see if it was a Tainted or Pipite camp, Ma’am. Please call off Batmare, Ma’am!”

Speed’s eyes narrowed with irritation. “I keep telling you, I’m a batpony, not a batmare, whatever that is!”

Wander bit her lip to prevent herself from laughing. “Speed, give these poor mares back their guns.”

Speeds ears drooped. I narrowed my eyes. “Speed… Give them back.”

“But they're nice guns!” Speed whimpered, her lips trembling.

“Speed… Behave,” Wander said firmly.

Speed sighed, looked down, and levitated the weapons back into each mare’s battle saddle. “Okay… But I don’t have an LMG yet.”

“We can buy one later,” I commented as I turned back to the potion.

Feature needed a cousin anyways!

Then I looked back up towards the three Rangers. “Wait… Where did you girls get new uniforms?”

“Los Pegasus prides itself on industry, ma’am!” the violently pink mare said in that ‘retail worker telling ponies a basic and obvious facet’ voice.

“We are the Wasteland’s armory!” Another shouted, also by total customer-service-agent reflex.

“Please take the time to participate in our survey after this encounter?” the last one asked in a sad completion of the customer-service-agent arc.

I instantly felt bad about asking the question.

“Um—” I began.

Wander waved a hoof at me and sat down. “Don’t worry about it. They do that,” she said before turning to look at the three with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about having Speed jump you girls, but I’m sure you know how it looks when three armed ponies are trotting up to your camp in the middle of the night.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” the lead mare agreed with a nod. “Sorry to disturb you… If we are free to go, would you mind telling me what you are doing here so I can file the proper report with my superior, Ma’am?”

“Yeah,” Wander agreed. “We’re just traveling. Stopped here for the night. My friend’s brewing a potion. That’s all… Wait, did you say there are Pipites nearby? But it’s not summer!”

The mare sighed. “It looks like they decided to start inducting new initiates in the fall, too. We ran into two of their priests performing the binding rite for initiates yesterday. There have to be more of them… We don’t want a… situation.”

“So, they hate each other. Why?” I asked as I tossed a hoof full of whole nutmeg seeds into the pot.

“Long story,” Wander said with a weary sigh. “Short version? The Pegans publicly announced they would be converting the Palace Casino in their city into a memorial for the Princesses, and asked for donations of any Equestrian royalty relics to be sent to them.”

“And that pissed the Pipits off… how?” I asked with a confused frown.

The least pink mare cleared her throat. “Well, they officially think that the Prince is using the Palace as his personal residence, and feel that the only pony worthy of such an honor is Pip herself,” she explained. “They also don’t like it when we dig for relics here. Apparently it taints the Cloud. Somehow…”

Wander tapped her chin with her hoof. “You know, I’ve been wondering about that. Does he...?”

The three soldiers shared a laugh. The medium-pink one grinned and shook her head. “No! I mean, yes, His Highness lives in the palace… But in the barracks, with the rest of us, and the craftsponies who are helping restore and renovate it. It’s not his personal home!”

“Our Prince works at your side,” the violently-pink one said with a solemn nod. “Not your back.”

Brief side note for myself, since their names were blacked out, they were not Violently-Pink, Normal-Pink, and Light-Pink.

Anywho, that was an interesting enough statement to make my ears perk and draw my attention away from the potion. I was going to ask a follow up question, but was stopped as Speed’s ears twitched and she grinned.

“Oop! Hold on a second,” she said before taking three steps back and almost literally vanishing into the shadows.

Okay, that had to have been because I was just staring into a pot over a fire!

Wander, the Rangers, and I shared a quick uncomfortable look.

“Sooo… can you guys hear her walk?” Light-Pink asked.

“Nope,” Wander and I said together.

“I’m telling you, she’s the batmare!” Violently-Pink hissed to her sisters.

Wander snorted in amusement. “I mean… If you ignored the no-kill rule, maybe? More of a Pink Hood, or Pun-neigh-sher, if you ask me.”

“Who?” Violently-Pink asked with a confused little frown.

Somewhere in the distance, Speed’s chainsaw reved, making the five of us jump.

We turned as one, and watched as Speed marched a stallion up the hill towards camp, forcing him along with the tip of her chainsaw held firmly against his taint, while floating a rather large scoped hunting rifle which he’d presumably been carrying at her side.

“Heretic!” The stallion screamed. “Our Lady will smite you from the face of this world with lightning and thunder and rain and maybe hail or unseasonable snow for daring to stop her agents in their sacred task! Unhoof me at once!”

Wander groaned. “Oh, Celestia, why?”

The three Rangers sighed and nudged their battle-saddle control arms up to the ready position.

I didn’t need to see how the pegasus stallion was dressed to realise he was a Pipite… But even if their reactions hadn’t told me what he was, his clothes would have.

The stallion was covered in cheap paint to make his fur gray and his mane brown. He was dressed in a series of blue and yellow rags stitched together into a crude approximation of a Stable suit, with the number 2 painted on the back in a yellowish-white. There was also a dark wet stain around the groin.

Hopefully that was pee from when Speed revved a chainsaw near his balls, and not blood...

“How did you see him?” Wander asked as Speed gave the stallion’s taint a firm jab with the point of her saw.

“Shut that hole before I give you new one, prisoner!” Speed bellowed before looking up at Wander and flashing her a grin while twitching her ears. “Baaaaaat-powers!”

Wander facehooved. “Oh. Right…” She sighed, opened her eyes and glared at the stallion. “The hell were you aiming at us for!”

“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” the stallion growled. “Just these… These grave robbers! If the Goddesses wanted ponies to pick through their belongings, they would not have let the Cloud persist for centuries, nor would they have allowed the Enclave to level Canterlot!”

I groaned and clenched my teeth. Celestia above… No wonder Homage and Pip hated these guys… As if the suicide bomber wasn’t evidence enough!

“You know that Pip wouldn’t approve of you killing them, right?” I asked the fake-stable-suit clad stallion in the hopes he would—

“Our Lady has forsaken violence on the personal level,” He replied evenly.

Oh good! They aren't all insa—

“She has left it to us to cleanse this world of evil!” He finished.

I facehooved. Hard.

Speed cleared her throat and revved her chainsaw, pulling it ever so slightly away from his flesh. The Pipite sniper whimpered. “Sooo, he’s confirmed hostile intent, and I am hungry…”

Normal-Pink squeaked. “W— Wait, she’s a cannibal?”

“Hemovore,” I corrected then frowned. “Huh… Well, I mean, kinda? She eats blood. But like, as her normal diet. It’s a bat thing. Does that count as cannibalism?”

“That’s… actually an interesting question,” Violently-Pink mused, resting her hoof on her chin.

Wander looked over to me. I could tell she genuinely didn’t care about Speed’s prisoner. I, on the other hoof, was with the Rangers. I didn’t want to cause an incident.

“Let him go,” I ordered.

Speed’s ears drooped. “Aww… He’s O-Negative, though! You’re lucky she cares, nameless cultist guy!” she said as she sheathed her chainsaw.

I cleared my throat and gave the Pipite my best diplomatic look. “Sir, we’re not with them. They came to see what the fire was about. We’re just travelers, here to pay respects to the fallen before moving on. We have no hostile intentions towards anypony who isn’t aiming weapons at us.”

He laughed and pointed to Speed with a wing. “Ha! Just travelers. Right! I know soldiers when I see them.”

Wander snorted. “She’s a soldier. We’re not. She’s just our psychotic soldier friend who keeps us safe from idiots who decide to set up sniper’s nests and point their barrels our way.”

“And also she’s probably Batmare,” Violently-Pink added.

Speed’s tail twitched. “I don’t even know what that is!”

The sniper closed his eyes, let out a long slow, angry breath then looked up at me. “I’ll go… If I can have my rifle back.”

Speed narrowed her eyes and trotted around to look the sniper dead in his eyes. “I think you mean my rifle.”

He gulped. “Your rifle,” he echoed. “I’ll uh… I’ll just be going without it now.”

“You do that,” Wander said firmly. “I don’t recommend coming back here.”

The Pipite nodded, turned and trotted off into the night without Speed’s new rifle.

I turned back to the potion. It was still violently red, and just starting to shimmer. Good! I hadn’t missed a step.

“How many guns do you even need?” Wander asked Speed quietly.

“Two of each type I prefer for each combat role I'm trained in,” Speed answered immediately.

“What are you even trained in?” Least-Pink asked timidly.

“Everything,” Speed answered with a proud smile, then frowned. “Well, unless there’s classified operations I’m not cleared to know about.”

“Ah…” Violently-Pink said with a slowly, worried nod. “So um… We can go too, right?”

Wander nodded. “Yep! And unlike that asshole, you’re welcome back.”

Speed cleared her throat. “The Pipites are KOS, then?”

“What’s a kay-oh-ess?” Wander asked curiously.

“Kill On Sight.”

“Oh… Probably,” Wander sighed and slumped her shoulders. “Those guys are… Well, you saw him! Total nutcases.”

“Definitely. That guy is going to report back and they’ll be pissed you protected us,” Normal-Pink said bitterly. “You guys bunker down. I’ll see if we can spare some sandbags to let you fortify for the night. Come on girls, let’s move out!”

The three turned and began to hustle down the hill towards the ruins. I heard Speed clear her throat, and shuffle some equipment around. Presumably switching back to her new assault rifle.

Or maybe her new sniper rifle.

I wasn’t sure. It was time to add the Dragon Tongue Bush Beans… I dumped the dried bean powder into the potion and gave it a half-hearted stir.

“I’ll keep up my patrol,” Speed informed.

“Knock yourself out,” Wander replied.

Speed’s wings rustled. “H— How would that help?” Then her ears and wings perked up. “Do I have magic powers when unconscious?!”

“Uh, no…” Wander said slowly. “Don’t they have that expression in your Stable?”

“Maybe? I didn’t get to talk to ponies that much,” Speed admitted with a sad sigh. “What’s it mean?”

“It means go ahead and do it.”

“Oh! We’d use something like, eeeee** ee for that,” Speed… said? Squeed?

Eeed? Yes.

Speed eeed.

“Right!” Wander laughed. “You don’t speak Equish as a first language.”

“Nope! I learned it thanks to the pod, but most ponies can speak it a bit,” Speed chirped.

The potion bubbled again and began to let off green vapors as it turned a deathly-black and began to accumulate white foam on the top.

Some ponies swore the foam always took the shape of a skull. Me? I saw crossed bones.

It was time to chop the mushroom, then add it…

I began to cut up the mushroom with a combat knife I’d borrowed from Speed and asked. “What do you even call your language, and how does it work?”

“It’s called eeeee*ee*** and it’s ultra-sonic. It works just like a normal language, but apparently it just sounds like squeeing to you guys,” Speed remarked with a shy little wing flap.

“That’s exactly what it sounds like,” Wander laughed. “It’s weirdly adorable.”

“So is how slow you guys speak,” Speed giggled. “Uh… n— not that it makes you sound dumb or anything. Honestly, since I’m used to speaking Equish, eeeee*ee*** is a bit too fast and kinda hard to understand unless they slow down for me.”

“Gotcha,” Wander commented. “Anyways, yeah. Go ahead and shoot anything hostile… Consider us on yellow alert, number one.”

Speed genuinely squeed, making my nearly drop the knife into the potion as I instinctively went to clamp my hooves over my ears.

“YOU LIKE GALAXY QUEST TOO!?” Speed said with the full volume and force of a true fangirl.

Wander squeed right back. “How the buck do you know about it?!”

“I’ve got every single episode on my pipbuck! My big brother loved it and would let me out sometimes so we could watch together! Never give up, never surrender!”

Oh, Celestia… They shared a geek thing I knew nothing about. I was going to drown in their in jokes, wasn’t I?

I finished putting the rest of the mushroom slices into the potion and waited for the chunks to vanish into the inky blackness.

“Hold on,” Wander asked with an audible grin. “Is that why you weren't phased by Gears being a robopony?”

“Duh!” Speed giggled. “Beep Boop is the best!”

“Buck the hay yes, she is!” Wander laughed, seemingly truly happy for the first time in a long while.

A long while being since the bus stop. Under me.

The last of the mushroom dissolved into the potion. The foam on top of hit shifted, changing shape subtly as it began to bubble to allow vapor to escape.

Ohhhh! Now it looked like a pony’s skull. Neat!

“Potion’s ready!” I called loudly.

Wander cleared her throat and trotted over to me. “You heard nothing! I’m a cool mare. I swear it’s not just a stage per—” she began in a half joking voice only to stop talking as she saw the potion. “What the actual buck, Gears!”

I smiled sheepishly. “Yeah I know it’s a bit off putting but—”

“It’s a pot of ink with a foamy-skull on top of it mouthing the word ‘evil’ in even whiter foam!” Wander exclaimed as she pointed at the pot, wide eyed.

I squinted into its dark depths. “Oh, yeah the bubbles do kind of make it look animated.”

Wander sputtered and took a step back. “Woah, woah, wait, hold it, it’s supposed to look like that!?”

“Yeah!” I said with a smile. “I did it right. Before the mushroom it looked just like the one I drank as part of my coming of age ritual. Personally, I see crossed bones in the normal ones, adding a mushroom made them into a skull. But... it looks and smells right, other than the foam’s shape.”

Wander stared at me blankly, so I decided to give her the exact reason drinking this now would be a horrible idea. I could always brew another later.

“Anyways, you’ll need to lay down before you drink this, because you’ll pass out almost instantly and would fall over,” I said with a serious furrow of my brow. “This potion isn’t just going to give you a vision of the spirit realm. It will, but only towards the end after around forty minutes or so. It will make you hallucinate vividly for the first three quarters of the process.”

“That’s about what I expected,” Wander said with a shudder. “I didn’t think it would look like liquid death!”

I pursed my lips. “Well, I mean, it sort of is?”

“What?” Wander asked as her eyes narrowed dangerously.

“It’s a potion you drink that shows you the spirit realm. That’s as close to dead as you can get without dying,” I pointed out.

Wander stared at me blankly for an uncomfortable few moments.

I squirmed and continued. “I know you used to do drugs pre-war. This is not the fun kind of hallucigen,” I said slowly with an apologetic ear-droop. “You will see things melt, grow, burn, and transform. These things may attempt to kill you. Do your best to remain calm… Which you won't, because you’ll be puking your guts out, sweating every last drop of moisture you’ve got into a puddle, and may also experience diarrhea and bleeding from your tear ducts—”

Wander’s tail stood straight up. “Celestia's mane! Why did you use this for religious purposes?!”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes and gave Wander just a little glare. “No! This is a training tool! The only one that works every time. It’s simple equivalent exchange. Just like alchemy. You want to see the other world, it demands a sacrifice in return. I guess you could see that as religious, but when there’s an actual thing, that really does probably want something in exchange for something else, that, is, business!”

Wander blinked, frowned, then nodded. “Okay… Sorry. I didn’t think you’d be that upset.”

I bit my lip then sighed. Maybe I had taken that a little poorly. “Look… You don't have to drink it now. I mean, we might get attacked by Pipites tonight. We can dump this out and go back to get the stuff to make another… Kind of regret saying I wouldn’t mess up. I mean that was true but, it’s pretty stupid to use this here and it will go bad in about ten minutes,” I said, reminding Wander of my fears relating to her drinking it here and now.

“No. I don’t think the Pipites will attack us… Besides, I have a reason. I have to… I need to know if I can see them here,” Wander sighed, then shuddered as she presumably imagined the potion’s flavor. “I just don't know why anyone else would.”

Before I could protest further, Wander snatched the pot of potion from atop the fire and chugged it down, literally pouring the simmering liquid straight down her throat.

“It does more to you!” I squeaked in pure terror. “Also, it’s hot!”

“Don't care,” Wander said as she dropped the pot next to the fire. “Unless it’s super impor—” Wander’s eyes widened.

Spirit's Drought had no primary taste. But the aftertaste...

“OH, GODDESSES!” Wander shrieked as she started to claw at her tongue with her hooves. “IT TASTES LIKE NOT-GRAPE-COUGH-SYRUP AND SEWAGE!”

“Inside voice, please,” Speed called from the extreme distance.

“Extremely important!” I warned half-way panicking. “Once you’re done vomiting and bleeding, you’ll feel great. Really, really, really great. You may see a snow white mare. Just white. No other colors. If she asks you to go with her, you have to say no! If you say yes, you die. Understand?”

Wander blinked and stared at me, starting to sway on her hooves as the potion began to kick in.. “Seriously! Why the buck did you have foals drink this?!”

“Culturally, you’re not a foal the minute you touch a cup of this, so we technically didn’t do that,” I said with an apologetic smile.

“Oh,” Wander said before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she pitched face first into the dirt next to the fire and immediately threw up.

Into the flames.

The stench was incomprehensible.

“Why do I smell a septic gut wound and burning hair?” Speed called form the distance.

“It’s fine! Wander just puked in the fire. Potion made her do it, that’s normal!” I called back as I dragged Wander’s convulsing, vomit spewing body away from the flames towards the back of the overhang and sighed.

The potion appeared to be working normally. Thank you for not scamming me twice, Madam Orma.

☢★★◯★★☢

The first half hour was “fun”! I got to consistently shovel vomit away from Wander’s mouth so she wouldn’t choke, even though I’d rolled her onto her side, and occasionally wipe her eyes clean so the residual potion in her blood wouldn’t cause a secondary reaction.

Everything was typical so far.

I wasn’t sure if she could get an infection, but you know. Gotta be nice to your marefriend, even if she is an idiot who insists on being an idiot when there’s a possible threat to your safety…

Then again, in the Heartland, when isn’t there a threat to your safety?

Poor Wander had just started to shiver and whimper as the terrifying hallucinations began when a stallion’s voice called out from the night.

“Hail travelers! Might we share your fire for a time?”

I blinked in surprise and looked up to see three stallions standing not too far from the outcropping at the edge of the firelight. Two were dressed in Los Pegasus Ranger uniforms, explaining why Speed let them through. The third was... different.

He was dressed in a rather luxurious looking white cloak made from what appeared to be wool with a silk lining. The cloak covered him even more fully then Wander’s did, and the shadows covering his face seemed too dark to be natural… After a heartbeat I could feel the magic in the cloak. It was protective, in several ways. It probably cast his face in obscuring shadows for reasons of looking really cool.

Or being sinister. Both major selling points in enchanted cloaks.

I smiled and hoped for really cool. Especially because he seemed to be very large and bulky for a pony. The last thing I wanted was a sinister musclebound earth pony getting mad at me.

I nodded politely and offered the three a low bow. After all, if Los Pegasus had a prince, then this must be a noble, given the enchanted cloak.

“You are welcome to stay in our camp, sir,” I said as I stood back up. “However, my friend is… going to be a little repulsive for another half an hour..”

The cloaked stallion nodded, the movement of his head proving that the shadows his hood cast were magical in nature. “I can see that. Is she ill? My friends have medicine at our camp.”

“No. She insisted on trying a vision quest and imbibed a rather potent and mildly dangerous potion,” I explained with a feeble smile. “She should be fine, but, she’s still experiencing the side effects before the vision occurs.”

The stallion noded a second time and trotted over to sit by my side. The two Rangers, on the other hoof, sat down where they were, preferring to stay well away from the very sickly ghoul. Noticing a bit of vomit oozing out of Wander’s muzzle, I took my eyes off the group to wipe her mouth clean.

To my surprise, the cloaked stallion levitate a small white silk cloth from under his cloak and held it up in his magic’s golden glow. “May I help?”

Oh thank goodness! I offered him a grateful smile “Yes, thank you! Be careful of her scarf, It was a gift from her wife before the war.”

He chuckled and gently wiped her mouth clean. “I’ll give it a magical cleaning before I leave, just to be safe.”

“Thanks,” I said again as I gave him a cautiously curious look.

Up close I could see that his bulk came from armor worn beneath his cloak, but I couldn’t tell what kind. The draped cloth obscured too much, and the overall shape wasn’t familiar to me.

He silently helped me tend to Wander for several long moments before finally saying something to break the weirdly comfortable silence.

“I wanted to thank you for defusing the situation earlier,” He said as he used his magic to wipe clean the piece of cloth I only just now noticed was a handkerchief monogrammed SL. “The Prince doesn't like to use violence… I would rather return to Los Pegasus without hurting anyone else. The Tainted we slew on the road to Canterlot were bad enough.”

I sighed and shook my head. “I will never understand bandits, or pillaging. Nothing you have couldn't be found laying around someplace… Except for that cloak! It’s very nice.”

“Thank you. If you’re ever in our little city, please, stop by any of our tailors. They will be happily to sell you a similar garment,” he said with enough sincerity for me to believe him.

After all, his Rangers all had new uniforms.

“How do you make new clothes? Did you have a large supply of fabrics before the war?” I asked curiously.

“We have a large supply of many things,” He replied casually as he returned to keeping Wander from drowning in her own vomit. “If only we had ponies who knew how to use our stockpiles to create more technically and arcanely advanced items… If that were so, we could do more for the poor souls of this world than provide them with a means of self-defense.”

“Is that why you sell ammunition?” I asked with a tilt of my head.

“Well, I do not personally sell firearms or ammunition, but yes. It is why we sell them still…”

“Still?”

He nodded and leaned over to get a better view of the other side of Wander’s muzzle. “Los Pegasus changed a great deal after the Prince rose to power fourteen years ago. The story goes he was inspired by Littlepip to do some good for the world, and through trickery, cunning, and persuasion, he dismantled the corporate hegemony which had ruled over Los Pegasus for two centuries. The workers made him their Prince for that,” the stallion chuckled, clearly remembering that particular revolution fondly. “He didn’t want the title, but he’s a good leader nonetheless. At least ‘til somepony better comes along.”

I hummed and looked him up and down, trying to place his particular spot in their aristocracy. I might be able to save some time and simply give him a radio right now! “Sooo are you like, a Duke or something? You’ve got fancy clothes and are leading ponies for him.”

“Something like that,” he said before giving me a polite bow. “Silverlight, at your service.”

“Whirling Gears, Courier in the service of Queen Katydid of Lith,” I replied with another bow.

It only seemed to be as polite as Silverlight the Ridiculously Nice.

Silverlight turned his head slowly to look at me for a moment. “I’m afraid I’ve not heard of your nation. Where is it?”

“Far to the north,” I said. “It’s across the Spur Mountains; it used to be the Crystal Empire.”

“That’s a long ways to travel… Are you delivering a parcel to someone in the Heartlands?” He asked with a curious tilt of his head. “What could possibly be so important? Perhaps you would like an escort?”

Hey! He didn’t call the Equestrian Heartlands the Wasteland! Did the Pegans also consider themselves to be separate from Equestria? Or did he just like using their proper name?

“Yes. Several, actually,” I said as I wiped blood from Wander’s eyes as gently as I could. “I’m on a mission to open trade between my nation and the Heartlands… So far, getting the NCR to agree to a deal has been a major bust.”

Silverlight laughed hard enough to make his shoulders shake and his cloak billow. “Indeed! Trying to negotiate with the NCR is like trying to get a toddler to give up their favorite toy. The Prince has been trying to broker safe passage to Spike the Great’s den for a decade now, but the NCR refuses to allow him passage.”

I tilted my head and thought back to the map of the Heartlands I’d been given what seemed like months ago. “That town’s not on my map,” I murmured curiously. “What is it?”

“Of course it’s not,” Silverlight said with a sad sigh. “Spike’s den is the gateway to the SPP. Well, in truth he is the gateway, but the Great Dragon hasn’t left home in two hundred years, aside from the Battle of Neighvarro as far as I am aware.”

I sputtered. Katydid's unofficial uncle was alive?! AND OLD?! “G— Great dragon?! As in an elder dragon? Wait, wasn’t he a hatchling during the Ministry era?”

That was nothing, and I mean nothing, to sneeze at. If the NCR had an Elder Dragon as an ally—

Silverlight shook his magically shadowy head. “No. I am afraid Spike is only an adult dragon. However, as a keeper of knowledge, war hero, Guardian of the Gardens, and many other noble things, he is to be given the utmost respect.”

“Oh,” I said, slightly disappointed, but also very much relieved. “Well, it seems a bit silly to not keep his den on the map, then. Wouldn’t ponies want to come and pay respects? Besides... Aside from Pip getting very lucky, I doubt a pony is going to be able to hurt a fully grown dragon.”

Silverlight chuckled. “They say before the ministries, Miss Fluttershy defeated a dragon.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said honestly.

He laughed a bit more. “In truth, neither do I. I’ve met her. She doesn't seem to be the dragonslayer type.”

“I— Huh?” I asked unintelligently. “H— How is she alive!?”

Silverlight’s head dipped forward as if he were frowning at me. “My word, you truly are a foreigner! Have you not heard Pip’s story? It can change your life.”

I pointed to Wander. “When she’s not tripping on a vision quest potion she’s telling me the second half.”

“Ah…” Silverlight nodded and gently wiped Wander’s muzzle again. “Then I shall not spoil it for you. Suffice to say, Miss Fluttershy is still alive and you may run into her if you head to Junction Town.”

I nodded and frowned thoughtfully. What was she doing there? How had she survived? Was she so polite and nice that death gave her a pass? Now that I could believe.

“Still… Why keep The Great Spike’s den off the map?” I wondered aloud to bring the conversation back on track.

“For security,” Silverlight said simply. “Pip, hero though she is, is also a fool. She did not realize that by telling her entire story as it happened to her, she by necessity told everypony in the wasteland how to enter the SPP. Fortunately, she neglected to say where Spike’s den was precisely. If Spike’s den’s location were to be public knowledge, it would be possible for a pony to reach her… and possibly assassinate her.”

I raised an eyebrow at Silverlight. He chuckled. “The Prince doesn't wish to harm Pip in the slightest. He wishes only to have a conversation.”

My ears perked. “Oh! Good news, then!”

“Oh?” Silverlight asked curiously. “What might it be?”

“Pip’s able to speak to you through sprite-bots. I’ve spoken to her twice now. If you go to Tenpony Tower—”

“No, no, no,” Silverlight said with a firm shake of his head. “Not Pip. His Highness wishes an audience with Princess Celestia.”

I sputtered and dropped my rag as well as my jaw. “AUNTIE TIA IS ALIVE?!”

I swore to Celestia I saw Silverlight’s eyes bug out of his head in spite of the magic shadows over his face. “B— wuh?”

“Oh, um,” I cleared my throat and tapped my hooves together awkwardly. “Soooo, Queen Katydid is my godmother, and she’s Celestia’s Grand Niece, but Tia felt old being called a Great Aunt, so she asked her to call her an aunt, and since I’m Katydid’s goddaughter, that makes Celestia my Great Grand Godaunt, but that sounds really stupid and would make her feel old so we settled on aunt.”

“Oh…” Silverlight coughed and took several long moments to simply be.

“Err… To address your previous question… Indeed she is! If her state can be called living,” Silverlight continued, adopting a bitter tone. “It is as if everypony in the wasteland save for us is outright ignoring the fact that the Princess is, in at least some respect, present within a Crusader Mainframe within the SPP. Unfortunately, I cannot tell a new acquaintance any more than that regarding the matter of the Prince’s desire for an audience.”

I sat there for several long moments, reeling from the revelation. “There is a full conscious backup of Princess Celestia’s memories, personality, and emotions, which can be interacted with like a real, living, pony, and nopony is bothering to try and get her to help with things?! Presumably she can’t on her own, or she would be!”

“Indeed,” Silverlight said with a slow nod. “It is a shame… Equally shameful is the possibility that it is not a simulacrum, but truly the Princess in the soul, so to speak. It seems she used a binding ritual to move her soul from her dying body into the machine. However, due to the nature of Crusader Mainframes I cannot be certain as to whether or not her soul would remain in the machine, or if the magics within the machine would merely use the transference spell as a means of implanting memory and personality. Such arcane knowledge was lost in the war, sadly.”

I shook my head more. “He just wants to speak with the wisest and kindest ruler of the last five thousand years… Why won’t they let him?” I asked with an incredulous little shiver. “Can’t they ask Pip to hold the mic out to her?”

“It doesn't work that way,” Silverlight said calmly. “If Celestia could use Pip’s radio connection to speak to us, she would. Even if she were a digitized copy. Since Celestia cannot come to the Prince, the Prince seeks to go to her.

“The problem is the NCR’s bureaucrats believe the Prince has the power to ‘control minds’.”

I blinked twice. “I mean… He apparently took over a city via persuasion… Does he?”

Wander belched extremely loudly… and also extremely stankly. Silverlight and I paused, sharing an awkward moment as we waited for the stench to dissipate. Nopony was going to open their mouth with that in the air.

Silverlight adjusted the edge of his cloak to cover his nose. “No. He merely has a silver tongue, extensive knowledge of Pegan culture, and a special talent in diplomacy. If he knew you well enough, he could talk you into anything. Naturally, politicians are terrified of such a person. As well as their servants. By their decree, none of our nobles are to show their faces in the NCR. We have decided to interpret that decree litterly. Hence, the shadows beneath my hood.”

I giggled and flashed him a playful smile. “I think my Queen will love negotiating with your Prince.”

“Hopefully, she is both a more entertaining and better diplomatic sparring partner than President ‘I should word my threats better’ Gawdyna,” he said with a hopeful sounding sigh and a chuckle.

A shot rang out, bringing ominous punctuality to Silverlight’s statement.

His rangers, who I had totally forgot about, jumped to their hooves and telekinetically drew their rifles. “Sir!” one of them shouted. “We must get to safety!”

“While these mares cannot flee?” Silverlight scoffed as he stood up. “Fix bayonets, guardsmares!”

I blinked. He was talking to stallions… Right?

Oh sweet Celestia no, please don't be mares who were just that butch!

“W— what?” the other Rranger asked while his companion drew the knife from his saddlebag’s strap and fixed it to his rifle.

“Did you not hear me, Bolt Action?” Silverlight said as he moved to stand beside his soldiers. “This mare cannot flee. It falls to us to ensure the conflict we brought upon them doesn't cause her injury. Fix your bayonet! Not one step back, we hold this ground through all!”

I stared at him, both awestruck and beyond grateful.

”Damn! This guy is pure pre-ministry Royal Guard,” Imaginary Dad said, just as awestruck as I was.

Is that what this is?! I asked.

”I’m pretty sure it is! This is what your grandfather was like.”

A stallion’s bellowing voice echoed across the valley as the enemy chose to make their presence known in full. “WHO ARE WE?!”

”THE NECESSARY EVIL!” At least forty voices replied in unison.

“WHY ARE WE NECESSARY?!”

”TO PURGE THE WORLD OF EVIL!”

“AND WHY ARE WE, PIP’S CHOSEN FEW, ORDAINED TO UNDERTAKE THIS HOLY TASK?!”

”BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL!”

I pulled Feature’s slide back slightly to make sure she was loaded. She was. “Really starting to see why Pip hates those guys…”

Silverlight chuckled bitterly. “Most everypony despises them… But, I can say this much for them. They do warn you they are coming… When not using lone attackers, that is.”

The hill below seemed to start crawling up towards us as a small army of ponies wielding various melee-weapons began to charge up the hill. The rangers opened fire immediately, firing into the massed infantry charge with the precision of professionally trained soldiers. I fired off a burst of six grenades, peppering the formation with fireballs.

To my shock and horror, that didn’t dissuade them, and the charge continued.

”Of course it didn’t scare them off. It’s a holy-war! Just like what the Zebras were fighting. They won't surrender, fire for effect, Gears!”

Dad was right. I fired another burst of five. The charging Pipites seemed to be down about a quarter of their ponies, but had reached halfway to us.

“EEEEEEE!” Speed squealed as she popped up in the center of the enemy's lines and immediately opened up with a full auto burst from her assault rifle.

Well, there went my artillery option…

I switched over to my LAER and fired into the charging mass. They were almost on us now… The overhang wasn't too big. Between the four of us, maybe we could hold them off while Speed thinned them out from the rear.

Or, now that I thought about it, Silverlight could actually do something other than stand there.

“Help us!” I demanded while shooting Silverlight a dirty look.

He returned my look with one of his own, obscured by shadows though it was. “I do not carry a gun, Miss Gears.”

Oh. Melee fighter. Well, that was okay, since we were about to be overrun.

Wait, he was a unicorn! He could be shooting them with magic! Or maybe he didn’t know any attack spells?

I grit my teeth and continued to fire into the charging Pipite ranks. Their screaming, whooping, wrathful line was so close I could see the stitching in their uniquely cobbled-together jumpsuits. A mass of blue, yellow, gray, and brown. Almost as if a stable full of clones had been unleashed upon the world to bring ruin to it.

“Oh shit!” I heard Speed shout, followed by a few bursts from her assault rifle.

I looked past the charging line to where she had been fighting six of the Pipites. A second mass of the cultists had crested the ridge. There were twenty of them on top of us, and then another twenty of them at the bottom of the hill. Reinforcements?! How many ponies were in this stupid cult, anyways?!

“Firearms are a little too cruel for my taste. It’s difficult to ensure your foe is killed quickly and without undue pain,” Silverlight mentioned off hoof.

Oh my Celestia, who cares? We’re in the middle of a battle!

The Ranger to my left stepped forward and impaled a Pipite through the neck with his bayonet. It was melee time… I didn’t have any means of close range fighting. I activated my shield and resolved myself to be a big brick in their path. Nopony would lay a hoof on Wander if I had anything to—

A blur of motion from Silverlight caught my eye. His cloak billowed as he drew a longsword from beneath its silken folds. I caught a glimpse of gold-trimmed silver power armor beneath his cloak as the ornate blade slid free from its scabbard.

The blade appeared to be made from a carved pearl. The hilt was solid gold and held a single round jewel which glittered and burned like a tiny sun. As Silverlight’s magic ran down the blade, the weapon’s enchantments responded, transmuting the blade into a glowing column of white-hot fire.

His blade burning like the sun, Silverlight stepped forward, swinging his blade, and sliced the head from a Pipite mare’s neck. There was no blood. Just the smell of burnt meat, a neatly cauterized stump, and instant death.

“You face Silverlight of Los Pegasus!” he bellowed into the frothing mass of zealots. “May the Princess have mercy on you, for I shall not!”

The next few moments passed in a blur. My shield repelled over a dozen blows from lead pipes, small axes, and even a pool cue. The Rangers fought off the Pipites using their rifles like spears, one of them taking a nasty blow to the shoulder from a machete. Silverlight’s power armor enhanced strength and enchanted sword cut more than a few Pipites cleanly in half.

Then, out of nowhere. “RETREAT! RETREAT!” A stallion shrieked as he just barely dodged the scything flame-blade which would have cleaved him in two like many of his allies.

The Pipites broke ranks and began to run down the hill away from us. I let out a sigh of relief. They weren't so frothing mad as to not realize being in melee with a power armored pony with a magic sword was a horrible way to continue being alive.

The Rangers stood their ground, remaining by their leader’s side, panting, exhausted, but ready to fire at the first sign of trouble.

Speed, on the other hoof.

“Yay! I get to be in melee aga—”

The Pipites split to run around Speed, giving her a wide breath as she ran down the hill.

“Awww! You cockteases!” Speed shouted as she swept her rifle up and began to fire into their ranks.

“Is that the Batmare accompanying you?” Silverlight asked with a mixture of amusement and distates on his tongue.

I nodded. “Yeah. Her name’s Speed Run… Don’t judge her too poorly. She’s got a mental illness and loves to fight. I’m making sure she doesn't… Turn into a total monster. At least she’s fighting for good, right?”

Silverlight nodded and sheathed his blazing sword. “You have a noble heart, Miss Gears… I can assure you that you will be welcome in Los Pegasus and your nation’s voice will be heard… As it likely will not be heard in Junction Town. We will be passing the capital on our way back. Please, do me the honor of traveling with us at least that far. We have a wagon in which you and your friends may ride.”

I blinked, processing his statement. “You… have a working vehicle?”

“We do,” Silverlight confirmed with a nod. “It is quite old, and has been maintained all these years on a dwindling supply of parts and technical prowess, but I assure you, you will find it more convenient than traveling by hoof.”

I frowned a little more. It sounded like Los Pegasus had been a major manufacturing center before the war. How had it avoided being blown to dust?

On the other hoof, Silverlight was definitely trying to imply it would be safer to travel as a group without also implying mares couldn’t fight. His politeness was a bit creepy. It felt too nice to be genuine. That said, if he did mean harm, he could probably just split me in half with that sword easily as he had those Pipites.

Sure, I had a magic shield and armor. Thing was, I was pretty sure he had a sword made from solar fire.

“I accept your offer, Mister Silverlight,” I said with a polite bow.

“My thanks. We have made out camp just over there,” he said, pointing to a small ridge down the hill at the foot of the Canterlot rubble pile. “I trust three traveling warriors can make it a kilometer through hostile territory unschathed. Meanwhile, my squad and I must make sure our other friends either survived or did not suffer an attack as we did here. We will not leave without you, but that being said please come as soon as you can. I was sadly unable to bring a Wall of Guns on this expedition.”

Wall of guns? Literal or figurative, that painted a very specific picture. One I both did and did not want to see made into reality.

“We’ll be there,” I promised.

Silverlight nodded, seemingly pleased. “Farewell for now, friend!” he said before levitating his wounded ranger onto his back, then running off into the darkness.

As he ran off, Speed ran in, a huge grin on her face. “That. Was. AMAZING!” she eeed before giving me a way too tight hug. “Thank you!”

“For… what?!” I gasped.

Speed eeped and let go. “S— Sorry! What did I do wrong?”

“Hug… more… gently…” I panted.

How in the world had she squeezed the breath out of lungs that didn’t exist?! Must be mom’s infiltration programming at work. I’d have to ask her to delete that line later. It could get me in trouble later…

“Oh! Sorry,” Speed said, her smile returning. “Seriously, thank you! Real battle is way more fun than simulations and you get into them, like, frequently! You’re the best friend ever!”

“What about Wander?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“She’s the second-best friend ever! Mostly because you're hotter,” Speed remarked with a giggle.

I felt a blush overtake my cheeks, and then yelped as Wander jumped up to stand upright and stare off into space with a terrified look stamped on her face.

I squeaked and ran over to her. “Speed! Get water, she shouldn't be able to move while under the potion’s eff—”

Wander’s eyes teared up, shocking me enough to make me stop talking mid-word.

“I’m sorry,” Wander murmured as she started to actually cry. “I was wrong, I’m sorry! I should be dead too…”

Holy. Bucking. Shit!

My jaw dropped. She was able to talk to her friends like she wanted? No. Bucking. Way! It shouldn’t work like that!

The mushroom! It had to change the effect in more ways than simply allowing a ghoul to experience the effect.

No! No. This had to be the hallucination stage. Which meant she might draw her seizure gun on Speed or I with it thinking she was being attacked by demons from Tartarus!

“Speed! Disarm her, quick!” I ordered.

The batpony moved like a blur. Wander’s cloak fluttered aside for a heartbeat, and suddenly Speed was holding her pistol out ot my face. I took it and tucked it into my saddlebag for safekeeping. Meanwhile, Wander kept talking.

“What do you mean?” she asked, sniffling through tears as her face contorted into a frown. “I— No! Yes. North. I’ll go north… Of course not now. I promised Gears— Look at her?”

Wander turns and stares at me, and I gasped in shock. Her eyes were milky, almost as if they were iced over. That only happened in the last stage of the potion’s effect, when your mind was conscious within this realm, and the one beyond it. She was actually talking to her friend somehow!

It had to be because of the mushroom! Or maybe because she had bucking Discord around her neck. She shouldn’t be seeing ponies souls, just nature spirits and the spirit realm!

“Hi,” Wander said as she stared into my very soul.

“Wait, can you see me?” I asked heastently.

Wander didn’t move… Until about a minute had passed. Then she reached out and hugged me while choking back a sob. “You poor mare… I’m so sorry!”

Okay! Whatever was happening needed to stop it right now please!

“Uh, Wander? Please stop,” I begged.

Wander let go of me to look me in the eyes. “Shhh, talking to your soul,” she whispered before nodding. “That’s good. At least you're happy as part of her.”

“Woah, what, what?!” I sputtered. “You’re actually talking too— She’s not being tortured or—”

“SHHH!” Wander hissed while flashing me an irritated look. “I don’t know sign-language very well and everything’s getting fuzzy. It’ shard to unders—”

Wander’s face contorted as a wave of tortured agony tore through her body like a wall of bullets. The potion had worn off.

She topped over, landing in the dirt with a meaty thud as she shrieked and clutched her head as if it were about to explode. “AAAAAAAAAAA! MY BUCKING BRAIN IS ON BUCKING FIRE!”

Oh good, that was the normal reaction to it wearing off. The deviation was minor. She wasn’t about to die… Actually, if she died now she’d probably get back up in a few minutes. How durable is she?

It doesn't matter. She still feels pain, and that isn’t okay.

Speed squeaked in distress, ears flattened against the sound, and reached out to Wander. “Here, take my hoof, I’ll help you up.”

I shot Speed a confused look. She sheepishly retracted her hoof. “I uh… I didn’t get potion-related-first-aid-training…”

Wander continued to writhe and scream for several long moments before at last curling up into a ball and whimpering as she pain faded. I lay down next to her and gently wrapped a foreleg around her shoulders.

“It’s okay. It’s over now,” I said as lovingly as I could.

You know, given she’d put us all in danger by drinking that potion now, thank Celestia the Pipites who had attacked us had been armed only with melee weapons… Given that their sniper had a rifle earlier, odds were good the Pegan camp was hit by the ranged fighters when we were assaulted by the melee troops.

Wander hugged me back and whimpered. “That was dumb… Should have waited for a town…”

I nodded. “Yep!” I said as firmly as I could, before softening my voice and nuzzling into her shoulder. “Did you really see them?”

She nodded feebly. “Y— Yeah… Not O— Oc… Octy. Just Lyra and Bonnie. They want me to go north. To Whinnyapolis. I— I’ve never been there before. It’s where Lyra’s business was.”

“That seems important,” I remarked.

“Yeah,” wander murmured before freezing and sitting up. “OH! RIGHT!”

I frowned sharply. “Don’t move like that! You’ll be disoriented for at least—”

Wander nodded and dry heaved. “Ack… yeah… no fast movements…” she closed her eyes for a moment then let out a long slow breath. “You asked if she was being tortured.”

I both did and didn’t want to know the answer to that...

“Did you really talk to my soul?” I asked quietly.

Wander nodded very, very slowly. “Yes. She’s happy. She’s also, well, you.”

“Huh?” I asked with a frown.

“I mean, she’s a lovable dork, and is definitely where your personality comes from. She’s not tortured. She was willing when she was bound to you. Apparently she also loved Beep Boop. Cosplayed her, even. So this whole, being a robopony’s soul thing is kind of her idea of a heaven.”

I blinked. “Really? You’re not just saying that to spare me the horrible truth?”

Wander nodded and nuzzled into my neck. Not for romantic reasons. Her muscle sjut stopped working and that’s how she happened to fall. “She’s happy. It’s okay,” Wander murmured feebly. “I can’t feel my anything…”

“That’s normal,” I said quietly.

“Why do you give this to foals?” Wander murmured angrily.

“I told you before, they are not foals once they drink it,” I repeated gently hugging her shoulders.

“Okay. I bed now,” Wander murmured sleepily before sliding down my chest onto the ground, snoring before she hit it.

Speed trotted over put a hoof on her neck and then nodded in satisfaction. “She’s alive!” Speed announced with a smile, the frowned, her ears going all floppy. “Uh… Dead? Undead? Unlive? Dead-live? … On! She is on.”

My soul had been willing? I— But… What did that even mean, metaphysically speaking? I needed a real shaman, badly!

Speed put a hoof on my shoulder and gently shook it, snapping me out of my thoughts. “We should carry her to the Pegan’s camp.”

“Y— Yeah… We should,” I said as gently started to roll Wander onto my back.

Speed’s PpipBuck glowed as she used its magic to put Wander in place on my back.

“I’m glad you have a soul,” Speed said as I stood up.

“Huh? Why?” I asked with a frown.

“Well, for one, anti-zebra propaganda is stupid and I like seeing it proven wrong,” Speed informed as she turned to check the hillside over before beginning to walk down the hill. “Also, roboponies deserve them.”

I was too mentally frazzled to insist I was a cyborg. Instead, I just followed her.

“Though what I can’t think of is why a company would make a robopony who looked just like a living pony,” Speed remarked before looking over her shoulder at me with a playful smirk. “Unlessss, you’re a sexbot!”

I blinked. “You don’t know what hugs are, but you do know what sex is?”

Speed shrugged her wings. “I was raised by simulated Drill Sergeants. I guess hugs are not good for training soldiers? Brothel Breaks as rewards for good behavior, wellll… That’s different.”

I winced. That statement begged a particular question. “Uh… how old are you?”

“Twenty eight,” Speed answered.

“Annnd you got those breaks starting… How old?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know… Sixteen? Anyways, are you? If not, what’s your function? Like, the one you were designed for.”

“I’m meant for espionage,” I replied.

“Oh! That makes more sense,” Speed remarked. “Uh… Wander said you’re her marefriend though. So like—”

“I have all the normal pony desires for love, and the other stuff too,” I informed as politely as I could. “I’m also able to do all of the things. Wander and I checked thoroughly… It um, it feels a bit weird to talk about this with somepony I only just met. Can we change the subject?”

Speed eeped and nodded. “S— Sorry! I forgot we met last night… I just think you two are hot and— Uh, never mind. We should hurry up, in case those melee guys come back.”

I nodded and picked up my own pace, then sputtered as Speed’s full sentence finished processing. “Wait… Is that why you’re able to be friends with us?! Because you think we’re hot?!” I sputtered, half embarrassed and half flattered.

“No, it’s the other way around,” Speed replied with a happy smile. “I think my brain let me be friends with you because you register as my Drill Sergeant's niece for some reason. Wander, well, I already had a stupid-big crush on her because of her music.”

“You… Think I’m related to a pony from your simulations?” I asked not sure what that meant, if anything.

Speed shrugged her wings again. “Yeah! She was half-zebra. Looked like you, but less hot, also mute and in a wheelchair. Seriously though, I’m really really happy my brain lets me feel things for you guys… I hate when it doesn't let me feel things for nice ponies… Makes me feel like a monster.”

I couldn’t help but smile. For being kinda scary, Speed was also pretty cute. “Well, seeing as how you’re traveling with a pair of arcane abominations, and your reaction to that is ‘I want to be friends with those hot pieces of tail!’ you’re definitely a monster too. Fortunately, us monsters can be good ponies if we try.”

Speed’s ears perked up. “We can?”

The way she said it sounded like I’d just tossed a rope to a mare stuck at the bottom of a well…

My heart went out to her in that moment.

I nodded firmly and gave her the best hug I could while carrying an unconscious marefriend on my back. “Yep! Now let's get to the Pegan camp… You’re probably definitely right about them attacking again once they’ve regrouped.”

If dad was right, and the Pipites saw eliminating he Pagans as a holy war… Well, we Zebras had literally ended the world rather than see it ruled by “Nightmare Moon”.

They’d be back.

Wait a minute… I’d hugged Speed post battle!

“Ew!” I groaned.

“Huh?” Speed asked with a frown.

“Nothing. Just gotta wash my armor too now…” I muttered as we trotted off into the distance.

19 - Restoration

There’s a few things you just know are possible, but don’t expect to see. It doesn't matter who you are, where you are, or where you might be one day. Everyone has a short list of things they believe can only exist in the realm of fantasy. As Speed and I crested the rise to look down on the Los Pegan camp, I had to scratch one of those things from my list.

Their camp was not actually a camp, it was in truth a parking spot. For a Celestia damned overland train!

The Pegans had taken a miraculously functional SU-76M Tank and hitched a series of other older vehicles to her (the tank’s spirit looked feminine and that only happens on purpose). The tank served as the engine, with an old bus, a pair of cargo trailers, an ambulance, and a luxury auto-wagon forming the train behind it. Each vehicle had been modified, replacing the old wheels with tracks, ensuring everything could be accessed from the sides, and perhaps most critically of all, joined together via a very solid looking series of train-car couplings.

I could think of hundreds of reasons why nopony had built these pre-war. Chief among which was if this thing got stuck, it would take all day to get it unstuck. Sure, you could make a train-like vehicle meant for moving across the open terrain without tracks, but why in the world would you?

The sheer amount of magic it must take to make that thing work anywhere close to… Why not just fix the pre-war rail lines?!

“Woah! Cool!” Speed squeed a half second after my jaw dropped in stunned disbelief.

I shook myself and looked over to her. “Cool?! How does that even work! I—”

“Who cares? We don’t have to maintain or drive it, and it’s awesome!” Speed said with a grin.

“You know what… That’s a good argument. I’ll go crazy trying to figure out how in the hell that thing is able to get around.”

Tearing my eyes off the stupidest idea in the entire wasteland, I looked over the rest of the camp. It looked normal enough. A big campfire set up for cooking. Sandbag walls everywhere. Soldiers on patrol. A large number of Pipite corpses ringing the camp…

“Oh, great, they were hit too,” I sighed as I nodded towards a pile of bodies a few Pegan rangers were making as they cleaned up their camp.

Speed tilted her head. “I know why I would think that is great, but why do you?”

“I was being sarcastic,” I said with a little laugh.

“I’ll never understand why a lie is considered humor,” Speed muttered to herself as she shook her head and lashed her tail angrily, sending a little spatter of half-dried blood everywhere.

Note to self: Get Speed a towel… Make that several towels. Also, soap.

“Um—” I said as I tried to find an answer for her.

In truth, neither did I. Ponies just did that.

Speed waved a hoof at me. “It’s okay, nopony ever has an answer. I don’t think you can explain everything, you know? Besides, what’s much more interesting is why all of the Pipites are laying dead where they are.”

I looked over the remains of the battle lines and frowned as I couldn’t see what she meant. The landtrain was in a semicircle shape, the Pegan camp was made with the inner curve of the train as a wall. The Pipite bodies were also in the curve… Wait a minute!

”I’m back what did I mi— The hay?” Imaginary Dad said as I looked over the camp. ”Is that a—”

Yes.I said to him as I turned back to Speed. “They are in the camp. They have ranged weapons, but still ran into the camp.”

“Mhm! That’s my style of combat,” Speed remarked as she sped up her trot towards the camp. “It doesn't work without either STATS or Bat Powers, and being fast enough to dodge bullets. It’s not really a good choice for trash mobs like these.”

“How do you dodge bullets anyway? I’ve seen you do it,” I said as I sped up to catch up with her.

The question had been on my mind recently. It’s not everyday you see a mare somersault over a plasma bolt.

“You cheat,” Speed giggled.

I raised an eyebrow. “Yes, except this is real life and not a simulator pod. So, as far as I know, aside from knowing an Archmage, there is nothing like a cheatmenu to be had.”

”I thought you didn’t know video games,” Dad remarked.

I don’t… How did I know that? I thought as I frowned sharply.

For some reason I felt extremely frustrated. More so than I normally would be if confused about knowing something I shouldn’t have, or at least, didn’t consciously know how I would remember it.

“I don't dodge the bullet,” Speed said, breaking my concentration. “I dodge the shot itself. There’s a difference. If I hear the bullet, it’s already past me. Most bullets are supersonic… I uh, I don’t know what’s in your wasteland bullets, but it’s not gunpowder. Maybe black powder? It’s way slower than I am used too, and there’s more smoke. I might actually be able to dodge wasteland bullets.

“That said, with proper bullets, I dodge the shot itself instead. It’s the only way to do it. I can hear a pony’s jaw start to close and squeeze the trigger, and also hear where their barrel is pointing. The squeeze is just enough time to react to, a few milliseconds. All I need to do is move out of the three degree cone of space at the end of their weapon’s barrel and they can’t hit me unless there’s a ballistic anomaly or their weapon has a homing enchantment.”

My ears perked up. “Hey! That’s cool. I wouldn’t have ever thought about that.”

Speed nodded sagely. “It’s not an obvious thing to think about. I only realized I could do it after my seven thousandth or so loop of the Battle of That One Hill With the Impossible to Pronounce Name. Anyways, the reason I find it interesting the corpses are where they are is it shows they are trying to fight well above their belt and have at least one very good trainer to teach them the basic ideas of the techniques… Though none of them can apply it.”

I nodded and looked over the battlefield again, this time with Speed’s tactical insight in mind. It did certainly seem like they had tried to get up close and personal… But didn’t have the ability to pull off staying safe and effective in their blitz.

Speed turned around to look at me, grinning ear to ear. “Is your robot hearing good enough for that? Or um, you use eyes mostly, like a regular zebra, right?”

I nodded. “Mhm. I don’t see well enough to have enough situational awareness to dodge like you, but I might be able to dodge—”

Speed cleared her throat. “Okay, so I was poking through your saddlebags for a towel to clean up like you asked me and—”

I held up a hoof. “How did you get into my bag?”

“It was open?” Speed said with a frown.

I facehooved. “Dang it… Okay, please ask me to get into my bag in the future.”

“I will! Sorry. I just assumed you wouldn’t mind me borrowing a towel since you asked me to clean myself up. Anyways, I found your memory orb of FIllydelphia and watched it—”

“When did you have time for that!” I asked, my jaw dropping. “It’s hours long! We’ve been walking this whole time!”

Speed blinked as a frown slowly overtook her muzzle. “I… W— Why would you view it in real time playback?”

I stopped walking, nearly dropping Wander. “What?”

”I second that, what!?”

Speed looked at me like I was an idiot. “You… Don’t know that while viewing a memory orb you have control over the memory? Like, you can pause, stop, move back or forward in time. I watched it on fast forward while—”

“You can do that?!” I sputtered. “Why did nopony ever tell me that!”

Speed groaned, her wings slumping. “I”m so sorry! I forgot you grew up now and not in the simulated past where everypony just kind of knew how those worked!”

“Wander viewed it in real time!” I protested. “I couldn’t have been common knowledge!”

“It was part of basic training,” Speed said sheepishly, tapping her hooves together. “So uh… Yeah… I took five minutes and watched that. I really like how good of a shot you are, but… You totally have the situational awareness! You were snap targeting way faster than I can comprehend!”

It was my turn to awkwardly smile and squirm a little. “I— I’m only like that with cannons. I was bound to my last body to fire cannons. It’s what I do.”

“Oh!” Speed said with a huge grin. “Hot!”

She managed to say this as we arrived at the edge of the Pegan camp. Which made me flag my tail... and a nearby Los Pegan trooper look up and snicker.

Speed flashed her a knowing, or perhaps unknown grin and continued towards the center of camp… Before stopping entirely as she passed by a Pipite corpse.

“Ooo! Look at that shotgun he has!” She sang as she trotted directly towards the disturbingly torsoless corpse.

If I hadn’t gotten a facefull of the body’s jumpsuit bulge, I wouldn’t have known it had ever been male. What on earth did that?!

I wanted it. It had to be a nice canon.

I turned to look at the weapon Speed had indicated and saw… A completely normal looking shotgun. The same exact double barreled open hammered design Speed was already using. Only a bit tarnished and dry rotted thanks to 200 years of wasteland exposure.

“Feel free to take that old pile of junk,” the soldier who’d teased Speed said. “We’ll just melt it for scrap if you don’t.”

Speed snatched up the shotgun with a look of horror on her face. “M— Melt it down?! B— But why?! This is a twelve gauge double-barreled Remneighton. S-Mart’s top of the line! Do either of you have a tig welder?”

The soldier frowned and pursed her lips, then nodded, much like I did as we both tried to figure out what she was talking about. The gun didn’t have any visible damage to the metal which would mean it would need welding…

“Welcome to our camp, ladies,” Silverlight called, drawing my attention away from Speed’s nonsense. “I am glad you have chosen to travel with us… Is your drugged companion any better?”

I opened my mouth to say she was just sleeping now, but Wander spoke for me.

“Floofadoof…” Wander mumbled, clearly still unconscious.

“I see!” Silverlight chuckled and shook his head before waving us towards the fire. “Come! Sit, eat and drink if you wish. I am remaining at camp to guard it, but we should soon be able to leave. Our scouts have located the remains of the Lunar Museum. Soon, we will have what we came here for.”

I tilted my head slightly. “I thought you came here for relics of any sort.”

“That we indeed did,” Silverlight said as he began to walk towards the camp’s fire. “However, we have a particular target for this particular mission we hope to be able to locate. It helps us make sure we do not dig in the same locations on each expedition, and of course sometimes there’s just the possibility of finding a particular thing we may need. Each of our digs has such a particular target, but we almost never find the thing itself,and settle for ‘anything we find of historic or practical value’.”

“Oh!” I said as I reached the campfire and gently set Wander down via sliding her off my back.

“Ow…” Wandr whimpered as she very gently stopped against the ground.

I eeped and turned around, nuzzling her neck apologetically. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to.”

“You know I don’t like being dropped at a b-sharp, Octy,” Wander murmured.

I bit my lip to hold in my laughter.

Speed approached the fire and then changed direction, heading for a large flat rock with purpose in her eyes.

Silverlight immediately held out a hoof. “Watch your step, Batmare. There’s liquid cloud beneath that rock. A sample container had a catastrophic malfunction.”

“Oh, sweet! Perfect!” Speed eed happily.

My ears lay back. “Speed! We already said no fuzing a gun to your hoof!”

“But I’m not!” She whined, sitting down carefully and setting her shotgun on the rock along with the one she just looted.

Speed reached into one of her saddle bags and pulled out a small roll-up tool kit and opened it with a flourish so it landed flat on the rock next to her shotgun. She took the damaged second shotgun and laid it on the rock as well, clearly intent on using this as a workbench.

Turning to her shotgun as she worked her pipbuck without looking Speed whispered, “Now, sweetie, I know you’re already perfectly awesome, but we’re going to take that even further!”

She clicked a button on her pipbuck and and electrical distorted guitar’s deep bass thrumm filled the air as Speed began to work.

”Oh! She probably wants to file down the mainspring on the spare gun to give her’s a lighter trigger pull without risking making her primary weapon unuseable. That was a very popular mod for that model of shotgun pre-war.”

It was?

”Yep! I did it to mine.”

Oh! Cool.

I turned my attention to Silverlight. “Why were you taking Cloud samples?”

“Worried we’re trying to recreate the weapon?” Silverlight asked with an understanding incline of his head.

I nodded. “You bet I am. That stuff kills spirits just as effectively as mortals. It’s not a weapon that should be used ever again.”

“I agree,” Silver said simply. “I wanted to see if we could observe the decay rate of the Cloud in a controlled environment. Once the cloud fully dissipates, as it must with its source now cut off, it will be much easier to excavate what remains of the city. We have an alchemical lab in Los Pegasus and it would be possible to get an estimate of when the ruins would be safe. Unfortunately, it proved too dangerous to transport the sample when it ate through the bottom of our sample container. Which, as it was a ceramite bottle, is terrifying enough where we will not be trying again.”

I wasn't sure if I trusted him on that… But, seeing as how he seemed nice so far I decided to trust Silver’s motives for now.

☢★★◯★★☢

Over the next half hour, Silver and I talked, as the sky darkened. A thunderstorm swiftly rolled in from the east, casting shadows across the valley as the dark clouds blotted out the pale moon’s light.

As we spoke, Speed worked hard on her weapon. Looping the damn song the entire time...

As we waited for the archeologists to return with whatever they were after, I got to talk with Silverlight about a lot of things. Mostly Lith and my journey. Speed, meanwhile, worked on her guns. Cleaning them, presumably. Ever so often she’d flag down a Pegan soldier and ask to borrow a tool. Usually she got it. To my surprise, she’d sometimes get up, find a soldier, and return the tools she borrowed.

Nowhere in camp was spared her cheezy 30s Epic Rock’s wrath.

Silverlight paid close attention to my story, commenting on many of the places I had been and offering tips for similar situations. For example, he and his ponies had attempted to clear Applewood of ghouls seven years ago as payment for the NCR’s assistance in locating one of Celestia’s spellbooks, which the Pegans had tracked to Manehattan… Somewhere.

Unfortunately, that hasn't panned out and they lost over fifty soldiers. They did learn something very very useful. While you can’t smell Ghouls, you’ll smell the lack of anything else. While feral Ghouls most famously eat meat, well… Ponies are omnivores. They eat everything.

Plants. Animals. Mold. Fungi. Anything living, ghouls devour ravenously.

If you ever found a place that smelled like nothing at all lived there, not even the rot and mold which had been ever present before the Gardens were fired… Well, run!

I also learned that the suicide bomber in Tenpony was absurd, even for the Pipites. While Silverlight didn't doubt they might resort to using such tactics, and could find plenty of volunteers if they asked for them, that didn’t sit right with what he knew of them.

Pipites are more into brutal crusading waves of infantry powered by righteous fury. There was a simple reason for that. The Pipites had been founded by a group of raiders who wanted to please the Weather Goddess so she wouldn't smite them for being ponies she disliked.

To be fair, given what Wander had told me about Pip’s general treatment of raiders so far, that seemed wise.

“... in short,” Silverlight said to begin wrapping up his tactical summary of the religion. “The raiders who formed the first Pipites passed on their tactics to the more sane ponies who converted. They are all about brutal efficiency. However, I do not believe any of the original raiders are left amongst their ranks.”

I shook my head slowly as thunder rumbled quietly in the distance. “Kind of crazy how they—”

Wander squirmed and moaned sitting up… With her eyes still shut. Clearly out of it.

Silver and I looked at her carefully, making she she wasn't about to lay back down in the nearby fire.

Wander stared straight ahead, eyes closed, then, after several long moments shouted, “Captain’s Log! Stardate… Uh… November! The Protector has arrived in orbit above that one planet with those aliens whose name I forgot but they totally make a buckload of porn, like, an unbelievable amount of the stuff. BUCK! Why can’t I remember their name? You know, the ones Lyra liked! End of Log.”

Then she flopped back down with a dull thud. “Ow… I said no b-sharps!”

This time, Silverlight couldn’t hold in his laugh. “It is quite rare I am happy to have no context for something. Thank you for that, Wandering Bard.”

I giggled and shook my head. “So… You know how she has a problem with being famous?”

Silverlight nodded. “That I do. Most of the Wasteland does.”

I blinked and flicked my tail. “Excuse me?”

Silverlight scoffed and waved a hoof at me. “Surely you don’t think that a ghoul could wander the world for two centuries without becoming a well known if somewhat mythic figure.”

I facehooved into both of my frogs and growled. “Oh, Celestia… There’s a standing agreement everypony has to just pretend they don’t know her, isn’t there? I’m the only pony who has no idea what her real name is, aren't I?”

Silverlight shook his head. “No! Her name is well and truly lost to time. Her dislike of fame and penitent demeanor is quite well known. Everypony aware of her pretends to have no idea there is in fact, a ghoul who wanders the world and plays the most beautiful pre-war music you've ever heard. Their grandmother likely whacked them over the head with a wooden spoon until they learned to treat her with kindness.”

I smiled and turned to look at Wander as she squirmed in her fitful sleep. Just in time for her to cautiously whisper in a tone reminiscent of an order, “Bonbon, do not boop that merry suicide bomber.”

Silverlight and I blinked at her for several long moments before sharing a quick laugh.

“Ah, my kingdom for Princess Luna's dream sight,” Silverlight lamented jokingly.

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re the Prince, aren't you?”

“International law prohibits any Los Pegan noble from answering any questions about their identity which can lead to any direct or indirect knowledge about their identity,” Silverlight parroted, clearly reciting a rule from memory.

I smirked. I knew I was right. “Sounds like the NCR has a few too many stupid laws.”

“Indeed they do,” Silverlight chuckled before nodding towards Wander. “What in the world was in that potion you gave her? I haven't seen a pony that inebriated in years.”

“I don’t know why she’s reacting like this,” I said with a sheepish smile. “It’s probably due to her being a ghoul. Normally she’d have a restful sleep after her brush with death.”

“I’ll never understand why such potions are used,” Silverlight sighed. “I suppose she insisted on learning what death would be like? It is quite unlikely she will ever experience it, given her immortal form.”

I shook my head. “No… Wander wanted to talk to a friend. I told her that’s not what this potion did. But it does let you see the Spirit Realm. She drank it anyways.”

“I see,” Silverlight said with another slow nod. “I’m tempted to ask for one myself, but I think I will pa—”

Speed suddenly stood up, her motion accompanied by a long slow, “Yessss!” and her pipbuck reaching the actual end of the epic rock tune she’d been playing constantly!

Naturally, that immediately drew all of my attention. “Speed? What are you—”

I turned just in time to watch Speed hold a single shotgun between her leg and barrel. The single gun had four barrels, and some slight melted lines could be seen where she’d welded the two shotguns together via pink cloud. I could tell she’d extended the hammers as well, using parts of each weapon to form a quad barreled shotgun. Which would fire all four barrels at once.

Before I could say so much as ‘um’, Speed reared up, drew her chainsaw, and sliced the majority of the barrel length off the end of her shotgun under a shower of long, trailing, angry looking white sparks. Like that was something a gem-powered lumber jack’s chainsaw was remotely capable of doing!

Silver and I stood staring at her, jaws agape for several seconds before she spun the weapon in her hoof and slid the now shorter shotgun into her back scabbard, looking very pleased with herself.

Wander spoke first. She thrust one hoof into the air and proclaimed, “Groovy!”

A quick glance confirmed Wander was still asleep.

“May I ask how you chainsawed through four hardened steel gunbarrels?” Silverlight begged, his hooded gaze fixed on Speed.

Speed frowned. “Is… Is this not supposed to cut metal?” She asked, looking over her shoulder at her chainsaw.

He shook his head. “No!” We said in unison.

“Oh… Well, in that case… I guess he knew he could do better?” Speed said with a shrug and a grin.

I looked back up at Speed and pointed to her bodged, but good looking, quad-barrel shotgun. “Is that safe?”

Speed triple blinked at me and tilted her head. “It’s a gun. They’re not meant to be safe.”

Silver cleared his throat. “I believe Miss Gears means to ask if that modification will result in the weapon’s user becoming… gravely wounded, to be frank.”

“What he said!” I agreed with a fervent nod.

Speed shook her head, then frowned and shrugged her wings. “I mean… It never did in the simulations and the cloud-weld should be better than the TIG weld I used on those because I suck at TIG. Let’s check!”

Before anypony could think to stop her, Speed whipped the weapon off her back, pointed it skywards, and pulled both triggers. A flash of fire a meter long blasted from the weapon’s quad-barrels. Its deafening roar was muted by a thunderclap which I believed to be the weapon’s own voice. At least until I realized the thunder had come from the lightning as it flashed around the Canterlot valley, seemingly heralding the weapon’s birth.

Then the thunder rumbled again, and I realized it had been the shotgun’s blast I’d heard after all. The thunder was a completely different pitch.

That… That couldn’t be good.

Speed smiled and hugged the unexploded shotgun to her chest. “You know… Right now, I don’t think I have a healthier respect for any object in the universe than this shotgun. I’ma call you Daisy.”

Of all the questions my mind could ask as rain began to pour down from the sky, the one I chose was, “Why Daisy?”

“She feels like a rabbit,” Speed said as she holstered her new weapon with the same reverence I’d used to put Feature into my battle saddle. “There you go, my little super shotty… We’ll play soon!”

Yes. Rabbit. That makes… sense?

Silverlight cleared his throat for attention. “If you want to add even more firepower to your weapon, I am certain one of the other Pipites—”

Speed shook her head. “Nah, more barrels would just be fetishistic… And like, other ponies are watching me!” she bit her lip and looked around the corpse pile. “But… If we can find one of those underslung grenade launchers…”

“So uh, what was that song you were listening to?” I asked curiously. I might as well know that much at least.

“The instrumental version of Ascension to Awesomeness,” Speed said with a grin. “Wander wrote it, Rainbow Dash played it. It’s track eighty seven of their Rock Opera and plays when Rainbow’s character in the story manages to fly up into space to save her friend. It was apparently used way way way after their band’s early days by the MoA to christen the biggest cannon ever! I didn’t get to see that or anything, it’s just like, a newspaper headline I found in a loot table once.”

In that moment I knew without a doubt that Speed and I could be true friends.

☢★★◯★★☢

The interior of the land train’s passenger car was something right out of the old-world. While it was definitely a bus, and had the large leather covered seats of any bus, it also had plush carpet underhoof, wood paneled walls with fold-down cup holders, decorative light wood, silver, and gold inlays formed elaborate patterns in the ceiling, and every so often a very cute mare which Speed, and I all ogled just a little, would push a cart down the aisle and offer us snacks.

While she was very, very, very pretty, I mostly ogled her because she had a very lovely hoofcannon holstered on her left flank. It isn’t every day you see a pegasus mare who appreciates the erotic appeal of wearing a .223 pistol round.

Speed and I talked about her gun in hushed, reverently aroused whispers.

Speed liked her flanks too. Which is fine. They were nice too! But that pistol tho!

A few hours after the rain began, the archeologists returned to camp, visibly excited as they ran to the cover of the land train. Speed, Wander, and I didn’t quite have a good enough view from the passenger car to get a good at what exactly they’d dug up.

I watched Silverlight leave the soldier's car to intercept the dig team. He moved with reverence, but also excitement as he approached the archeologists… Then hugged one of them tightly and laughed triumphantly in the rain.

Whatever it was, it seemed to have been very small, as Silverlight was able to take it with a single hoof. It was also silver, shiny… and definitely had a spirit of some kind in it. That pretty much meant it had to be a talisman. No telling what it could be. Canterlot Palace would have held all kinds of things like that in it.

For all I knew, the Prince was after Celestia’s cake button. A fabled talisman which, when booped, conjured whatever kind of cake you were thinking of. Such a wondrous item would be invaluable in the Heartlands.

”You know, now that you mention it, she probably had one of those.”

She’s alive, apparently. We could maybe ask one day.

”Please do.”

Wander moaned and sat up, drawing my attention away from the scene unfolding outside.

“Celestia… My head… Octy, I told you no more pegging when I’m drunk. I don’t like it when my everything hurts at—” Wander’s eyes shot open wide mid sentence and she covered her mouth with her hooves.

Speed giggled.

I blinked in confusion.

Wander glared at us both. “You heard nothing!”

Speed smiled at her, “I heard I should see if toy shops survived doomsday so you two can be happier.”

My confused blink turned into a baffled frown. “She’s a grown mare. Why would she want toys?”

Wander coughed into her hoof. “Hon? She means adult toys.”

“Oh! So like, collectable action figures and costumes?” I asked remembering a picture of a stallion’s posable Equestrian Infantry Forces action figures collection.

I felt something deep inside me headbutt a wall. Emotionally speaking.

“You said it, Gear’s soul,” Wander murmured quietly. “Ugh, when does this stupid thing wear off?”

My ears stood straight up in alarm. “Wait, you’re still seeing souls?!”

Wander looked around the train car, then nodded. “Yep,” Wander sighed. “Let me guess… This is that mystic’s new recipe not working as described?”

I nodded. “Yes! It should be long over and done wi—” My lips pursed together. “Wait a minute… If you can see my soul, and reacted to it, and I felt that when you did… Did… It.. I… uh… Did my soul just headbutt the wall?”

Wander nodded. “Mhm.”

I frowned and put a hoof to my chin. “Then… I have to know more subconsciously than I do consciously! Her memories are in here, somewhere.”

Wait… Was that place I’d picked up the tape in Suggarvale an adult toy store? Oh hey! I still had that cute outfit!

Wander looked at me oddly, winced, then nodded. “Yeah! If I am reading her signing right, the problem is your spirit half wants to be a zebra, and your zebra half wants to be a robot. Uh… Not a psychologist, but resolve that conflict and maybe you’ll remember everything?”

“Maybe,” I said with a curious smile. “Can you have her tell me what Speed meant?”

“I meant the kind of toys used to make sex more fun,” Speed said immediately. “Could have just asked me. No need to bother a cosmic echo of your conscious and subconscious mind…”

My ears perked. “They make stuff for that?” then, the more important question hit me. “Wait, it can be more fun?!”

Wander sighed and closed her eyes tightly. “Yes… But since we’re saddled with Speed for now, and her hearing is great, we don't have privacy so I can’t show you… So to get everypony’s mind off it, more of Pip’s story?”

I hesitated for a moment. I did know that romantic moments were meant to be private… But—

Meh, I’d bring up letting her join us later. I wanted to hear more of Pip’s story anyways. After all how the buck was Fluttershy alive!

☢★★◯★★☢

Wander was in full storytelling swing and the rest of us were half buried in off-duty guards who’d come to listen as the train slowly rolled across the muddy ground. I don't know how she managed to not bite her tongue out when we went over the worst of the bumps… Then again, her storytelling was so good I was only barely aware of the other ponies listening to her tell the story.

“ “Oh my,” Velvet whispered. To my surprise, she magically tugged one of the notices off the board, floating it closer for inspection. The notice had been between a posting of new safety regulations and a flier for two missing fillies whose smiling faces had stared into an atrium of corpses for centuries. The bottom part of the “N” was painted on the sheet Velvet had taken. ,” Wander said in Pip’s voice.

Pip’s voice, full of pain and distress. Pip’s voice as she sounded now.

Speed and I shared a worried look. We’d kept asking questions about when Pip cleared Sable 23. It was an appropriate question to ask. The Steel Rangers were using it now. It was an important location.

Maybe we shouldn’t have asked… I got the feeling that Wander’s stable had been number 23.

I cleared my throat. “Wander? You don’t have to tell us this par—”

“SHH!” Wander hissed, clamping her mouth shut for several long moments before gulping. “Okay… Right… S— So… I started from the bulletin board to her, wondering how by Luna’s Mane she could find anything more noteworthy than the giant plea for mercy written in a dying pony’s own bodily fluids.”

Speed gave me an extremely distressed look as she clearly couldn’t think of anything she could do either.

“V— Velvet Remedy turned the flyer s— so that Calamity and I could see,” Wander stammered, shuffling her hooves over one another. “T— third Month Survival... Party! Tonight in the Atrium! 10 o’clock to 16 o’clock…”

YEP! It was her Stable.

“Wander, hon, you really don’t have to—”

Wander shook her head violently. “S— S— Sta— Stable 29’s own V— Vi— V— V…”

Wander twisted in her seat and took a deep breath before punching herself hard in her left flank. “Vinyl Scratch hosting! Alcohol will be provided after twelve.”

Wander slumped in her seat and closed her eyes tight. Refusing to talk anymore. I scooted close to her and hugged her tight.

“She found nothing… In my old room,” Wander murmured quietly. “Just my old stuff. Every other room? Corpses. Bones. Blood stains. Mine? Nothing. Clean. Pristine. I could have gotten everypony out of there… But I didn’t. They’re all dead…”

Engage maximum hug!

“But…” Wander said, even more quietly. “Pip said I was dead. She thought I was in there, somewhere. The whole Wasteland, and anywhere else which has heard her story thinks I’m dead… That’s for the best.”

“The buck it is!” Speed said with an enraged stamp of her hoof.

My ears stood up in alarm. “Speed! No!”

Wander’s shoulders slumped. “Speed, I could have saved five hundred and seventy six ponies and I didn’t. I’m a monster.”

“No!” Speed insisted. “I’m a monster! I’m an unfeeling sociopath who loves violence, murder, combat, blood, and the noise my chainsaw makes on flesh… You know, the whole Crushing my enemies, driving them before me, and hearing the lamentations of the stallions thing!”

Speed climbed over the back of Wander’s seat and perched atop it so she could look Wander in the eyes upside down. “I only half understand emotions, because I only feel them around ponies like you, but even I can tell you’re like, dying-levels-of-pain over this,and you’re just wrong! You feel bad because you left them behind when you thought they would be fine. You feel bad because they were not fine. You feel bad. For ponies. You barely knew or didn’t know. That’s not a monster.”

Speed huffed angrily and slumped back down in her seat. “Know what a monster is? A monster wouldn’t even think about their stable ever again after killing each and every last one of them herself. Really. Not once. Unless somepony else brought it up. Then I would be like ‘Oh yeah, I did that. You’re welcome!’ You feel bad, so you’re a good pony… Be happy you can feel bad. It doesn't feel good to feel nothing when you know a pony should feel… anything.”

Wander rolled her eyes, pulled away from me, and stood up to look at Speed over the back of her seat. “It’s called a spectrum. Just because I’m not that kind of a monster doesn't make me any less of a monster. Only saving at least three times as many ponies would help balance the scale in my eyes, okay?”

I was about to see if Wander might be willing to count out having helped Sire’s Hollow against that total when a stallion cleared their throat from the seat in front of us.

Silverlight stood up straight, having been laying down on the bus seat in front of us, apparently, and rested his power armored forelegs atop the seat to look back at us. “Do excuse my unintentional eavesdropping… This seems to be the type of conversation one normally wouldn’t have while riding with a large group of new acquaintances on mass transportation.”

Wander’s already pale face grew even more pale. “I— I uh, Y— you heard nothing!”

“But I did,” Silverlight said firmly. “I heard that one of the most important people in my life is in great pain, and I wish to help her as she helped me.”

Wander frowned steeply. “Help? What? When? I haven't been to Los Pegasus since—”

“Since two months after Pip’s story was known to the world,” Silverlight said as he pushed his hood back.

He.

Was.

GORGEOUS!

I’d never seen a pony with a face I could only call statuesque before. He had gray-white fur which at once appeared to be silk and granite. He had an astonishingly lush, long, and flowing blond mane which shone like platinum and was as yellow as the flame of a candle. His eyes were the exact shade of blue you could see only in the most primordial of glaciers and held nothing but kindness.

Most interesting of all, he had no horn I could see… His amazingly voluminous mane could easily conceal one, though.

“This train is my sovereign territory. The NCR’s laws do not apply here,” Silverlight said calmly while the three of us stared at him mouth agape. “I am Prince Silverlight of Los Pegasus, and my city is in your debt, Wanderer.”

He leaned forwards slightly more to focus his gaze into Wander’s eyes. “When you passed through our city, it was still ruled over by the Corporations with their iron hooves. A mere fifty seven ponies in all of Los Pegasus were free, the rest of us were slaves. You stayed with us for two weeks, and in that time you recounted to us Pip’s story and inspired me to do what I could to make the world a better place.

“It is because of you, and nopony else, that I had the right idea, the right heart, and the right message at the right time and place to begin our revolution. Though it was my tongue and my first friend’s deeds that our city threw off its shackles, it was your storytelling which lit the fire that still burns in this heart.

“My city may not have the power to bring safety and prosperity to Equestria yet, but one day we will. Be it tomorrow, next year, next decade, or even after I am dead and gone and my great great grandfoal sits upon the throne, we shall restore hope, peace, and prosperity to the world.

“I would like to add that even if such a thing does not come to pass, Wander, your actions freed thousands of slaves. I believe the karmic balance with which you judge your soul should take that into account before you judge yourself.”

Wander stared back at him, her mouth moving as it to speak, but she simply couldn’t. I could feel her emotions ping-ponging back and forth, unable to settle on anything at all. The Prince had broken through to her very core.

Every word he spoke had been backed with more truth and heart than I head heard anyone ever put into anything. Passion! That was the word for it. The Prince spoke with enough love, passion, and care to move a mountain.

Celestia! No wonder ponies think he has the power to control minds.

Wander finally closed her mouth and let out a long weary sigh. “I see…” she said at last.

Wander closed her eyes for a moment and then looked up at the train car’s roof. “If that’s true—”

“It is as true as anything can be in this world, Wander,” Silverlight interrupted in a genuinely caring tone of voice.

“Then… I only have one sin to atone for left. Their souls asked me to go to Whinnyapolis… I know how to make it up to them. I know what I must do next,” Wander murmured to herself.

Speed and I looked on in awe, and Speed didn’t even know half as much as I did about Wanders neuroses.

Wander turned to me and gently hugged me to her side. “Hon… You can call me Vinyl. I love you. N— No one else gets to call me that. Just you.”

“I love you too,” I said as I hugged her back, still somewhat in shock.

I spared a look over to Silverlight as he smiled and put his hood back up. “You’ve very much welcome, Miss Gears. It was my pleasure.”

“But, how though?” Speed asked for me.

Thank you, Speed.

“After talking twelve CEOs who held absolute power over a district of Equestria’s last city into turning power over to me for the good of all, playing therapist for a tortured mare is a piece of Celestia’s Banana Cake,” he replied as he turned back around to lay on his seat again. “If you wouldn't mind continuing the story, I would very much love to hear the Wandering Bard perform it once again.”

Vinyl snuggled up closer to me. “No problem! Where was I? Right…”

Her horn glowed faintly as she adopted Pip’s voice once more. “Third Month Survival Party! Tonight in the Atrium! 10 o’clock to 16 o’clock. Stable 29’s own Vinyl Scratch hosting. Alcohol will be provided after twelve.

“Calamity whistled, tilting up his hat. “Vinyl Scratch. The original DJ Pon3 … least accordin’ t’ some. So, she survived the Manehattan balefire bomb after all.”

“I shot Calamity a look that suggested he needed to revisit his definition of “survived”. I really hated these Stables.”

Stable 1: A stealth-prison meant to trap the nobles who had perpetuated the war and caused the end of the world forever… Which had not sealed properly and resulted in everypony inside becoming Canterlot Ghouls.

Stable 24: A den of mutant animals which were so deadly it was almost comical.

Stable 23: Run by a machine only slightly less stupid than Equestria’s typical robots. It killed everypony slowly over time because the Water Talisman was slowly producing less and less over time due to damage instead of just, telling somepony it was broken.

Stable 101: Spawned the greatest monster the Heartlands had seen in two hundred years in the form of the Slaver King and would be God, Red Eye.

Note to self, avoid Stables… They really are all dens of death. Except Pip’s, apparently.

Secondary note to self, marefriend feels happier. Cuddle harder so it sticks!

Author's Note

Sorry this one is so short, I was sick all week and was able to get this nice full scene done but not the bit that comes after it. Enjoy!

20 - Ponyville

Wander had been telling us Pip’s story for so long that I honestly thought it didn’t have an end. I didn’t want it to. I was hooked, and by now it felt like telling the story was just going to be part of what we did together when traveling, but... just a few hours after Wander had regained her composure and resumed the story, it was over.

Wander was justifiably quiet after her bout of storytelling. Prince Silverlight had moved back to the engine after informing us we would be stopping in Ponyville for trade purposes. Speed, while she didn’t need to sleep, had chosen to nap since she was quote “too bored to wait” end quote.

I’d related to strike up a conversation with the Pegan soldiers around me, but they were all deeply invested in their own conversations already. Unfortunately, that meant all I got to do was stare out the window and think about the way things had gone fourteen years ago.

They had gone very poorly!

Now that I knew all of Pip’s story; her struggles adapting to the ways of the wasteland, her battle with addiction, her reluctance to be a hero and yet paradoxical drive to do the right thing, her weird religious views of the Princesses, her horror at the depth of her own wrath, her quest for self-identity and purpose in the Wasteland, and most importantly of all, her sacrifices… Well, I felt like I knew her very well.

As a pony who knew her very well I had one thing to say about Pip. She was an idiot.

A well intentioned, lovable, heroic idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

It wasn’t that I held her many foolish decisions against her, goodness knows that I made plenty of my own poor choices across my life times. (Oatmeal! Was I crazy?) No, it was one singular thing which she had the capability to do, but did not, which greatly diminished the quality of life for everypony. Or at least, which prevented it from developing.

I saw what Prince Silverlight saw now. Pip had found Celestia, perhaps not alive and well, but able to think, feel, speak, listen, and seemingly capable of casting spells. With Celestia’s assistance, Pip had been able to modify the SPP pod before entombing herself within it in order to broadcast her story to the world. By speaking it. Out loud. Over the airwaves. Via radio.

Radiowaves passed through the SPP’s shield. This meant if somepony trotted up to the Crusader Maneframe housed within the SPP and plugged a radio into it, Princess Celestia could interact with her little ponies once more.

But Pip didn’t do that. She had a radio. She had enough tech to remote-control eye bots. She hadn’t given Celestia so much as a Trotty-Talkie.

Perhaps there was a good reason for this. Pip hadn’t ever left the SPP chamber. Maybe the parts laying around up there were incompatible somehow. Maybe Pip didn’t use a microphone, but a brain-to-terminal interface to transmit her voice. Celestia couldn’t use that in computer form.

But. Pip. Got. Visitors.

Homage was also an idiot. For the same reason Pip was, even, but much more intensely. Apparently she’d gotten to go visit Pip multiple times and never realized she could, you know, bring Celestia a radio!

I grit my teeth and stared out the window, trying to keep my anger down. Those two ponies had a chance to being the greatest mind in known history the ability to at the very least advise the budding nations growing within the ruins of her empire, but didn’t.

Celestia had not ruled Equestria when the world ended, that had been Luna! Celestia had presided over a millennium of peace and prosperity, largely created by her tireless work, and what do ponies of the modern world do when they know that at the very least her memories, logic, and personality are preserved and can be interacted with?

Sweet buck-all!

”It’s beyond deplorable,” Imaginary dad growled in the back of my mind. ”An icon of our species deserves more respect than that. Even in times likes these, we should at the very least have cleaned up her yard…”

Tell me about it! I kind of want to figure out where Spike’s cave is and have him burn me just so I can give my god-aunt a hug! Even if she’s not a pony anymore, or a separate entity form the Princess Celestia we once knew, a copy, she’s still clearly a person! A person who’s had to spend two hundred years watching every last horrible thing in the ruined Heartlands without any means of interacting with anypony. No way to help… Actually, isn’t that a lot like the Emperor from that game mom loves?

”Eerily similar,” Dad agreed. ”You know… If radio passes through, and you can teleport through via dragon fire, I’ll bet that a police or military grade emergency sub-aether transmitter would make it through too. If that’s the case— No! It has to be the case. Pip is able to control Sprite-Bots in real time.”

My ears perked up as I realized what my subconscious was telling me by way of dad’s ghost. “We could plug a link module into the maneframe!” I exclaimed out loud, jumping up in surprise.

My outburst drew Wander's attention. “Huh?” She proclaimed in the unmistakable tone of a pony who had no idea at all as to what was going on.

“Celestia!” I said, turning to face her. “If Pip can control robots in spite of the shield, and dragonfire can transport matter through the shield, that means it’s not preventing sub-aether signals from passing through the—”

Wander sputtered and facehooved. “OH-MY-BUCKING-LUNA! You’re right!” she leaned into her hooves and groaned. “Highschool arcana was so long ago but there’s no excuse for not knowing— Arrgh! If I’d remembered that I could have bought one of six robot controllers I’ve found over the years for Homage to install in her!”

“It’s also not blocking radio waves, either,” I pointed out. “It would be cake to set Celestia up with some robots to pilot so she can go, you know, princess things!”

Wander nodded, opened her mouth to agree, then her eyes widened as her mouth twisted into a smile. “I seem to recall from a certain memory orb that your mother’s old lab is intact.”

I frowned and nodded.

Wander continued. “It’s out of repair materials… But there’s plenty of robots active in it. I’m pretty sure you could salvage parts and materials and use that lab to, say, make something like you, only bigger, and more alicorn shaped.”

I shook my head and sighed. “No way! I’m able to fix some things but building a custom frame is way beyond my—”

“Your mom, then, whatever!” Wander pointed out with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “The point is we could give Celestia a body. Easily! And with the SPP’s network, she would have nearly real-time control and feedback anywhere in the old world.”

I raised an eyebrow. Wander was right of course, but I thought she wasn't technically minded. “Uh, not that I’m upset, but when did you learn so much about technology?”

“I helped design the radio network the SPPs use,” Wander reminded me with a smirk. “I may not know terminals, robots, or other things like that, but I do know audio and radio equipment. Which is why I should have realized this seven or eight years ago!”

Wander slumped in her seat. “There’s another failure to add to the pile…”

I closed my eyes tightly. Wander had just made progress! I wasn’t going to let her backslide. “We’re finding Spike’s cave. We’re fixing this. As soon as I’ve delivered my last radio, we’re fixing this!”

“Agreed,” Wander replied with a nod before slumping back in her seat.

This time, she had a thoughtful expression. Probably trying to remember the last place she
found a remote control system for a robot.

”We have to be missing something. If it were that easy, the NCR would have done it. Wouldn’t they love to have Celestia back?”

Maybe they don’t… I thought as I turned back to the window to think.

☢★★◯★★☢

The train’s intercom crackled and hissed as a deep voice spoke. “All hooves! Inbound anomalous weather! Brace for impact!”

Few words can so totally draw your attention as those last three.

I turned to look out the window, hoping to see what kind of danger we were in. I immediately regretted that decision.

A tornado plunged down from the sky at us like the incoming hoof of a vengeful god. Its funnel was so wide I imagined it swallowing up entire cloud cities in a single gulp. Except this tornado wasn’t sucking things in. It was throwing things out.

Auto-wagons. Bits of houses. Trees by the grove. Grass by the hayfield. The air around the vortex was filled with a cloud of shrapnel and chaff so dense that the tornado seemed to have its own armor.

If the debris were its armor, the tree-like icicles which flew out from its center were its arrows.

Terror gripping every corner of my mind, I did the only thing a pony could do when nature itself has decided it is time for you to die. I closed the window shade and shrank into my seat to shiver in terror.

Speed looked out another of the windows and whistled, clearly impressed with our impending doom.

“I’d like to see the company of pegasi who could make that!” She said with an excited swish of her tail.

“No pegasus team in history could do anything like that, kid,” One of the soldiers, I didn’t know which, said in a condescending tone.

“Uh, yeah… That’s why I’d like to see some who could,” Speed said with an adorable frown of annoyance.

Wander leaned across me to open the window shade slightly. Her ears and tail stood up in alarm as she immediately dropped the shade. “Well, we’re boned!” She squeaked.

“Sooo… Who here bets Pip notices her buck up and fixes it before we all die?” Somepony asked with a nervous and worried laugh.

“She’s stopped all of them so far,” somepony scoffed. “We’ll be fine!”

“Yeah, but these keep happening more and more often… Think the SPP is breaking? It’s not like anypony can maintain the towers,” another posited.

“I heard she’s sick,” yet another piped up. “I can’t imagine what would happen if I were plugged into a weather machine and ate Ginger’s cooking.”

The entire traincar wretched in unison, temporarily distracting me from my fear.

“Dammit, Maple!” A mare yelled angrily. “We’re about to die in a magic tornado! I didn’t also need to remember what you did to that poor bathroom!”

“YEAH!” About ten ponies yelled back.

“Guys! It’s changing course, we’re okay!” Somepony called form the front of the train.

I opened the window shade a twinge. The tornado was indeed reversing its course, throwing up a wave of dirt twice as high as the train as it did so.

“Thanks, Pip,” I whispered quietly.

No way a monster like that would have changed course without her making it happen. Even if she had accidentally created it.

I couldn't blame her. After all… She was coughing up blood while plugged into a weather machine.

Honestly, it’s a little weird I hadn’t run into something like this sooner.

☢★★◯★★☢

In the hours after our narrow escape from death, there was little for me to do aside from be terrified at the thought of the train being hit by another hyper-death-tornado. You’d think everypony would be happy to be alive and talking, but that wasn’t the case. I guess when you’re stuck in a small place with nearly a hundred ponies, and you don’t know all of them, that talking just isn’t a very good idea.

Wander had a way to occupy herself. And the soldiers too. She was telling the story of the Ministry Mares’s becoming the Elements of Harmony. She had a surprisingly good account of the story. Some of it was different from the book, which I’d read to the point of memorization, but other parts seemed… Well, different.

“No, trust me,” Wander insisted after somepony had said something. “Rarity really was that stuck up and honestly, I’m underplaying her divaness for the sake of believability. I swear to Celestia herself, that mare was like a living cartoon character. Proof of that being the spell she learned to teleport her couch slightly away from her so she could telekinetically drag it into position to fake-faint on. Yes. Really.”

“How do you know that?” someone called loudly.

“I lived next door to her for a while and she did it like all of the time,” Wander applied evenly. “Anyways, Rarity was panicking over a tiny fleck of mud on her hoof—”

I stopped listening to the story I already knew and decided to take a look out he window. Fortunately there wasn’t the wrath of a million pegasi descending on us this time. Instead, there was a battlefield!

Smoke was rising from blackened patches of earth where either rather potent grenades or mortar shells had created blackened craters which still smouldered slightly. The bodies of NCR troopers could be seen lying where they fell, their tan long coats fluttering in the wind.

Intermingled amongst the NCR corpses in a way which suggested the fight had become a melee were uniformed corpses I had never seen before.

They wore metal armor, it looked like the ancient platemail pony knights wore back in the day, only rather than forge blackened, chemically blued, or polished to a silvery sheen, it was painted orange. Not a bright orange, a dull orange that would blend in with rust.

The plates themselves gave the ponies a rather insectoid look. As if the armor had almost but not quite been modeled after a changeling exoskeleton, then given artistic flair to invoke the medieval look from before.

In addition to the plate armor, each of the mystery soldiers wore a beige tactical harness which seemed to serve as little more than a place to attack grenades and ammo.

I leaned over the seat in front of me to get the attention of a plum furred pegasus. “Excuse me?” I asked.

He looked up. “Yes, ma’am?”

I pointed out the window. “Who are those orange armored soldiers?”

The Pegasus didn’t even blink. “Oh, that’s the Mobile Infan—”

The soldier's head turned so rapidly his neck popped as he looked out the window. “Dead! Okay, much better!”

My ears lay back in fright. “Uh, is that a prob—”

“Yeah, that’s the Herd’s soldiers,” the trooper groaned into his hooves. “Looks like they tried to make a push to take Canterlot… Again. This might lead to war if the NCR—”

The intercom crackled again. “Attention everyone, we are being flagged down by an NCR platoon. Seeing as we’re crossing over a recent border-skirmish , they probably want to check the train for survivors. The Prince has decided we will comply with their search. Please take a seat if you are walking as we will be braking in five… four… three… two… one… Now!”

The land train jerked almost violently as the tank applied its brakes. I heard a rather distressing shriek of metal as the seat pressed against my back like it wanted to push me over.

The intercom crackled again, this time the Prince’s voice came from it. “Everyone, please remain in your seats for now. That being said, Maverick, Ace, Brown, and Honey, please split into pairs and guard our cargo. Allow the NCR to inspect it, but make sure sticky hooves stay on the ground. Additional, Pink, Vividly Pink, and Vantapink, please come up to the engine and bring your medkits. I would like to offer medical assistance, if we are allowed to do so.”

I watched as the pink triplets stood up and retrieved large brown bags from the cargo rack above their seats.

Oh. My. Celestia!

I’d almost gotten their names right!

☢★★◯★★☢

Surprisingly the NCR platoon stopping us only added half an hour to our journey. They’d recognised the landtrain as belonging to Los Pegasus and simply wanted to know if we had picked up any of the Herd’s Mobile Infantry. They checked the cars and sent us on our way. Nice and easy.

I’d figured a fight would break out, but no. Everypony had been nice and respectful. I guess that’s how things go when you’re talking to the people who supply your nation with their military equipment.

Then again, that made the fact they wouldn’t let the Prince visit Celestia even more odd. There had to be something everypony was missing… I was tempted to call Homage on the radio and ask about it, but it felt like something I shouldn’t talk about on a train full of ponies.

Or while driving through the Everfree Forest.

I’d heard each and every last legend about this place. A living forest, not in the normal way. No. They said this place could think, feel, and hate. It certainly seemed like it could hate. It also was very much a magical forest.

Fourteen years ago Red Eye had burnt most of the forest down. Wander had made that very clear when telling Pip’s story. This forest had been ash and sparse groves of trees just over a decade ago. While some trees can grow to maturity in that time… Everything we drove through now was old growth.

These trees didn't just look mature, they looked ancient! More than that… I could see the spirits living within each and every single last one! This place was such a hotspot of spiritual activity that looking out the window almost blinded me with how many overlapping auras there were.

Tree spirits. Plant spirits of all kinds. Stone. Earth. All of them here. All of them very, very old. Older than the forest was said to be. Likely drawn here from the Spirit Realm by Nightmare Moon during her rebellion as a convenient source of power…

Every so often I would look out the window and think as hard as I could, Hi! Just passing through. Machine spirit here. Sorry! Not trying to do anything bad. Just passing through!

So far, it seemed to be working. Or at least, not angering them more.

When the announcement had come saying that recent rains had made the terrain ahead too muddy to drive through and so we would be passing through the Everfree, not a single pony had been happy. Everypony around me was quiet. Sitting. Waiting. Hooves to their weapons.

The tension was so thick I swear I could see it.

Or maybe that was just the blinding auras of ancient and deeeefinitely malevolent spirits. It was like being in the middle of a hoard of Windigo, only all of them were the really old, really powerful ones that weren't aware I could do as much harm to them as they could to me.

Wander, definitely aware of the tension, stood up from her seat and trotted into the aisle. I frowned as I watched her move, trying and failing to figure out what she was up to when she cleared her throat and announced:

“Ladies and Gentlecolts, as a pony who used to live in a certain village on the edge of this forest, and no, I don’t know why we put towns next to this place either, I can tell you that the Everfree won’t bother you until you bother it.”

Vantapink raised her hoof. “Question: Would driving a fifty thousand ton vehicle through it while belching all kinds of smoke from its engine into the trees bother it?”

Wander shrugged. “Probably? But, seeing as how were in the middle of the forest now, and it hasn’t grabbed us with vines and had venus flytrap like plant-maws break through the windows to eat us, or sent a small army of timberwolves to rip this tin can appart and munch on the tasty tasty meat inside, or, and this is my favorite thing it’s done before, send forth a swarm of huge pill-bug like monstrosities that are resistant even to AP rounds from a three-oh-eight rifle to rip us all to little scraps of flesh that will rot and feed the plants, I don’t think it cares about us. You can relax a little.”

“Uhhh…” I said slowly while giving Wander a horrified look.

She nodded. “Yeah, the Everfree can do that. I’ve seen it do that and more. Thing is, it’s not as dangerous as ponies think. When it’s pissed off, yeah, it is. Big time! That said, I knew a zeeb who used to live in here. Like, full time.”

“Yeah, but that’s a zebra though!” A soldier exclaimed with a worried whimper.

Wander looked towards the back of the car with a deadpan expression, then lifted me up with her magic, making me yelp.

“Hey!” I said as I squirmed in her grip.

“Oh, look!” Wander said flatly. “A zebra! Who happens to have been trained as a shaman. Just like Zecora, the one who used to live here. Point is, we’ll be fine.”

Wander put me back down as the soldiers around us began to whisper back and forth to one another. From the sound of things, it seemed like they were grateful I was here.

Now would probably be a terrible time to mention I am horrible at being a shaman…

Wander cleared her throat again and pointed to the left of the train. “To continue helping you through this, why don’t we start off with a little tour? To our left is the crater which was once Stable 101. If you listen closely, it’s said you can hear the bubbling of the Taint deep under the rubble. That’s total bull, by the way. I checked.”

Speed raised a hoof and Wander nodded to her. “Yes?”

“Sooo, if Red Eye had his base there, and it was full of all kinds of cybernetics and other goodies, can we stop and dig through the rubble for loot?” She asked hopefully.

While taking an entrenching tool out of her bag.

Wander shook her head. “That would be a waste of time. It’s too well buried to dig out. Rubble will have crushed everything Calamity didn’t steal.”

Speed blinked and frowned. “But when they’re dead it’s looting.”

“When it’s Calamity, it’s stealing,” Wander corrected matter of factly. “Now many of you might not know this, but Stable 101 was built beneath the spot where the Castle of the Two Sisters once stood. That’s right, we’re passing by Equestria’s original capitol. The Castle was mostly torn down by Princess Celestia’s request a few decades after the Elements of Harmony were once again active.”

Wander turned to look out the left hoof side of the train. “I am not sure why she didn’t have all of it removed. I do however know that everything but the original keep, including the dungeons, was removed. If you ask me, it’s a bit of an interesting mystery… But when it’s all said and done, it’s probably better that Red Eye’s cathedral didn’t have an ancient library of musty old spell books attached to it.”

I winced at the idea of a Slaver King with aspirations of godhood having access to the ancient magics ponies had largely abandoned in favor of the more convenient and readily available technology.

According to some of the more dusty history books in mom’s library, pre-classical pony wizards had once made flying islands, created volcanoes beneath enemy cities, granted the power of flight to any and all creatures within a given location, developed potions of immortality, and many other god-like feats of magic, including the creation of the Elements of Harmony themselves.

The details of how these ancient spells worked had been lost to time due to their complexity, the rareness of individuals able cast them, and Princess Celestia herself rounding up every spellbook and scroll of such magics she could find in her early days as Equestria’s Princess.

Knowing what little I did of Princess Celestia, it was doubtful she had destroyed those many scrolls and tomes…

Maybe the demolition had been a cover for her to move some ancient vault which she no longer believed was safe?

I couldn’t help but think about what might have happened here so long ago as we continued to drive through the forest.

Thanks, Wander. I needed that.

☢★★◯★★☢

Wander continued playing tour guide as we drove through the Everfree. To my surprise, for an evil enchanted forest of doom, there sure were a lot of named locations in it! Plenty of rivers, and trails, and Zap Apple groves… Even things as small as known animal dens. For example, “Mister Bear’s burrow”.

There were so many animal dens!

According to Wander, before becoming a Ministry Mare, Fluttershy was something of a caretaker of wild animals, and she was pretty sure that every single animal in a twenty mile radius around cottage had been given a name at one point or another.

That made me wish I’d been alive back then.

Well, alive, pony-shaped, and able to walk around and do things. Talk to ponies. That kind of thing.

“And of course this patch of land we’re passing through now is, or uh, was, Sweet Apple acres,” Wander announced as we finally emerged from the dense old-growth-but-not-really trees. “I’m pretty sure most of you recognize the name, what with Stable Two being located just under… Huh, they tore down the old barn. Well, it would be right over there and—”

Wander stopped talking as she saw something out the window. I turned and looked, getting a nice view of a clear field, without so much as a single rock blotting the face of the lovingly tilled soil. A huge patch of the field to the south was covered in trees which grew in nice even rows, indicating they had been planted by ponies.

The trees looked mostly healthy, and were fully grown. They had to have been planted just a few years after the Gardens were used. Small reddish-purple apples were growing on their branches, making me wonder where in the world they had gotten apple seeds from. Probably Stable Two.

A group of Earth ponies and a few hellhounds were walking through the trees, tending to them carefully. They seemed to be taking orders from a sandy-orange furred mare with a thick blond mane.

None of what I saw was breathtaking… So why had Wadner just stopped talking?

I turned to look back at her again, flinching slightly at the pained expression on her face, and followed her eyes. She was staring at the orange mare.

I smiled, stood up, trotted over to her and gently nuzzled her side. “Hon? It’s okay if you think another mare is cute. We’re open, remember?”

Wander shook herself and inhaled sharply. “N— No. She’s a dead ringer for someone I used to know… I uh… tour over, everypony!” Wander announced sharply as she raced for her seat and sat down, sitting bolt upright.

”Gears… That looks like she just had a flashback,” Imaginary dad warned. ”You should—”

Sit quietly and give hugs.

”You know, for being so innocent about romantic relationships, you sure are good at them.”

I settled into the seat next to Wander and scooted up to her side. “Are you going to be okay?”

She nodded slowly. “Y— Yeah. Just… Memories.”

I nodded understandingly and leaned against her shoulder.

Speed leaned up over the back of the seat. “Were the apples grown here really good, or something?” she asked with her usual foalish simplicity.

Wander closed her eyes tightly. “Yes.”

“What’s an apple like, anyways?” Speed asked.

Not wanting Wander to have to answer a question that would make her think about the past, I cleared my throat loudly and said, “Based on dehydrated samples of apple and cinnamon oatmeal, having factored oats and cinnamon out of the equation, an apple tastes about how you would imagine an organic substance composed of:—”

I took a deep breath for emphasis.

“Dihydrogen monoxide, palmitic acid, carbon glycerol, glucose, polysaccharide, carotene, tocopherol, riboflavin, nicotinamide, pantothenic acid, biotin, folic acid, ascorbic acid, palmitic acid, stericacid, oleic acid, salicylic acid, purines, sodium, potassium, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, phosphorus, chloride—”

Wander reached over and put a hoof over my mouth. “Shhhh… No. Bad. Don’t describe flavors. You’re terrible at it.”

“Agreed,” Speed and five Pegan soldiers said in unison.

My ears drooped sadly. Note to Self: Ask mom to finish my sense of taste some day...

“Well how would you describe it?” I asked with an embarrassed dip of my head.

Wander sighed and closed her eyes. “Sweet Apple Acres grew a little bit of everything. Honeycrisp. Gala. Golden Delicious. Reds. McIntosh… Tartarus, half of the apples you might know of were named for ponies who lived here and grew them. Whatever variety of apple you chose, they were just the best. Fresh, crisp, perfectly sweet, or perfectly souer.”

She shifted in her seat to look up for a while as a smile parted her lips. “The apples were wonderful, but the cider! Oh the cider! Sweet Apple Acres made the best cider and applejack once upon a time. It was pure ambrosia!”

Her ears flattened, and her smile faded. “Big Mac worked so hard to make their cider a nationally available brand… It ruined it,” Wander sighed and turned to look out the window away from Sweet Apple Acres. “You couldn’t make it at that scale. Not everything can be mass produced. Sometimes, it’s gotta be a microbrew. For a long time… I thought that was the worst thing to happen to this orchard…”

Wander stopped talking after that. Speed returned to sitting down, and I kept snuggling up against Wander’s side until the train came to a stop with a long metallic squeak. I frowned and looked up, no one had mentioned any kind of stop and the intercom hadn’t said anything about, well, anything.

Why were we—

The intercom hissed for a moment and a mare’s voice cheerfully made an announcement. “For the sake of our passengers, whom I have just been informed have no idea of our schedule, we’ve arrived in Ponyville for a scheduled stop. Over the next hour or so we will be unloading a shipment of knives, farming tools, and shotshells. Feel free to remain aboard or visit the town! We won’t leave without you.”

“Oh,” I said with a blush.

It made perfect sense for a trade-kingdom to make stops to deliver or sell goods whenever possible. Especially if they had a whole train worth of stuff to move around. Those old shipping containers couldn't possibly be totally full of old world relics… Right?

I gave Wander a quick little side hug. “Hey… I think I should deliver a radio to the mayor while we’re here.”

Wander nodded. “Go for it. I’m staying here.”

“Why?” I asked with a frown.

It suddenly hit me that she probably really, really, really didn’t want to set hoof in her old home. Vinyl’s friends had definitely lived here. That meant Wander was probably having a hard enough time being on the train…

If only I had realized before I had said anything.

Wander closed her eyes and sighed loudly. Speed, who had been walking towards the car’s door with a few of the soldiers, noticed us, frowned and trotted over. “What’s wrong?”

“Wander wants to stay on the train,” I said with a worried look.

Speed nodded and squeezed past me to take my place on the seat. “I’ll stay with you while Gears delivers the radio then!” She said cheerfully while raising her pipbuck up for Wander to see. “Wanna watch something? I’ve got plenty of videos stored on this thing! We could watch some old TV shows, or I could show you some of my old runs! I’ve got the one where I beat the Oneighda Beach landing simulation in twenty-two minutes flat!”

Wander sputtered as her eyes snapped open wide as could be. “YOU DID WHAT?!” she demanded.

Speed blushed lightly and pawed at the seat. “It’s not that big of a deal... I had several hundred thousand tries to work from when developing the route. I memorized the entire battle moment to moment, and worked out a route around most of the traps, the best way up to the sea wall, and so on… Turns out there’s also a major structural weakness in Zebrican pillbox designs so you can collapse them pretty easily… I did have to use an allied soldier as a meat shield at one point in the run, but I’m pretty sure nopony would have minded in real-life if I still managed to make that time!”

Wander looked up at me, her eyes swill wide. “Gears, do the thing. I’ma watch some horseapples.”

Speed’s ears drooped, “B— But I actually did it…”

Wander nodded. “I believe you,” she said as she turned to look at the tiny screen on Speed’s wrist. “But even still, singlehoofidly winning one of the bloodiest battles in history in less time than an episode of your favorite cartoon is horseapples.”

“Not when you just let yourself die ‘til you got it right,” Speed said as she clicked away at her pipbuck, searching for the file to play.

I bit my lip. I kind of wanted to see this… but at the same time, I had a package to deliver. Work called!

I trotted off and waved at the two of them. “Bye, girls! Back soon.”

Wander looked up just long enough to call, “If you find a house with pictures of me in it, please don’t anything from it back. Like, anything. At all. Please. Just don’t.”

“I promise!” I said as I stepped out of the train…

And into a charming little village!

It was first and foremost a Hellhound settlement. I recognised the rough hewn-timber, earthen-brick and pre-war scrap architecture from the city-which-shall-not-be-named. Unlike the village on the shores of the hell-lake, Ponyville’s Hellhounds had painted everything in nice bright colors!

Everywhere you looked you could see oranges, yellows, pinks, and greens! No so much for the other colors of the rainbow, but a little bit of everything could be found somewhere. Especially on the pre-war buildings.

Much to my surprise, while lots of the old buildings had clearly been torn down, some of them were instead being repaired. Hellhounds were everywhere, carting whole wagon loads of supplies back and forth, moving things for the earth ponies who were working on the actual carpentry side of things.

For a moment I thought the crafting was all pony done, but then I saw there were a smattering of Hellhounds working too. From what I could see, in order to effectively use tools like, say, a hammer, a hellhound had to trim their claws…

This explained why so few of them were willing to work. I imagined their claws grew back over time, but any species which has a natural weapon would definitely not like giving them up…

As I walked into town I saw the trio of pink soldiers open the rear most cargo wagon while chatting with a group of Hellhounds and a single pony who were clearly there to help unload the shipment and deliver their payment.

The Hellhounds had two wagons stacked high with open boxes filled with buckets of paint (based on the colorful drips on the sides), assorted gems, gold, and apples.

As I trotted by, I managed to overhear a snippet of their conversation.

“— and we’ve included some six-gauge like you’ve asked for. Not sure what you’re after that needs a shell that big, but not also explosive.” Vantapink said with a smile.

“Zombies,” one of the Hellhounds growled.

Vividly Pink shot him a glare. “You mean ghouls?”

“No! Ghouls people. It wrong call zombies ghouls. Insulting,” the Hellhound said with an accusatory glare.

The other hounds nodded in agreement.

I frowned a little. I’d never thought of that… I’d have to ask Wander what she thought about that.

And speaking of asking people things…

I trotted up to the group of Hellhounds as they began to unload crates from the trailer and politely cleared my throat. “Excuse me, I’m delivering mail. Where is the mayor’s office?”

One of the hellhounds pointed to a small earthen hut built against the side of a halfway rebuilt building which had probably been Ponyvile’s town hall once upon a time. Then she grunted.

“Thanks!” I said with a smile and walked over to the hut.

The old town hall was mostly a burnt out shell with intact ribs poking up from the ashes. It was astonishing that the skeleton which had once held up what may or may not have been a domed roof was still here after two hundred years. The ponies who had built Ponyville clearly knew their trade well.

As I approached the hut, I noticed a team of Earth Pony carpenters, six of them, working on repairing one of the old hall’s floor joists. From what I could see, the building’s second floor was almost ready to have floorboards put back on it!

Unable to do otherwise, I cleared my throat and called out to them. “Hello!”

One of the workers ears perked before he turned to look at me. “Hi there, miss. Whatcha need?”

“I was wondering why you’re rebuilding that. Wouldn’t it be best to knock it down and start over?” I asked with a curious smile.

The carpenter laughed and shook his head. “Not a chance, missie! Why waste good architecture? We don’t have the blueprints for many prewar buildings, but we do have their skeletons. One day we’ll look just as pretty as Sire’s Hollow, and grow twice as much food! Just you wait!”

“Oh! Well, I suppose that’s a pretty good reason.” Ah, rivalries! The cause, and solution, to so many of ponykind’s problems.

“Sure is!” he said as he turned back to his work.

I got back to my own work as well. A few more steps brought me to the blue-painted earthen hut’s door (made from the bottom of a steel bathtub) and knocked gently.

“Enter!” a female hound barked.

I pushed the door open and immediately bit my tongue to stop myself from laughing. The hut was tiny, but the mayor was huge! She reminded me of the massive Hellhound barkeeper, Conan. She had the same massive, muscular build, and had crammed her smooth silky, cream-furred body into an old wonderbolts uniform.

A wonderbolt uniform held together with scraps of fabric for a dozen other sets of clothing and prayers. She was easily four times the size of a pony, and that uniform had been made for a very little mare.

Imaginary dad laughed his plot off in the halls of my mind. It took every single ounce of professionalism and self control not to join him.

Aside from the comically dressed hellhound, the Ponyville town hall also contained a few recently painted pictures of the town and countryside, a desk made from some old auto-wagon tires and a part of a barn door, and that was it. All wedged into the same tiny office as the Mayor.

Aside form the pictures, the most notable piece of decor was the mayor’s drinking mug. Which was a unicorn skull with a gold handle attached to it with the word “raider” engraved into the forehead with a claw tip. Based on the fizzy brown liquid bubbling in the skullmug, the mayor was a fan of Sparkle Cola.

Personally I’d put the drink on my ‘tastes bad’ list. It was too similar to certain lubricants to be good simply because of a little sugar and leaf juice, in my opinion.

“H— Hello!” I managed to say with a shaky smile. “I’m Whirling Gears, I am here to deliver a package.”

The mayor stood up, making her spandex, uh, outfit, creak in distress. She extended her paw for me to shake. “Lobos! Daughter of Mighty Conan, the Brewer!”

I put my hoof into her paw and shook it. “Oh! I thought his daughter lived with him.”

“Conan have many daughter,” Lobos said with a laugh. “You think wif say no if he ask to mate? No wére say no if I ask to mate. Lobos father give her this power!”

I blinked. “Oh. Uh… How many sister’s do you have?”

Lobos shrugged. “Can’t count.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no offence, but like, in general, or do you mean there's more than you can count?”

She rolled her eyes. “Pony tongue hard speak. We use different sounds. Pony use too much soft. Best keep speak short. Stop throat hurt. Can’t count sisters. Can count numbers. Not stupid. Lobos know all pony words, understand all pony words. Just hurt say, so speak like this.”

I nodded understandingly. “I meant no offence. I know many ponies who cannot read or do math.”

Admittedly, they had not gone to school yet… But I imagined not many ponies in the Heartlands could do those things either.

Lobos nodded, seemingly satisfied. “So! Who send thing to Lobos? Prince? We payed for last shipment good.”

I smiled and opened my saddlebag. “Actually, I’m here on behalf of Queen Katydid of Lith, a country to the far north. She would like to trade with you…”

I removed a radio from the case in my bag and set it on her desk next to her mug, followed by a letter. “This letter contains instructions on how to use this radio to contact her in order to make a deal, and—”

“Good!” Lobos exclaimed happily as she bent down to look me in the eyes. “You trusted servant of Queen, yes?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Want tour of town? See what have. Tell Queen. She know Lobos tell truth of what can offer if zeeb do this,” Lobos proposed.

I blinked in surprise. “You’re the first person to think about that. Sure! I’d love to have a tour,” I said with a smile that quickly faded. “Oh! Um, but I came on the Pegan’s landtrain and it's kind of my ride soo… I should probably—”

Lobos waved her paw and walked out of her hut in but two steps. “We have many hours! Make new deal for next shipment. Come! Lots to see.”

Well, they had said they wouldn't leave without me, and this was kind of important…

I nodded and trotted along after the enormous, hilariously dressed hellhound. Unfortunately for me, her outfit wasn’t getting any less hysterical with time.

☢★★◯★★☢

The tour was actually pretty nice! Lobos had lead me around town to show me their many grain silos and warehouses. The hellhounds of Ponyville had initially been miners, but after deciding to let a tribe of Earth Ponies with nowhere to go move in with them, as well as allowing a few of the Stable Two ponies to remain near their ancestral home (Hellhounds very much get the concept of ancestral lands), this particular clan found they very much enjoyed farming.

It was just a little ironic that a clan known as the Skull Drinkers liked to farm. Really like to farm!

Ponyville was surrounded by acres and acres of farms of all types. While the hounds prefered to live in Ponyville, they worked all day up to three miles away from town, growing food on every inch of arable land they had found. From what I was shown, they treated the process with near-religious reverence.

None of it made sense to me until I was shown the new Ponyville Brewery. They turned half of what they grew right into various alcohols. Not just the drinking kind either, but the cleaning, and medical kinds too. Turns out the whisky I’d drank in Fillydelphia had been made here.

It was good to know that we could get a supply of actual alcohol. Not just the drinking kind, but the medical kind. Sterile bandages are more important than feeling a bit bubbly for a few hours. Besides, we had plenty of Changeling drinks to go around!

The tour brought us back to Sweet Apple Acres, on a path which brought us past the incredibly large even after all these years pile of dead trees pulled out of the old orchard. Apparently the old trees were no good for anything, not even charcoal, and were being left to rot.

I’d asked why, all Lobos said was: “No matter how cut, trees poison. Many die.”

I decided not to press the matter. I did get to inspect one of the new trees though! Lobos was extremely proud of the new apple trees. Heck, it seemed like everyone was! Especially the orange mare who had freaked Wander out so much.

Lobos walked me right up to her and introduced her to me. “Gear, this Apple. Apple best tree pony! Make little sick apples into big strong apples!”

The mare laughed and pushed her mane out of her eyes wit the back of her hoof and held it out to me to shake. “Howdy! Name’s Applejack, named for my great, great, great grandmare. You probably heard plenty about her.”

I shook her hoof. “Indeed I have. Nice to meet you. It’s also nice to see apple trees. Where did you get the seeds?”

Applejack shook her head. “You don’t use seeds for apple trees, well, not like how you’d think. You can grow new trees from seeds, but the apples you get are all crabapples. Uh, I don’t mean poop. That’s what they’re called. The slang for poop comes form how bad they taste.”

I nodded. “I see… So… Pretend I don’t know anything about farming,” I said with a sheepish grin.

She smirked. “Pretend, huh? Right well, what we did is use seeds from the hydroponic orchard in Stable Two to grow new trees, and we’ve got cuttings from the already grown trees down there to get good apples up here. It took a little doing. Soil ain’t the same as it was when my ancestor was growing apples here. We’ve had to use a little magic to get things going down the right trail, but I think we’ve got it now.”

I looked into the branches of the tree above me. “So, these ones will be sweet? Or are these a sour apple?”

“I don’t know,” Applejack admitted with a cheerful smile. “These are a whole new variety of apple! There’s really no way to tell how it will taste ‘til it’s grown, and even then, it will take the trees about two years of maturing for them to taste the same year to year.”

She nodded towards her group of workers who had moved to the next tree while we were talking. “I need to get back to overseeing those guys, none of them were Stable ponies. You turn your back for ten minutes and they're already talking about getting a unicorn to just magic the apples to maturity,” she shook her head and began to trot off. “That’s how you make darn sure you don’t get consistent flavors!”

Lobos waved as Applejack ran off, then squatted down to look me in the eyes. “Apple ran Stable water-orchard. Knows plenty. Would be happy to help Queen plant orchard, if can grow trees in snow.”

“Actually, if she knows how hydroponics work well enough to tell us how to make the nutrients a hydroponics garden needs, that would be very valuable to us,” I pointed out.

“Lobos will remember!” she said proudly before standing up. “Come! Spooky forest next.”

I gulped and glanced over towards the distant old growth forest. “Do we really need to go into the Everfree?”

“Yes! Part town too,” she said with a simple nod.

I winced. “Yeeeah… But um, well, there are very old and powerful spirits in the forest. I do not want to make them angry,” I said as slowly and respectfully as I could.

To my surprise, Lobos nodded. “Lobos knows. Many zeeb tell us this. Forest is safe, if with hound. We make trade with zebra tribe lives in forest.”

I raised my eyebrows. “There’s people living in there?”

“Yes. Forest welcome them, keep others out. We not go in, just to edge. Grow special plants for potions at edge. Forest help special plants,” Lobos said with a smile.

I swished my tail. “You’re… You’re getting those spirits to help you grow things?”

“Yes! We tell forest we no cut its trees and give it extra fertilizer. Zeebs say it let us grow plants in it and not eat hounds.”

“Oh! You made a pact,” I said as I took note that as terrifying and obviously hostile as those spirits were, they were not above making a deal. “You should be super careful not to break it…”

Lobos laughed. “Lobos tell forest “If someone cut tree, Lobos cut them twice as much.” It like that. Seal deal. Come, back town. Lobos no make zeeb go to forest if scared still.”

I laughed nervously and nodded. “Y— Yeah… Still am.”

No need to tell her that machine spirits and plant spirits don't usually get along… The stone spirits in the forest would probably like me, but they’d more than likely side with their friends in the pending “devour her essence!” party.

After all. I’d told the forest I was just passing through… and it had let me. Don’t break deals with spirits!

☢★★◯★★☢

Lobos was much less enthusiastic about the rest of Ponyville. I suppose it made sense. Trading food, and paints, and alcohols was a thing you could do. Trading houses? That’s a little bit harder.

Possible, mind you. But harder.

It was still nice to see how the Hounds valued the old town. Their earthen homes were built in similar styles to the old-world buildings, including thatched roofs on a few of them. Some of the hounds were living in old buildings which had been restored, too.

What especially warmed my heart was one home which had a hound-pony couple living in it. This community was fully integrated, and quite happy from the looks of things. It was nice to see a place in the Heartlands which wasn’t, well, awful in some way.

I felt at home here.

“This is town store,” Lobos said as she pointed to a larger building which sat on one side of the town square, next to a oddly shaped half burnt tree. Or at least, it was oddly shaped until I saw somepony had grown it around a building pre-war.

That was a little like the pre-Celestia magics I was thinking about earlier…

“Hounds good at make things from earth. Not only home. Bottle. Jar. Plate. We sell to ponies here. Easily more to sell up there… Lobos must go now. Pegan ponies will want know what to send for next time!” Lobos said as she walked off leaving me before I could say goodbye.

Even so, this was easily the most pleasant delivery I’d made so far. Sire’s Hollow being a close second only because I’d gotten the poop punched out of me on the way into town.

I hummed to myself and turned to look at the town store. It was a nice squat little building with a sign reading “General Goods and Some Unrelated Thing”. That had to be some kind of joke, but I didn’t get it.

Thinking that maybe, if the hellhounds here were in need of six gauge shotgun shells, they might have some 30mm rounds I could buy, I began to walk across the ancient cobbled street towards the store. I was just about to walk inside when the communicator Mare Do Well had given me chirped.

“Hey, Gears? It’s Do Well. Can you do me a favor?” the old ghoul asked in her squeaky voice.

I took an annoyed breath and sighed. “If that wasn’t a pun, yes.”

Do well was silent for several long moments. “So uh… No then?”

I looked up into the sky, searching for her overhead where I knew she almost certainly was. I didn’t see a thing! Then again, blue sky, blue Wonderbolts uniform…

“It was a joke. What do you need?” I asked curiously.

“You know that little grassy hill you passed a while back?” she asked. “You asked the hellhound wearing my old costume why it had windows in it?”

I blinked. “Wait, that was yours?” I asked as I did my best to remember how big she was in person. “How the hay is it not just, like, exploding off her with every step?!”

“No idea. Good job not laughing! Anyways, you remember that house?” she pressed.

I nodded.

“Good!” Do Well said cheerfully.

Ah ha! She could see me. I squinted harder, where was she?

“Left a bit… Up… More up. If you don’t see me now, you can’t from there, sorry,” Do well said as I searched.

I couldn’t see anything. Just blue.

“How do you do that?” I asked slowly. “I don’t have the best eyesight, but—”

“I’m two kilometers up. I’d be the tiniest little dot with non-pegasus vision and I’m wearing blue. I can see you just fine, though. By the way, you’ve got one of Wander’s hairs in your mane.”

I ran a hoof through my mane and sure enough, brushed a single long blue strand of hair out of it.

“I wish mom had built me with pegasus vision…” I grumbled. “Anyways, what do you need?”

“That house belonged to an old friend of mine,” Do Well said casually. “Or maybe belongs? I just saw her walk inside. I hear she’s here quite often as an ambassador for the Hellhounds and the NCR… I think it’s time I said hello to her again. From what I saw, she’s old enough to die any time now. I may not get another chance, you know?”

Huh. Do Well also knew Fluttershy in addition to Wander. I wonder if she used to live here too?

“What should I tell her? That a ghoul with a secret identity says hi?” I asked with a playful smile. “I’ll need your name. I don’t think she’ll do anything unless I can say who wants to talk to her but won't just, you know, come see her in person.”

“Hey, I’d love to just swoop on in, but there’s a team of ponies working on her garden right now,” Do Well said with a genuinely frustrated sigh. “I lost my hat. It got shot off last night and the plasma cooked it to nothing. I’ve got a very distinctive mane, odds are pretty good they could recognize me and decide “hey, let’s shoot her because the world exploded that one time!”. Also, there’s no way Shy won't see me and immediately be all “My Name! Why haven't you visited me! You knew I wasn't a tree anymore! Everypony does!” and I’d be all “hold on, your gardener wants to give me a bullet suppository and he’s not attractive enough for me to be cool with that.” and it would just be really awkward and painful.”

I hummed. “I see… Do you need a hat? I might have picked one up somewhere.”

“If you have one, that would be awesome! Give it to Shy for me… and tell her to meet me at the Crusader’s old treehouse. It’s still there! How cool is that? You’d think the overpressure wave from a balefire bomb would send some planks fillies nailed together scattering like autumn leaves. Nope! Still there. The hellhounds haven't even dug up that tree, which is great because it was the best napping tree ever and it looks like some of the leaves are growing back! I’ll have to keep an eye on it.”

I nodded and turned to walk up the street to the old hill-cottage. “No problem. Oh! Uh, quick question. Did Wander know Applejack? Because she had a bit of a little freak out when she saw her great great great whatever granddaughter in the orchard a while ago—”

“Oh good! You see her too. I thought I was seeing a ghost. An angry ghost. Haunting the world until she found her hat… Which was probably stolen by Calamity, if we’re being honest.”

I shook my head. “Why does everypony seem to blame him for anything that goes missing? He didn’t steal that much in the story!”

“Yeah he was on his best behavior for that whole thing,” Do Well said with such conviction I instantly believed her.

“Oh.”

☢★★◯★★☢

A few minutes of walking brought me to the door of Fluttershy’s cottage. I could tell a lot of work had been done on it recently. Great care had been taken in restoring the wooden boards which framed the doorway, and the gardeners out front were busy not just tending to the plants, but also rebuilding a little white picket fence.

It felt odd to me that ponies would show this much care and kindness to the mother of the megaspell while Do Well feared for her life if she was recognized. I couldn’t help but wonder if her fears were overblown. Or… if not, what in the world had she done?

I reached out and knocked to the door. Once, twice, three times.

“O— OH! Just a minute,” an older mare’s voice called from within.

My eyes widened in shock. Pip said Fluttershy’s voice was soothing. She had not said that it was so soothing and nice, and kind, and loving that it felt like— Like— Like this!

A few moments later the door creaked open and a end-of-middle-age mare peeked at me through the gap.

What the buck, Do Well?! That is not about-to-die-old!

I mean sure, her mane is starting to go gray but—

“Hello,” Fluttershy said with a polite little smile as she opened the door the rest of the way. “Are you from the Korika Tribe? I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to visit just yet. May I have another few days? Flying here was a little more stressful than I thought it would be, my wings are still very sore.”

I shook my head. “Oh, n— no! I’m just a mail mare.”

Fluttershy smiled more. “Oh! Well it’s very nice to get mail again,” her smile slowly collapsed. “It’s a credit card offer, isn’t it?”

My blank stare made her giggle. “Sorry, pre-war joke. Would you like something to drink? I can’t imagine walking all across Equestria not making a nice young mare thirsty.”

I shook my head. “No thanks. I don't need anything.”

“In that case, may I have my mail, please?” Fluttershy asked with a happy little wing flutter.

Genuine sadness overtook me as I realized I didn’t have any envelopes for her. She was just so happy to get to experience this little trapping of civilization again!

I cleared my throat. “I’m afraid it’s a verbal message, Miss Fluttershy. A ghoul pony who claims to have known you would like to meet you at the Crusader’s old tree house as soon as possible.”

Fluttershy gasped, her eyes widening. “I see… Do you know who it is?”

I shook my head. “Technically no? She’s going by the name Mare Do Well, and used to work for the MoA. That’s all I know.”

“Mhm…” Fluttershy said slowly with a knowing expression.

Oh good! She definitely knew her.

“Thank you for telling me,” Fluttershy said with a little grin. “Could you do me a quick little favor? Um, if you have time, with your rounds.”

“I have some time,” I admitted.

“Would you mind walking me to the tree house?” Fluttershy asked with an embarrassed swish of her tail. “I pulled a wing muscle, and so I can’t really fly right now. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I was never very fast. Sweet Apple Acres has been having… well… feral ghoul problems. I don’t think I could run away and, well, I just couldn’t bring myself to hurt a pony, when they’re already hurting so bad.”

She saw ferals as people! I winced and nodded. “Of course I can. Can we go right now? I have a landtrain to catch.”

Fluttershy nodded and offered me a grateful smile. “Thank you. I promise I’ll be quick as I can.”

I moved aside as Fluttershy took a step out of her cottage. As soon as she gingerly closed the ancient door, I turned and began escorting her across town to the old orchard.

And instantly realized why Speed hated escort quests. As lovely a pony as Fluttershy was, she was, so, bucking, slooooow!

☢★★◯★★☢

Half an hour of walking and talking later brought Fluttershy and I to a lone tree at the edge of Sweet Apple Acres. It would have taken less time, even factoring in how slow of a walker Fluttershy was, except she stopped to squee and gush at every single animal or insect we passed while walking.

The worst part of that was I couldn’t be mad. She was just so happy to see life returning to the world, and seeing as how she was indirectly responsible for its destruction… Well, if I was mad at her over that then I’d be an absolute monster.

Also, watching a older mare pet a mutant fieldmouse, coo, call it the prettiest little thing, and clearly seeing the mouse was never once afraid of her… it was both adorable and awe inspiring.

Even the twelfth time she did that was still a little adorable.

I looked up at the tall oak tree before us. It wasn’t even blackened by flames on one side, like every other old tree in town had been. Somehow this tree, the derpy-looking plank ladder nailed into it, and the rickety little treehouse held aloft by the tree’s ancient branches were all perfectly intact. Just dead looking. As if it were winter.

“Thank you for walking me here,” Fluttershy said with a appreciative smile. “I hope I didn’t make you too late by talking to all the little animals…”

She tapped her hooves together awkwardly. I felt my non-existent-heart constrict as the daww nearly killed me!

HOW THE BUCK DID SHE DO THAT?!

What are you?!

“I— It’s fine,” I stammered. “Want me to stay here till Do Well shows up?”

“In the tree house!” Do Well called.

Fluttershy nodded to herself. “I thought so… Excuse me,” she said with an oddly angry twinge to her voice before turning around and climbing up the ladder.

Well. That was that. Time to stop holding up the train.

I turned around and began to walk back to Ponyville.

Fluttershy began to shout at the volume and tone of an angry mom! “RAINBOW DANGER DASH! WHY IN THE WORLD ARE YOU JUST STOPPING BY NOW?! I KNOW YOU KNEW I WAS ALIVE AND WELL! I THOUGHT YOU'D DIED!”

My eyes widened in terror at the sound of the very angry Fluttershy.

Holy-mother-of-Celestia-how-the-buck-does-a-mare-totally-180-like-that?!

Wait!

WAIT!

RAINBOW DASH?!? WHHHHAAAAAAT?!

Rainbow sighed just loudly enough for me to hear. “Yeah, I was a jerk to ignore you for over a decade, but can you not yell my name so loud Gears definitely herd it?! I’m in disguise for a reason!”

“Why?! Ashamed of what you did? I helped end the world, but I still show my face!” Fluttershy shouted much less loudly.

Wow. Even when livid she was still polite and accommodating.

“Nooooo,” Rainbow intoned loudly. “You gave them the technology to end civilization. You were at the meeting. You know what I did.”

I looked up at the tree. What did you do? Yell it for me to hear, Angryshy! Please?

“They don’t know about that.” Fluttershy said after a moment’s silence.

“And they never will!” Rainbow said firmly. “Fortunately, there's no way to get to it now… the thing is, they know about other things the MoA did. They’d blame me for them… Rightly so. Not everypony will understand what it took to keep our kingdom safe. I was loyal to Equestria, not a Princess, or the people. The kingdom. That… That was the wrong call on my part. Look, Shy, I—”

“I still want to know why you let ponies think you’re d—” Fluttershy stopped mid sentence and gasped. “Wait a minute, you’re the Element of Generosity! You were in the same room as me! I— That’s why you didn’t say anything! You knew I’d recognize your voice.”

I winced. Wow. That was cold of Rainbow… Necessary, but cold.

“How are you even Generosity?” Fluttershy demanded. “If the same pony can be a bearer twice, shouldn’t you have become Loyalty again?”

“I don’t know!” Rainbow objected loudly. “None of us really knew how the Elements worked. Not even Twilight! I’ve spent hundreds of years saving ponies in the waste. Apparently that’s generous, even if you can’t actually die… Then again, it hurts like tartarus every, single, time I come back and I always wish I’d stayed dead that time and spend about five minutes balled up and sobbing after reforming... But, I’m still out there so… I guess it is pretty generous of me.”

“But why didn’t you talk to me?!” Fluttershy demanded, her voice cracking in distress.

I could tell she was trying to stay mad but wanted to give her friend the mother of all hugs. And a blanket. Also some hot chocolate.

“Oh, gee! Why didn’t I, in a room full of other ponies, announce that a mare everypony out there might want to shoot on sight, is alive, and also right, bucking, here?”

“Oh,” Shy said quietly. “What about any other time and place?”

“... I… I wasn’t emotionally ready for it, okay?” Rainbow groaned. “You remember how everypony started to hate each other back then. You were there. You were part of the split…I was worried you still hated me. You were basically frozen in wood for two hundred years. I thought it would still be fre—”

“I was conscious, actually,” Fluttershy said very very quietly.

I almost hadn’t made it out.

“W— What?” Rainbow sputtered.

“I’m not going to talk about it anymore.”

“Oh… Well, buck… That sucks!” Rainbow shouted.

I heard a few hoofsteps and the sound of fabric on fur. That was definitely Fluttershy getting a hug.

Good. She needed one…

I shivered at the thought of being a tree for two centuries. After getting to be a zebra, being anything immobile again would be torture.

“Still. Yeah…” Rainbow said slowly. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

“... I guess that’s fair,” Fluttershy said quietly. “I forgive you.”

“Thanks,” Rainbow replied quietly.

“Why did you change your mind?”

“Uh…” Rainbow said with an audible worried hiss. “Well… ‘Cuz you’re old and I might not have the chance next week.”

I winced as a loud slap rang out from the tree house above me.

“I AM NOT THAT OLD!”

“Ow!” Rainbow protested. “Sorry! It’s just, you look pretty o—”

A second slap shook the tree.

“OW! When did you get so slap-happy?”

“Oh… Sorry,” Fluttershy apologized. “Velvet has been saying I should be more assertive, and—”

Rainbow inhaled sharply and let out a long, deeply frustrated breath. “Sweet Celestia! We settled this two hundred years ago! More assertive isn’t aggressive, Shy! Also, hi, Gears! If you tell anypony who I am I’ll shoot you with something low caliber!”

I winced at the thought of a bullet zipping out from the blue and stinging me on the rump.

How hard was it to sneak up on Rainbow?! Well, uh, I guess in this case she knew I hadn’t left...

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy gasped. “Don’t you dare! She’s a nice Zebra!”

“She’s a robopony! It would bounce right off,” Rainbow scoffed.

I cleared my throat and called up the treehouse ladder. “It would still hurt though.”

Rainbow poked her head through the trapdoor to look down at me, “Hold the phone, what?! You can feel actual pain? What monster did that to you?”

“Mom did.”

Her mask twisted as her face scrunched up in confusion. “Huh? I thought Wander said you were a robot.”

“I am, but I still have a mom,” I said with a smile. “The pony who makes your body and puts you in it is your mom.”

Rainbow’s face contorted in the most adorable way as she tried to parse my logic and then refute it, but she couldn’t find room to object.

“Mhm!” Fluttershy said in the most adorable tone of voice ever! “She’s absolutely right. Everything alive has a mother. She’s definitely alive, like any bound spirit.”

Wait, she’s spiritually awake and has been treating me like a zebra this whole time?!

Ack! Too… nice… Must, deflect, thought process before… not-heart… attack!

“I uh,” I said as my brain scrambled in search of a topic. “I hate to interrupt, but… Rainbow? Didn’t Gilda kill you?”

Oh, Celestia, why did I ask THAT of all things?!

“Yep,” Rainbow said flatly. “Totally did. Thanks for reminding me. It hurt like buck, then she flew off, I regenerated, and that hurt like buck too. She didn’t know I was a ghoul… that was... classified.”

Fluttershy sighed. “I’m sorry… I was hoping you might have died from age… You look young again. I— I wish I never invented those horrid things!”

I blinked as I tried to parse Fluttershy wishing death on somepony. “Hey, um, without context, that sounds really mean.”

“She means she was hoping that I could age and die like a normal pony,” Rainbow called down to me. “Which I can’t. The regeneration returns me to the prime of my youth… only still crippled.”

“I— I don’t like having doomed a friend to walk the world eternally…” Fluttershy said quietly. “Um, maybe Gears should come up here? It’s a bit awkward… She’s just, down there. We’re up here.”

“Well, she should be getting to her train, actually. So no,” Rainbow said a bit loudly. “Anyways, you didn’t doom me to walk the world.”

Fluttershy stammered for a bit. “W— Well, I mean, not directly! I still invented the healing chamber and the megaspell that turned you into the first ghoul. This is my fault!”

“I fly it!” Rainbow said with an audible grin.

“That is a terrible joke,” Fluttershy said flatly.

I giggled.

Fluttershy poked her head through the trapdoor. “No! Bad zebra! That was terrible! Don’t encourage her!”

My ears drooped and my tail tucked up under my hips as I felt cowed to my core.

“Hey! Shy! Don’t be mean to the poor sexy robot!” Rainbow protested.

“How was I mean?” Fluttershy asked.

“Do… Do you remember how much influence you have over others’ emotions when you’re you?” Rainbow asked awkwardly.

“Oh… Sorry, Gears!” Fluttershy apologised.

“Look, anyways… I’m sorry, for everything.” Rainbow said.

I watched her forelegs hug Fluttershy gently through the opening of the trapdoor.

“I’m sorry too,” Fluttershy agreed, turning ot return the hug.

“Awesome!” Rainbow exclaimed as she let go. “Emotional junk is over. Let’s get lunch!”

“Do you still eat?” Fluttershy asked curiously. “We split before I really had a chance to find out.”

“Yeah. I eat… By chance do you know if your ministry scrapped the pod version of your megaspell?” Rainbow asked hopefully. “I want to examine it. I might have found a cure when I was in Neighpone but I’d need—”

“I’m sorry, but no. We dismantled it so nopony else would be… well… ghoulified.”

“Oh.. Well that’s okay then,” Rainbow replied with surprising sincerity. “Pretty used to this by now. Besides, I don’t get old! I mean, look at you… You’re so—”

“Rainbow. Please stop calling me old. I don’t want to have to slap you again,” Fluttershy begged.

“Sorry…” Rainbow said as she scratched the back of her head with her hoof. “Just… I remember you like, when we met. That’s my mental picture. You know?”

“You mean you remember me as a six year old?” Fluttershy asked, dumbfounded.

“Huh? No! I mean, when we met again in Ponyville.”

A thought occurred to me, one I felt compelled to voice.

“My mom might have records of it. I mean, the pod thing!” I called up the ladder. “She worked on a lot of things.”

“Awesome! We’ll have to talk about that later,” Rainbow said as she peeked through the trapdoor again, offering me a genuine smile. “I’d love to cure the flight nerf but leave the rest, and I think I found a way to do that. But, for now, I’m going to have lunch with an old friend… Head back to your train, and remember, you have no idea who I am!”

I smiled and rolled my eyes. “I won’t… But seriously, if they still like Fluttershy, they’ll still like you! Wait! You were the MoA Ministry Mare!”

Rainbow nodded slowly and looked me straight in the eyes as she deadpanned, “Duh.”

I aimed a Glare Configuration at her for that. “That means you know where a place is! I was talking to Homage and she told me about a place that has a special magical forge that makes armor for you—”

Rainbow’s wings flared. “Oh. Oh crap…” she said as what I could see of her face through her mask turned a distressing shade of pale. “Somepony found the ground facility… I thought going back to maintain the robots would be enough to keep it pony free!”

Ohhh… That was going to make this next part hurt, but she needed to know.

“Yeah, well, the Tainted are using it now,” I said with an apologetic frown

“What?” Rainbow said flatly.

I cleared my throat to begin the explanation. “They have identical armor, they’re not getting it from Los Pegasus, they have Ultra Sentinels that will spit out phrases about defending a place called Star Drop HQ, and—”

“SHIT!” Rainbow yelped loud enough to make her voice crack. “Shy! Lunch downgraded to tea! I have to go confirm that, because if that's true then there's a tiny tiny tiny chance they might have access to the very very very bad thing of badness. You know the one! I ripped the controls out but—”

“Would that be the Rainbow Relay?” I asked with a wince.

Please don’t get more mad.

Rainbow took a deep breath. “I put four bricks of c4 on the bucking power plant alone… If you tell me that—”

“Huh!” I exclaimed as an ancient puzzle piece fall into place. “So that’s why mom made a block of C4 just to punch it while screaming she hated its sisters.”

“Please tell me it’s not working…” Rainbow whimpered.

“It’s working,” I said as Rainbow groaned. “The Tainted used it to beam troops into Fillydelphia.”

“I— But… Who the hell is your mom and how can she fix blowing a complex system’s critical parts to tartarus?!” Rainbow demanded. “That’s just not bucking fair!”

“She was an MAS researcher who worked on a lot of different projects, and also we saved lots of files from hubs in the first few months of the collapse. It’s possible she had the blueprints for the individual parts of the Relay, if not all of it.”

Rainbow took another deep breath then facehooved. “Yeah, I’m gonna need a name.”

“Oh, Black Swan.” I answered.

“Oh…” Rainbow said as all the confusion melted out of her. “Buck. Yeah… She worked on the Relay… I kind of remember her. How’s she still around?”

“Cybernetics,” I answered.

“Um, wasn’t she that filly Twilight was livid about?” Fluttershy asked. “I remember she called me to ask how she should handle her second in command… Something about him abusing her? I um… I hope it was work abuse and not—”

“It was constant mind wipes without any regard for her safety or health. Also, slavery. He broke her brain.” I said loudly to make sure Shy didn’t have to think about rape on top of everything else she must be dealing with today... and in general.

Rainbow sighed and rocked back out of view of the trapdoor for a moment. “I didn’t know about that. All I know is that Swan’s work was basically magic. Okay. Well, the good news is that even if the relay is working, they still won’t have the access codes to get to the thing. Everyone aside from me who knew them is long dead. But! This does confirm some of my own suspicions… So yeah… Gotta go scout that… Shy? Do you have tea? I need, like, all of the cider, but good apples are extinct, so, you know. Tea.”

“I have tea, and would love to catch up, “ Fluttershy said with a polite little nod. “If you can talk about anything aside from what sounds like a bunch of raiders getting ahold of your big prototype teleporter, that is.”

“Let’s hope that’s all they are, and all they got.” Rainbow suddenly pointed to me seemingly threateningly. “You! We will be in touch. I’ll want to talk about your mom. If she could fix the Relay, she can probably also slice her way past security and use it to get to a place that nopony can ever, ever, ever get too! Celestia, why didn’t I put a self destruct on it?”

“Okay. I’ll keep an ear out for my pin.” I promised.

“Oh, nononono! This will be in pony,” Rainbow promised. “You should get going, your train is ready to go.”

I eeped, having totally forgotten about the train. Watching Rainbow and Shy reunite after all this time had just been so nice!

“Thanks! See you later. Goodbye Fluttershy, I’m glad you’re not a tree because you’re super nice!”

“Thank you, and goodbye,” Fluttershy called from the treehouse.

“See ya, se— Uh, zeeb!” Rainbow called with an odd verbal quaver.

As I ran back towards the train, I swore I heard Fluttershy giggle.

☢★★◯★★☢

I made it back to the landtrain in five minutes. I was on the bus-car before I knew it, verbally apologizing to everypony as I walked past them to take my seat.

“What’s eating her?” somepony asked.

“Guess she didn’t know we just finished loading up,” Vantapink laughed. “You’re fine, Machina.”

“Oh…” I said to myself as I slipped into my seat next to Wander.

Wander immediately grabbed me and pulled me close to her and pointed to Speed over her shoulder. “She is scary.”

“We already knew this,” I said as soothingly as I could.

“You don’t get it… Speed! Show her the thing!”

Speed slid over the seat to hang over me in such a way as to give me a good angle of her pipbuck screen. “Sure!”

Wander turned to look me in the eyes. “You’re about to see her win the bloodiest battle of the war, right after Shattered Hoof, in twenty minutes, without flying!”

I blinked. “What? Without flying?”

Speed squirmed a little. “W— Well I mean, all my runs are without me flying.”

Wander nodded. “Yes. They are. Apparently, she’s so good she thinks that would be cheating, or something.”

Speed squirmed more and bit her lip. “Uh… A— Actually… I just um…” she stopped for a moment to scratch the back of her head. “Don’t know how… Heh.”

Wander and I shared a look for a moment before tipping out heads back to look up at her. “WHAT?!” We asked in unison.

“I um… There wasn’t room in the pod for my wings to stretch out… So I couldn’t learn to fly in there… So I didn’t learn how. Yeah…” Speed said with an awkward flutter of her wings. “Can we watch the thing and not talk about that please?”

“Sure!” I said with a nod and a smile, hoping to not embarrass her any more. “Lets see how good you are at war.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Twenty minutes later and I was sitting next to Wander with the same shell shocked look on my face as her.

“Damn…” I said quietly.

“Yeah,” Wander agreed.

I slowly turned to look at her. “Sooo uh… D— Did you also think that was kind of… Sexy? You know, that bit where she redirected the cannon barrel by clamping her hind legs around it and swinging from the barrel?”

Wander nodded and blushed. “Yeah…”

“Then I vote we cuddle the Warrior Princess so she doesn't get mad at us. Like, ever,” I proposed.

Speed rolled her eyes. “Oh, for buck’s sake! I get it. It looks terrifying. You’d be just as good at it if you did it a few hundred thousand times and got bored so you started messing around to improve your times t— Wait? Did you say cuddle? I mean, uh, yeah! Appease me!”

Wander shook her head and smiled. “We might as well make her our third, or we’ll never get to be romantic thank to her hearing range… Why don’t you squeeze in between us Speed? It’s a long road.”

“But I wanna lean on your shoulder,” I said with my best pouting expression on full display.

Wander scooted over, wedging me between her and the side of the passenger car. “In that case, dibs on the sandwich filling! Speed, over here!”

“Um, actually, I’d rather have my own seat… But as soon as a whole bunch of strangers aren't looking… and listening, sure! I’ve been wondering if reality is better than simulation for a while now anyways.”

With that decided, I plopped my head down on Wander’s shoulder, closed my eyes, and sighed happily as the train began to rumble its way into the distance.

22 - Junction Town part 2

The capitol building’s exit held a nearly tangible wall of cool air. I walked back and forth several times to check. An almost perfectly vertical line between slightly-CPU overheatingly hot, and nice, cool, enjoyable day. Sweet, sweet, relief!

If I hadn’t gotten ethylene glycol coolant in mom’s old lab, I might have popped something trying to stay cool in the Tartarus-maw that was that stupidly designed building.

Who the hay thought it would be a good idea to make a dome, from a nearly black wood, without much in the way of internal supports, in the middle of a farmable patch of an arid landscape, beneath the burning gaze of the sun? I was from the icy north and even I knew what happened when you left an egg under an upturned cast iron pot on a bright day!

I also vaguely recalled an ancient Zebrican warlord using rows of dark painted box-like huts on the sunny hillside on the edge of town to drug and then torture his prisoners for information. If I was remembering correctly it nearly always worked, but that didn’t always mean being let out of the box. I can only imagine how much worse that building would be if it had been placed on the dunes next to the Ziggurat of Caesar.

Actually, I could imagine it easily. Everypony in there would die within minutes of sunrise. I’d die an hour or two later. Heat is no joke!

I shook my head at the thought and trotted my way through the distressingly inedible gardens (Seriously, who wastes arable soil on decorative plants?!) to the market entrance. As I walked I did my best to keep an ear out for Wander’s song, but the buzz of the market was so loud that even if she was still playing, I hadn’t a prayer of finding her that way.

I was going to wander for Wander. Hehe!

I took a look around the open air market as I trotted out into it. Thanks to my soul searching on the walk in, I couldn’t really remember how the hay I got through. Or... anything about the market really. I did remember they way the storefronts ringed the open air section of the market plaza, but that was really it.

I paused at the edge of the wooden deck to make sure my saddlebags were latched. Sure they had anti-theft enchantments, but if the latches were open, well… I also ran a hoof through my mane. It may be a dumb brushy mohawk, but I could at least make it look kind of tidy…

Wait a minute. I don’t like my mane. I’ve never liked my mane…

I closed my eyes for a quick moment and focused some of my magic inwards. Hey, Jasmine. Why don’t we like our mane?

Will do! I thought as I ended the… link?

Yeah, let's call it a link.

I began to make my way though the market crowd. It was packed! Almost as packed as the capitol building’s lobby, as a matter of fact, though thankfully much much less hot. Ponies flowed through the market like crude oil through gears. Slowly, thickly, in globs, occasionally fouling one or more cogs.

Walking through the market was a very, very slow affair. Which must have been good for business since everypony was forced to browse simply by walking through the place.

I passed by a kiosk selling all kinds of glassware. Most of it was pre-war in nature, but I could tell that a few of the more crude bottles and bowls were made recently! Mostly due to how cloudy and warped the glass was, but also thanks to its ugly brownish color that was less like the amber glass of a beer bottle and more like the color of an unflushed toilet. Glassmaking is not at all easy, and I was willing to bet the ponies making those containers didn’t know you were supposed to add things other than sand to the furnace.

I wanted to take a minute and tell the cute stallion working the booth that he should add borax to the sand to help it flow better when casting, but unfortunately the crowd of ponies swept me away down the lane towards a larger booth selling the earthenware pots, pans, and other housewares along with buckets of paint. All of which had maker’s marks from merchants I’d seen in Ponyville.

Sure, they were all clearly hellhound claw scratchings, but they were unique hellhound claw scratchings… and I kind of liked the art style. Maybe I could go back one day and get them to claw up some wood to hang on my wall!

Then I noticed that the booth had a sign labeling it as “Ponyvillian Earthenware and Paint.” A simple name, but very much serviceable.

Surprisingly, only three hundred and twenty-three five hundredths of the market seemed to be selling housewares and general goods. The majority of the other shops, or at least, half of them, sold weapons, weapon accessories, ammunition, armor, or a mix of those things.

You had a few gun shops, but none of them were selling anything I was interested in. I had Feature and my pistol in addition to my remaining LAER. Sure, LAERs needed regular cleaning and maintenance or the lightning might decide not to go out of the barrel but out of its butt and into yours, and precision-dust-free-maintenance wasn’t something I could do with the tools available, but I still had a few weeks or so before the critical clean-or-die point was reached.

I should be done with my deliveries by that time and could radio for a pick up.

What interested me enough to spend a few minutes checking out the kiosk, though, was a place run by an older stallion. A unicorn, to be specific. He made shotguns. Sure, they were all made from pre-war salvage, but he put so much heart and soul into making functional weapons from the scrap.

While his wears looked homemade, they definitely weren’t amateur. He had some hinged guns for break actions, a few revolving shotguns, and even a pump action, all crafted from old two-by-fours, water and sewage pipes, and salvaged hardware odds and ends. But you’d never know that until you handled them, and even then he’d gone ahead and decorated each one with carved stocks, grips, and even the odd engraving on the barrel.

He called his shop “Royal Nonesuch Firelegs Inc. Est 2276” I made a mental note to take Speed to this booth later so she could squee with the old guy over all the shotguns on display. Especially since he let you handle the guns he had on display!

I got to play with the action on his pump gun. It worked almost perfectly! The only issue was a bit of stiffness in the pump, which was probably from a burr in the slot of the pump housing his file was too dull to take care of without scouring the other edges until the pump felt loose. I made a mental note to buy him a new file if I found one in the market. Artists shouldn’t have poor tools.

I almost gave him a radio simply because of how nice his shotguns were. Queen Katydid preferred shotguns for hunting with. She might like to know about new models being produced. At the very least, she’d like somepony who could carve and engrave to decorate her beloved Celestial Arms DP-12.

Of course, I couldn’t give the old stallion a radio because they weren't meant for store owners. So I moved on… I had to find Speed and bring her back here after all! I continued down the market trail, turning my head this way and that in search of my friends amidst the sea of ponies.

I trotted for about six seconds. Then I found the booth selling Sparkle Cola. The shop keeper had positioned old theater lights above her booth so it appears to be bathed in heavenly light, and also set up a phonograph to play some old monk-chanty… music? On a loop. That alone caught my attention, because duh but what was really interesting is that she was selling all of the flavors!

Original, New Sparkle, Classic Sparkle, RAD, Quartz, Victory, Rainbow Crash, Cherry, Grape, Fusion, Dark, Clear, Berry, Balefire, Cider, Cooler, Hearty, Frutti, Love, Power, Punch, Ray, Rush, Void, Extreme, Mango, Kiwi, Dragonfruit, Hay-Fry, Anti-Apple, and even a few bottles of the experimental flavor “Why Are You Making More, Don’t We Have Like Thirty Flavors Already?” which had been in a limited test run before the end of the world and according to legend, tasted like creative bankruptcy.

How did I know all of this?

Easy… The Shopkeeper had a seemingly highly focused form of omniscience...

“During the Great Passion Fruit Famine of 2054, ponies actually noticed the taste difference when the recipe was changed! I have three bottles from that time period, I used to have four, and let me tell you, you so super duper absolutely can! It goes frum YUM! to just yum! and I can't imagine a worse fate for those poor, poor, ponies! The Balefire must have been a relief to the poor ponies in Manever who never even got a supply of Classic. Now, not much is known about the causes of the famine, but it can be assumed that passion fruit crops died out en masse! During this time, the Sparkle-Cola™ Corporation, oh uh, I think I forgot to mention that the company wasn’t owned by Twilight Sparkle, they just licenced her name. Anywho! They had to find a way to get more passion fruit or their company was going to go right to Tartarus! Literally. Princess Luna threatened to banish their CEO there if they didn’t undo the damage. Apparently passion fruits were her favored snack. Which leads me to a theory I have on her actually having been a bat pony with a disguise spell, but I digress. So, the Sparkle-Cola™ Corporation began to look into ways to grow plants without nature being involved at all, to counteract the zebra embargos on imported food and of course the effects of the horrible famine itself. That’s when their Chief Flavor Engineer invented the basic chemical additives which allowed for the creation of the first true hydroponic gardens! They partnered up with Stable-Tec to create vast underground farms which could provide all of the ingredients necessary to make Sparkle Cola™ for all of Equestria forever!” The Sparkle-Cola™ colored mare who hadn’t even told me her name before ranting at me about the stupid soda continued.

”Make the exposition st-ah-ha-ha-haaaappp!” Imaginary dad sobbed.

She just keeps going, and going, and going… Like the Energiser pony, I thought back, completely awestruck by this mare’s lung capacity.

“The best part of all this is that Sparkle-Cola™ had already partnered with Robronco to automate delivery of its soda to every shop! Now there isn’t a store which has paid for product delivery in two hundred fourteen years, but ponies all across the Wasteland have been using the vending machines, so sometimes, if you camp out by one of them, you can see the robots come and restock the machines! It’s super duper cool and if you ask nicely you can even get a tour of the whole farm and bottling plant. And that’s how we still have fresh Sparkle-Cola™ after all these years! So, would you like to buy anything?”

I shook my head politely. “No thank you. It was really cool to hear all of that, but I need to go find my friends.”

The terrifyingly-hyperactive mare smiled at me. “Okay! Bring them by later and we can all enjoy a nice bottle of Sparkle-Cola™!” the black-hole-of-exposition turned to the poor damned colt to my left and said, “Hi! Would you like to hear the history of the Sparkle-Cola™ company? Founded by Moondancer on May 3rd 2043, just three years after the return of Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle’s discovery of the Element of Magic…”

”FLY, YOU FOOL!” dad screamed at the pegasus colt.

I quickly backed into the crowd and let it sweep me along so I could be far, far, far away form that crazy mare. Seriously, she was dressed in one of those old Sparkle-Cola Spacemare costumes I’d seen on billboards in Manehattan and armed with a magical energy pistol she’d built inside of an old Sparkle-Cola bottle. Who does that?

I felt something bump into my flanks, heard the clink of glass falling over, and eeped. Turning around I saw I’d run plot first into a small booth selling dried herbs, bandages, and a few other simple medical items. I looked up to apologize to the owner for accidentally knocking over her little stacked display of potion bottles with my but the mare behind the booth gave me an understanding smile.

“It’s okay! Keep running before my Sister forgets she didn’t tell you about the six other companies the Sparkle-Cola™ Corporation owned,” she whispered while gesturing for me to flee down the market aisle.

My eyes widened with horror. I turned around and galloped into the crowd.

Thankfully my pure terror subsided after some more market wandering. While there was no sign of Wander or Speed that I could find, I had found a shop selling baskets made from woven strands of plastic, and even a blacksmith selling hooftools made from an odd metal I hadn’t seen before.

I’d asked what the silvery blue metal was, but he wouldn’t tell me. Trade secret and all that… Which sucked! Based on the color, weight, and taste it wasn’t anything I knew of, not even a titanium alloy! I didn’t have the chemical composition of any of its components in my databanks.

That wasn’t too odd. I knew they were incomplete. For instance, I’d had to add uranium to my database myself a few decades ago when I wondered what that glowing green rock was and what it tasted like.

I went ahead and purchased a small entrenching tool from him, just so I could see what the metal was capable of. Also, well, a shovel-axe-pick was a good tool to have, and I didn’t have one before. Besides, somepony back home would be able to tell me what it is.

I stopped for a moment to mmm and smile at the memory of the week I got to enjoy some uranium snacks. Man uranium had been good! Only thing that my systems didn’t need a real sense of taste for to enjoy.

Too bad it made ponies sick via all those rads. I’d keep some by my bed at home to nibble on. Mmmm, uranium pops! Maybe somepony here was selling a little bit of—

“For the love of Luna… Again?! Why?!” A voice demanded angrily.

I blinked and realized I was staring blankly at the same devilishly handsome jerky vendor griffon I had accidentally stared blankly at a few hours before. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry! I’m a bit featherbrained today.”

The griffon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Just… move along and don’t do it again, please.”

I nodded and turned to go when I noticed that in addition to all of the jerky he was selling, he also had a few clearly talon-made books on display.

My eyes widened as I held in a squee. New books! Mom would love post-war books!

I cleared my throat and pointed a hoof to the little stack of books. “Uh, actually could I take a look at those real quick?”

The griffon nodded. “Sure. Just don’t stare at me… I swear it’s like you have too much soul or something,” he said, his back arched and all of his feathers standing on end.

”Technically, he’s correct,” dad chuckled.

Quiet you, I thought as I began to look through the pile of books.

The books turned out to be a series called Tales of a Kludge Town Jerky Vendor. It was so nice to see somepony writing fiction! There were eight volumes in the series and it was clear that the griffon running the booth was fictionalizing his own life. I mean, they were about a griffon who sold jerky who was so cartoonishly evil he could only be fictional, but when I flipped through the first volume there was also lots of practical business advice for the modern world.

I thought it was interesting to put real advice into fiction. I mean, it had to be fiction. If any of this were true the town guards would have shot him on sight. The fictional griffon sold his own mother into sex slavery and had created several hatchling labor camps. I mean, come on!

I looked up to tell the griffon I thought it was an interesting choice to portray himself as a villain and ask why he did that, just in time to hear a mare’s voice ask, “So this is where you little ponies have been hiding the protein! I’ll take four kilos of your jerky, sir. I’ll be paying in gold, is that fine?”

I had two immediate thoughts. First, why had her voice come from behind and above me. Second, why was the vendor’s reply, “Yes, that’s fine! I uh, I don’t want any trouble.”

I mentally facehooved and realised that the mare must be an alicorn. Likely a known bandit, since he expected trouble.

“Here you go,” the mare said as she set a bag of bits down on the counter.

With a foreleg containing biceps easily as wide as my thigh! She had a pipbuck on her foreleg. It was the same model as Speed’s. Same size too. It couldn't close around her leg. She’d had it held to her fetlock with a pair of belts!

I turned my head to look over my shoulder. Sand colored fur met my eyes. It took a moment to realise the fur belonged to a leg, and not a pony’s barrel. I tipped my head back, and back, and… she had to be.. Just… like… the absolute tallest!

My jaw dropped. Standing over me was a mare, yes. But not an alicorn. She had sand colored fur, a long loose wine colored mane, gold eyes, and stood almost three times my height. I could walk underneath her without ducking if I wanted too.

What she lacked was wings. Or a horn. Like an earth pony. But tall! And huge! She was built like a brick shithouse, if somebody decided it needed steel reinforcement to hold even more solid brick. Sure, she had feminine curves, somehow, oh no, wait, the curves were just more muscle… She’d worked out specific parts to maintain a feminine shape… A wise precaution because she could probably crush a coconut with her pectorals.

As if that wasn’t terrifying enough, she was wearing a pistol in a leather holster on her barrel. A pistol sized for her. Which meant this thing was actually a 40mm grenade revolver. Which, for her, was just a largeish hoofgun...

My jaw dropped as I stared up at her. I couldn’t help it. This mare was taller than Gale! Probably by a lot!

“A— Are you a horse?!” My mind asked the question almost on its own, shock demanded an answer.

The mare, who clearly had to be called something along the lines of Slab Bulkhead, took a step back so she could look down at me and smiled. “Oh! Sorry, I thought you were a marekin. I mean those flanks can’t be re— Uh as for your question, by blood, no. By size, yes. I’m twenty one and a half hooves tall. Well beyond the required fourteen.”

“Huh?” I asked, still staring at the massive female bodybuilder towering over me.

No. Scratch that. Not bodybuilder. None of that bulk was the puffy soft muscle they put on to bulk out. Her bulk was all rock hard, actually used muscle. Like a farm pony who became a dockworker to pay for training in some kind of martial arts monastery.

That was… that was…

”Really hot?” imaginary dad suggested.

Yes but also scary!

”... yes.

“Ah yes…” she sighed. “Few ponies know this… It was covered in highschool, you’d think it would be common knowledge. Horses and ponies are the same species, ponies grew smaller over time while our equine cousins remained the same size. You know, adaptation by natural selection. Every so often you get a pony who grows to be my size…”

Butch Deadlift winked at me before continuing. “In height, at least… Few people of any race tread the Path of Swol long enough to reach—” she reared up to strike a pose and flex, making her poor grenade belt squeak and creak, threatening to rip apart. “— PEAK PERFORMANCE!”

As she reared up I saw the other half of her face for the first time. Previously, the hideous burn scar covering the entirety of the left side of her face had been hidden by her height and the other angles but now...

I winced as I couldn’t help but stare at the old red scar, and her eye. Her right eye was the nice gold I’d seen before. The left was mint in color. A transplant for sure. Good to know somepony out there could perform transplants but also—

“Oh, my, Celestia! What happened to your face?!” I asked as I backed up into the stall.

She dropped back down to all fours and calmly reached out to take her bag of jerky from the vendor. “Keep the change. As for my face, my older brother was an asshole and had access to the clothes iron.”

I shivered. Why did so many ponies I knew of have horrible foalhoods?

“It’s cool though,” she said, looking down at me for a moment before taking all of the jerky out of the bag at once to just jam it into one of her cheeks and hand the bag back. “Uh puhthed hem thr uh feh wahs fuh eht.”

“Y— You punched him through a wall?” the griffon vender asked.

Buff Eatlots nodded and kept chewing.

“I believe you,” the griffon and I said in unison.

The huge mare finished the jerky in four more bites, swallowed, sighed in relief and smiled. “Thanks! All they got back home is apples and other hydro-crops. I’ll be in touch. Later!”

She started to trot off, each step carrying her shockingly far.

Wait. Hydro crops.

Hydroponics.

She had a pipbuck.

Stable Dweller!

I immediately ran after her, no way was I about to let a Stable Dweller out of my sight, not when Lith could desperately use information on how to grow the very food this mare didn’t like… Or maybe she just needed the protein for reasons of being fucking HUGE!

Wait… What could be in a Stable that would let a mare get that big? A stallion spending his whole life in a gym wouldn’t get that buff… Would he?

“Wait!” I called up and after her. “Hold on!”

Buck Brickbarrel turned her head and frowned. “Sorry, cutie, but I don’t date ponies. Pretty sure I’d crush you to death in the sack.”

I blinked, one of my ears drooping down sadly entirely on its own for some reason. “What? No! I mean, not unless you can generate twelve thousand megapascals of force.”

I was pretty sure that was the yield strength of my upgraded chassis alloys. Or was it twelve point six?

Crunch Plotsteak raised her only eyebrow. “That’s… That’s not what bone breaks at,” she said before snorting and grinning. “Right! Zebra. You used some of those potions you can brew up to upgrade yourself, didn't cha? Personally I don’t like steroids, but not everypony can have my genetics. I don’t even exercise.”

As I tried to process that, she sat down and hunched her shoulders so we’d be on the same rough eye level. “So, maybe we can have a date. Personally, I thought I’d have to settle for a poor youngish dragon so we’d be about the same size, but I’m down for a zebra on super soldier serum! What’s your name?”

I blushed. “Uh… It’s Whirling Gears, but I wasn’t trying to ask you out…”

Her ears drooped sadly while the rest of her face remained happy. “Aww, too bad! Your flanks are great! Where did you get those done?”

“My mom did them,” I replied. “She’s a… Doctor. Um, actually, I wanted to ask you about those hydroponics you mentioned. I represent a remote northern kingdom called Lith and I’m looking to trade. We could really use knowledge of hydroponics to—”

Stomp Chuckmares blinked in surprise. “Oh! You’re that Zebra!” she sighed and stood up. “Fraid I can’t help you. I’m currently living way out in Lagrange Point. It would be way too hard to get supplies up north from way out there.”

I frowned as I tried to remember if I’d ever heard about any place called Lagrange Point. Nothing came to mind. It had to be a post-war town.

I tilted my head as I realized something. “Wait… but… you can come here for jerky?”

She nodded while flashing a playful smirk my way. “Yeah. It’s one hay of a walk though, but that don't trouble me!” she sighed and gave me a sad look. “Trust me… you won’t be getting any help from my housemates. Sorry, that’s just how it is. Technically I’m not supposed to be here, but it’s not like they can stop me without shooting me, and to quote the little piss-ant who woke me up this morning, “Don’t fire! You’ll just make her mad!” heh heh…” she shook her head and grinned. “They had buckshot. He was right.”

My ears perked. “Oh! Sub-dermal plating?” It was always nice to meet someone else who wasn’t all meat or all metal.

She shook her head. “Nope. I’m just that tough!” she said with a wink then leaned down and whispered “Because of the subdermal armor. But shhhh! As far as anypony knows I’m just that tough. I got tired of picking frag grenade residue out of my plot so I got six millimeters of armor put in… Weird something so thin can be so strong!”

I nodded and did my best to not stare too much at her mint-eye and scar even though close up the melted flesh patterns were actually kind of neat! Like fractals and ocean waves. “Right! I’ve got three millimeters of plating myself, and it’s enough to stop most small arms.”

Slate Hoofcrunch tilted her head. “Is that how you survived that Tainted ambush? You know there’s this story going around that you’re some kind of Zebrican death-machine? Heh!”

I giggled and shook my head. “Nope! Just a cyborg. And a Crystal Empire one at that,” I squirmed slightly and rubbed my forehooves on the ground shyly.

Dad! She wanted a date and is hot but scary wut do?! I begged.

”Well, unlike my wife, your marefriend is cool with multiple partners and found herself a side mare… Go for it! If she was so strong she broke everything she touched she wouldn’t be alive today. You’ll be fine.”

Good point! Thanks dad!

I cleared my throat and bit my lip for a moment. “So— Um—”

She smiled and gave me a flirtatious wink. “Reconsidering that date?”

I nodded. “Yeah… Just, a few questions. First, what’s your name? Also, is it okay to go on a date right when you meet somepony or… what? How does that work?”

“You… Don’t know?” she asked looking completely flabbergasted.

I shook my head. “No. I have a marefriend and we are open but she’s my first so I don’t have much experience with—”

Wreck Gizzlebeef shook her head. “Noononono! You don’t know my name? I’m famous! I’m famous twice, actually.”

I coughed into my hoof awkwardly and just sort of swished my tail.

She frowned and looked into my eyes. “Come on! I’ve got a hopefully unique face! EWL? You know, wrestling? I was huge there for a while. Then there’s the laundry list of military achievements to my name, too.”

I gave her my best apologetic smile. “Sorry… I’m not from Equestria. I’m from Lith. I have no clue about local heroes… it’s cool to know there’s a wrestling league though!”

“Well, in that case I’ll introduce myself how a real mare should,” she took a deep breath and backed up slightly then popped her neck. “HIT the music!”

Big McLargehuge reached down to her pipbuck and clicked a button on the face, starting a prerecorded track of fairly generic guitar and sequencer riffs. Ponies scattered.

“Um,” I said briefly.

She stood up and posed herself in such a way as to appear both ready to attack and like a big brick of meat at the same time. “Gears! You may think you’re the best mailmare this side of the Crystal Mountains but you ain’t no Macintosh! You think you have what it takes to step up to a ten time world champion!”

I scooted back slightly, not exactly sure what was going on. “Uh… But, I don’t want to fight?”

Especially not a mare who could definitely punch me into and through the object of her choosing!

“You may have survived being barbecued alive by some bootlicking goons, and you laid the smackdown on Captain Gale Force, but that don’t mean a damn thing to this mare!” She said before rearing up to take on some kind of martial arts stance or something, which she changed every few words from then on out. “Cuz the name, is Loom! And it rhymes, with doom! Annnnd you’re gonna be hurt’n… All. Too. SOOOOOON!”

”Ohhh, that kind of wrestling,” Imaginary dad said sadly. ”Also… Loom? Really? How is it that all of your stupid name ideas fit her better? Than her actual name?”

“Um,” I squeaked form the middle of our suddenly vacated section of the marketplace.

Loom reached down to her pipbuck, turned off the music and sat back down. “Nothing? Yeesh. You really must never have watched a match in your entire life!”

”I didn’t either hon, but I do know that’s how the “Pro Wrestlers” would introduce themselves in the ring for the audience. I think she was just hoping you’d seen her before.”

Thank Celestia! Uh, also thanks dad.

”No problem, hon!”

“S— So, uh… Why not just say “Hi, my name is Loom”?” I asked with a shaky grin.

“Mostly because it's less fun,” Loom said with a toothy grin.

I nodded to my left. “Yeah… and also pretty terrifying…”

Loom blinked, looked around then raised her eyebrow. “Yeesh! If that’s all it takes to scare you, I’d hate to see what you do when a flight of dragons lands on top of your camp in the middle of the night!” She shouted into the distant crowd.

The way she said that had a certain ‘That happened to me once’ ring to it. And sure enough…

Loom grinned at me. “I’ll bet they couldn’t suplex a dragon right when they woke up either.”

My eyes widened. “Y— You suplexed a dragon?!”

“Sure did! I got a medal for it. Not my best suplex though. My best one was a few years back. About fifteen, I think. A zebra assassin was running from a few of our colts after blowing his cover. They cornered her on the roof of a small office building but she was dug in there real good. I wasn’t about to let an assassin get away or kill any more ponies so I climbed up the side of the building, grabbed her by the neck and suplexed her off the side right into the parking lot. SPLAT! Zebra brains everywhere! Uh…” she trailed off and coughed awkwardly while fidgeting with her forehooves. “Probably an awkward story to tell a zebra… She was a bad zebra. You’re not. So…”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s fine, really…” I stopped my rool midway through to narrow my eyes. “Wait, you suplexed somepony off the side of a building.”

“Yuh huh.”

“And survived?”

“Eyep.”

“When they went splat?”

Loom shrugged. “It was just five stories. I was back on my hooves in time to salute those colts as they looked over the edge of the roof and say “For Equestria!” It was great!” She giggled. “The look on their faces!”

Dad? Why am I turned on by that?

”Because strong mares are bucking awesome!”? Dad suggested. ”Also, I swear I heard a story like that before…”

I cleared my throat. “So uh… Loom? Still interested in a date? I um… I do have to find my friends but maybe we could look together and talk… I also have a hotel room for the night.”

Loom’s face fell slightly as she sighed. “Well… That may not actually be the best idea.”

I triple blinked then gave her an angry glare. “But— But you came onto me!”

She nodded and scratches at her wine red mane. “Yeah, I did… I’m just used to any pony coming up to me asking for an autograph or for a date unless I work with them… You have like, the body that makes a lesbian drool and are a zebra so I figured you biosculped yourself to get the girls… I don’t really care who I sleep with so, yeah. I figured you wanted a date. But you didn’t… I’m sorry for assuming.”

I nodded. “Well, thank you for the apology but—” Something she said clicked in my head. “Wait, ideal? For a— B— But we based this look on Swordmare! Isn’t this ideal for stallions?!”

Loom snickered. “What? You thought Swordmare was for stallions?! Buck no! High Winds wrote that for mares into curvy mares. Your big, cute, heart-shaped plot is literally tailored for mares who like busty mares. If it was for stallions, it would show off your slit by being more spread open. But you’re soft, pillowy, and coyly hiding the goods. That’s for a mare’s eye.”

“I— But…” I ear drooped. “I did this to get boys!”

Loom bit her lip to try not to laugh. “Well… Uh… Sorry? It seems to have gotten you a girl though, so there’s that, right?”

I nodded and closed my eyes tightly. “Yes… It’s just… How did my mom not know this?” I groaned. “I spent years focusing on stallions! Many, many dateless years!”

Loom’s ears and tail twitched nervously. “W— Well… You seem nice... We still could do a date, I guess… Just uh, if we do, you gotta promise to never tell my housemates, okay?”

“I don’t even know them,” I pointed out as I wiped a sniffle from my nose.

…

Wait a minute…

That explains all the mare on mare sex scenes in Swordmare! Huh… I’m just an idiot apparently.

But mom’s not, so what’s up with that?

Loom nodded and sighed, flicking her tail nervously again. “Yeah… That’s right, you don’t. Okay, there’s one box checked… There’s another one though. Are you like, strictly mares only or what?”

“Oh um, no?” I said with a little frown. “Why? Do you have a coltfriend who might want to join us?”

“Pff! No. I wish,” she laughed. “I um… I’ve actualy never gotten past laying down with somepony. They chicken out last minute. I figure they're afraid of getting hurt while we do it and, well, I mean I could kill them with a twitch on accident and I don’t know how I’ll act during sex. I really could…. You know. Crush a pony like a tin can. I’ve done that in hoof to hoof combat plenty of times. So… Can’t blame them really.”

I nodded and trotted over to give her foreleg a hug. “I promise that’s not a problem. I’m very durable! Why did you ask if not because coltfriend?”

She bit her lip. “Uh, well… I’m not a biological mare, and I haven't had surgery yet either.”

I tilted my head and took a step back. “You’re? Wait, but—”

Loom sighed and stood up to get ready to leave. “Yeah, I get it… A lot of ponies find mares like me gross. It’s okay. I’m used to it.”

“No, I mean—”

Loom stood up to leave. “I’ll be seeing you then. Sorry for—”

“NO, YOU IDIOT!” I snapped my left eye twitching.

Loom looked down at me in shock.

“I meant you reared up! WIth your hips right in my face! I didn’t see stallion bits!” I said with a huff. “You don’t have to make up an excuse to just go if you don’t want to go out! You don’t have to be hurtful like that!”

Loom gave me a sheepish smile. “Uh, you… apparently didn’t notice how I whip my tail up between my legs when doing poses like that.”

I frowned as my brain flashed back to both times she’d reared up. “Oh… You did do that. Huh…”

“So yeah. I’m good at covering up,” Loom murmured.

I thought for a few moments then offered her a smile. “I don’t care. I like stallions, and mares. Depending on how I flip the coin. So I really don’t care what you have… Well, I mean, I do. Because I haven't gotten to be with a stallion, or someone with stallion parts, yet.”

Loom’s eyes went wide for a moment. “I— oh. Um…”

“Besides,” I continued, “You’re not the only transmare I’ve known. There’s a few of them up in Lith, specifically Pomare because that’s where zebras live mostly so there’s potions to make their bodies match their brains.”

Most trans ponies I knew used some of their soil ration, if not all of it, to grow the ingredients for their regular potions instead of herbs and spices like everypony else.

Loom blinked. “Wait, t— they know how to make the potions? I used those for years until bucking Rarity banned cosmetic transformations! Ugh! MoI horseapples! “It’s not traditional, we must remain steadfast in the old ways to prevail!” Like Tartarus we do! We needed to stop pussyhoofing arround and actually launch a proper strike against their heads of state!”

My jaw dropped as I realized the full implications of what she just said.

Loom punched the wooden deck beneath us in rage, easily splintering it as she put her hoof clean through the six inches of wood!

“Could have at least left medical exemptions, but noooo!” Loom continued before I could get a word in edgewise. “Just had to ban a whole class of potions for being too close to stuff zebras brewed. After also banning SRS because nooo, gender roles and traditional nonsence, making finding a surgeon willing to do the operation you thought you didn’t need because you could just chug an ounce of potion once a week or so and the lifetime cost for that was less than the surgery, and you got the real thing instead of an imitation of it, completely im-bucking-possible to get!”

“You’re pre-war!” I said quickly, just to cut off her rant.

Loom’s anger merged with confusion as she gave me a weird look. “What?”

“You were alive before the bombs dropped!” I elaborated.

“Um, yeah? So what? Everyone here older than six was alive then too,” Loom said in a tone which suggested I was the special kind of stupid which was able to think vaccines cause autism.

I gave her my best stupefying half-glare possible. “What?! No! The war was two hundred years ago!”

Loom triple blinked. “Wait, what?”

She turned around and put a hoof on the shoulder of a random pony. “Hey, you. How long ago was the Great War?”

The stallion she grabbed squealed and squirmed in her hoof’s grip. “T— Two hundred years. Please let me go.”

She let go and took hold of another pony. “Hey, how long ago was the war?”

“Against the Enclave?” the mare asked with a little frown. “Um… Fifteen years? I think?”

“No,” Loom said firmly. “The Great War.”

“Oh, just over two centuries… How do you not know that?” The Strawberry colored mare asked as Loom let go.

The huge mare’s mismatched eyes took on a dangerous gleam. “I’ve been lied too… I am going to find out why.”

My ears drooped back. “Sooo… No date?”

“No,” Loom said as she stood up to leave. “At least, not right now.”

“Will you at least tell me how you could possibly be confused by when you are?” I asked, though I had a few suspicions.

“Stasis capsule,” Loom grunted. “I’m a soldier… I’ll be in touch.”

That’s what I thought. There was bound to be a quite few ponies who happened to be in medical stasis pods for a healing coma when the balefire hit Equestria. It only made sense for a few to have survived the years and for a small number to be thawed out by some adventurous souls.

I squealed and raced forward to catch up to her. “Wait! How, though? You don’t know where I’m going, and I don’t know where you’ll be and I think you’re pretty and while we’ve only been talking for a little but I think I like you!”

Loom stopped in her tracks, her tail lifting slightly… Allowing me to see that yes, yes she was in fact not biologically a mare. And… also that I was glad hooves fit into my various receptacles comfortably because WOW! I mean, she was huge, so of course everything would be huge but WOW!

Screw being worried about accidentally crushing a pony in bed, she should be worried about fitting at all!

”GEARS! FOCUS!” Dad snapped for me.

Eeep! Thanks! She’s just HUGE! I thought as my cheeks began to glow. I guess failing everything I could just kinda hug it and—”

”I know! Please stop looking for my sake!”

Oh that’s right dad was awkward about seeing other stallions. He was always so adorably squicked out over it. Hehe!

Loom turned around. “You… You didn’t know I was famous. How could you, I should have died two centuries ago… That means you like me for me…”

I nodded. “Well, yeah!” I blushed and swished my tail a little. “I mean, you’re very attractive, seem nice, and… The more I understand about romantic relationships, the more I understand that I want several of them. I like you… I definitely would like to sleep with you, so… You know, why wouldn’t I like you? I mean yeah this is much faster than I realized I liked my marefriend Wander, but now that I understand the emotions and protocols better, naturally my calculations will be much faster.”

Loom tilted her head. “Calculations? That’s a weird way of saying… is Equish your first language?”

I blushed a bit more. “No, actually… My first is Zebrican.”

Loom blinked twice, her mismatched eye widening, proving that yes, it was in fact a transplant and not a glass eye. “Woah! Hold on, wait. You’re a Zebrican zebra?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Loom’s mouth opened and closed slowly. “I— I know it’s been… Two centuries but… I was there. A lot. I killed a lot of your people. I’m artillery, see? I shelled… Well, everything I was asked to. Thoroughly. I— And you still would…”

I nodded. “Mhm!”

Watching such a huge mare stammer, stutter, and sputter for nearly a full minute from something so simple as a mhm brought a smile to my face.

“B— But that makes no sense!” Loom protested. “You should hold the biggest grudge against me! Against everypony, really!”

I shook my head. “I don’t. It was war. Both sides did bad things.”

“Yes, but I personally did a lot of those things.”

“You’re a soldier. It was your job. Just orders,” I said with the kindest smile I could manage at the time. “I don’t have the moral high ground. I’m also a cannoneer. I’ve also killed a lot of people. Mostly ponies. We’re on even hoofing.”

Loom paused for a moment then shook her head. “No… No, what I did was on a much bigger scale than anything you could have done in a wasteland like this.”

I paused for a moment to reference what old data I had on Equestrian battleships. Specifically their crew complements… The Alicorn Class battleship was crewed by 2700 hooves, while the smaller Pegasus Class needed only 1300, and the typical cruisers employed to screen for the battleships were crewed by 500ish…

Given the total number of vessels I sunk and assuming all hooves went down with those ships, which was the most plausible scenario given my firing pattern and orders to use saturation fire…

I rested my hoof on my muzzle for a moment. “Hmmm… Well, I’m directly responsible for the deaths of at least eighteen thousand four hundred‬ Equestrians during wartime,” I remarked. “Even if your count is higher or lower, I really don’t care. War is war, peace is peace. The war is over, it has been over forever now, and everypony should try and get along and move on. So, I really don’t care. It’s not like you were out slaughtering civilians, right?”

Loom bit her lip and sighed. “Well… I can’t say for sure if all of those villages were fully civilian free, but no. Mass slaughter is… Somepony else’s thing,” Loom said with a shiver.

“Gale Force?” I asked with a wince.

Loom nodded and shivered. I could almost see a flashback slide across her eyes. “Yeah. That’s his thing. He really hates you guys! I was just in for the health plan and to serve my country.”

I shuffled my hooves against the wood beneath me. “So um… I— Is how you were acting before just, an act you put on?”

“No,” Loom said after a moment. “That’s me when I’m happy.”

“Then yes, I like you,” I said with a smile. “I’m sorry you have to go… But can we please find a way to maybe meet up later? I’d like to get to know you more and maaabey have a little fun.”

I glanced down at her hindquarters.

Loom smirked. “Maybe?”

“Definitely,” I corrected.

Loom took a deep breath which made her gun belt creak and groan. “I could get into a lot of trouble for this…” she murmured quietly.

“Why?” I asked with a curious frown.

“I… I have duties. Responsibilities. I think… I need to ask some questions,” She bit her lip nervously then pulled a small chip out of a slot in her pipbuck. “Take it. It’s a tracking device and communicator. Squeeze it once and we can talk via my pipbuck… Actually don’t do that! I’ll call you. It will let me find you, though. So hold on to it. I’ll be back for it one way or another. Okay?”

I nodded and took the chip, clipping it on my armor’s collar next to the MoA chip. “Got it! And... Thanks!” I offered her a smile. “I mean, you’re bombastic. I think that’s the word for it. And you're not really all that scary because of the being huge thing once you talk for awhile.”

Loom’s ears twitched adorably. “T— Thanks… I have to go.”

I waved as she galloped off, her height giving her amazing speed. “Bye! Please call soon!”

Because seriously… I think we could relate to each other a lot.

Also I really want that—

”For the love of me, stop thinking about that please!” Dad begged.

Hehehe! I knew him so well I can torment my own imagination. Hey, you may not like dick, but I do!

”Gears…”

Think I’d get stuck on her? I asked with a mental giggle.

”Oh, look! Speed! Let’s resume this conversation never!”

I blinked and noticed Speed walking through the crowd, looking off in the way Loom had run while ponies gave the batpony with a chainsaw, shotgun, assault rifle, and sniper rifle on her back a very wide berth.

“Speed! Over here!” I called.

Speed’s head whipped around to my direction and she galloped over to me. “Did you see a huge mare run that way or was that just me?”

“Oh, that was Loom. We were talking… Hopefully she’ll be back in a few hours. I asked her out,” I said with a grin.

Speed gave me a blank look. “You asked her out.”

“Yes,” I said with a nod.

“Ribbon Loom,” Speed said slowly. “You asked her out?!”

Wait her name was Ribbon Loom?! Dammit! Brick HardMeat fit so much better! Ugh!

I nodded again and sighed in disappointment. “Yes… Wait you know her full name?” I frowned curiously, then facehooved and laughed. “Of course you do! She was alive then and a soldier. No way a mare that big wouldn’t be known about.”

“Yeah! I mean,” Speed shivered. “You’ve got ovaries of steel there, Gears.”

I shook my head. “No… The closest approximation for those organs are composed of primarily ceramics and crystal.”

Speed laughed and shook her head. “Not what I meant… According to legend, she once suplexed a dragon, and killed it. I— I’m not brave enough to let her mount me…” Speed admitted with a blush. “Also, I thought she died. The Dream Pods have this memorial section and she was in it…. Then again, so was Gale Force and he’s apparently alive. Could be the MoA cover for field agents.”

“Oh!” My ears perked up. “Maybe that’s Ra— Uh, Do Well’s mission! Defrosting some old MoA Agents she previously let sleep so she can help stop the Tainted.”

But then… Why would she say it had only been five years?

I frowned and thought for a moment, trying to see if that would be something Rainbow might do. I didn’t know her very well, but personally if I wanted to avoid a person I woke from stasis freaking out over having been gone for centuries, I might say it had been only a few years then tell the the truth after they had adjusted.

It might help them acclimate to the new world better to not think it was entirely unlike everything they had known and loved.

Yeah. Yeah I could see Rainbow doing that too.

Speed shrugged. “Maybe? Could be.”

I held up a hoof to tell Speed to hold up as an idea occurred to me. “One moment, I want to check something.”

I could actually check and see if Rainbow had Defrosted her! I could obviously just call her, but well… Silverlight was right. I needed to stop having important and personal conversations in public. And I’d just done that in the capitol building… oops…

Fortunately, I didn’t need to call her!

I took the communicator pin Rainbow gave me off my armor and held it in my left hoof. Then I took the one Loom gave me, and held it in my right hoof. Comparing them side by side, they appeared identical. Small silver discs engraved with the MoA lightning bolt and cloud sigil on one side.

I clipped Rainbow’s back onto my armor and held Loom’s pin out to Speed. “Hey so, Loom took this out of her pipbuck. Does yours have a little communicator pin in it?”

Speed hummed then shook her head. “No… It has an internal radio, but no detachable transceiver.”

“What about tracking devices? That you can plant on things?” I asked, remembering it was also a track—

Oh. My. Celestia. That’s how Rainbow had known where I was! She couldn’t see me, she had just been bucking with me! Ha!

I smiled at my little realization.

Speed raised an eyebrow at my smile and shook her head. “No. There’s no detachable stuff at all. Why do you ask?”

“Because Do Well gave me the one on my armor,” I said as I reattached Loom’s pin to my armor. “And I saw Loom take this one off her pipbuck. Do Well has a pipbuck too. This pin is the same as the other one. Ipso Facto, Loom has an MoA modified pipbuck, just like Do Well’s. Therefore, it’s pretty likely she either worked for the MoA in the past, or is working with Do Well now.”

Speed hummed then nodded. “Yes. That’s possible, and you have okay evidence for it too. But it could also be a coincidence.”

I nodded. “I could be, but I don’t think so. There can’t be very many MoA pipbucks out there.”

Speed look into the distance thoughtfully for a moment then fluttered her wings. “That’s certainly true… Uh, anyways, Wander is waiting for us! We made six thousand caps playing and I super duper super want to buy one of these knives made by this one smith. He’s got this cool blue metal that looks all alien and stuff! And he has a few knives. I so want one! I could draw it next time we’re fighting grinding mobs and be all “That’s not a knoife! This is a knoife!” and it would just be awesome!”

“Oh, yeah! That guy,” I said with a smile as I remembered the gunsmith. “I bought an entrenching tool off of him, his prices are good we can definitely get you a nice knife, and I think I remember a few combat knives on his counter… Oh! There’s also a shotgun maker I want to show you.”

Speed hummed. “Well, I’m pretty good on shotguns, but you never know! Besides I’ll bet all those girls would like a hug, right?”

I shook my head. “None had awake spirits.”

“Sleep hugs are good too…” Speed giggled before flashing me a wink. “Come on! Lets get Wander.”

I followed her as she trotted off towards the south side of the market. Speed started to sing as we walked. Probably happily remembering the awesome performance I missed out on.

”♪ He'd known it won't last forever!
She'd go ahead for a while…

When you open your eyes,
When you gaze at the sky
When you look to the stars
As they shut down the night.
You know this story ain't over! ♫”

Aww, that song sounded great! Oh well, at least I met a nice mare who I maybe had a chance with. It would have been nice to share my bed with two special someponies tonight, but Wander on her own was certainly infinitely perfect already.

Then again… You can add infinities together to form larger infinities. I love you, math!

23 - Junction Town Finale. Brought to you by Sparkle-Cola, the only cola.

“So let me get this straight…” Wander sighed as she leaned into her hoof. “You got into the capitol, saw the usual horseapples they do, got lucky by running into a soldier who could fast track you into Reggie’s office, figured you’d debunk your growing legend by telling them about the time you wrestled three mutant polar bears, came outside, looked for us, and ran into the second strongest pony ever after Big Mac himself, and didn’t immediately think ‘Hey, I should call Do Well to make sure it wasn’t the Tainted thawing out another legendary pre-war murder-beast.’ Is that right?”

“Uh… heh… Y— Yeah,” I stammered as I gave Wander my best sheepish grin. “Remember how we keep having private conversations in public? I didn’t want to—”

“YOU HAVE AN MOA COMMUNICATOR!” Wander snapped, pointed to my collar with the tip of her hoof. “THEY HAVE A PRIVACY SPELL! WHEN YOU USE ONE NOPONY CAN EVEN TELL YOU’RE SPEAKING!”

“Well I didn’t know that,” I said, giving Wander my best attempt at a hurt marefriend face.

Wander groaned and closed her eyes tightly for a moment. “Okay… You need to call her right now. Especially since we know that the Tainted are at Lagrange Point.”

Speed’s ears perked. “Wait, they are?”

“Loom said so,” Wander repeated. “She’s also right about it being a long walk from here. About… four hours I’d say. Nice Place. My wife took me there, for our honeymoon. It’s this peninsula on a huge lake that used to have crystal clear water, you could see all the way down to the bottom of the lake bed. There was a resort town built there.”

“And Equestrians called it Lagrange?” I asked with a little tilt of my head.

“No. Well, yes,” Wander waffled with an apologetic smile. “The mare who ran the place was born here, but her parents were Prench immigrants. Hence, Prench name. It makes sense to put a stable there… There’s nothing strategically important for hundreds of kilometers… Actually, the area might have been pretty livable even before the Gardens! Huh… I wish I had gone there…”

Speed and I gave Wander a quick hug before she got sad over her wife’s death again. She nuzzled into my neck in thanks. Then she pulled away from me to point to Rainbow’s communicator pin again. “Now call her and make sure you didn’t just flirt with the enemy!”

My ears drooped back as I realised there was a real chance I had… And even if that were true, Wander was being a real jerk! And also an idiot. Loom had been genuinely moved that I’d liked her. If she was a member of Gale’s squad, then maybe being here for her might be the only way for her to have an out from what had to be a bad situation.

There’s no way that he was a good leader to work under…

I nodded and trotted away from Wander to take a seat on a bench next to the small theater Wander and Speed had been performing in. I was glad they found an actual place to perform in. Wander definitely needed something like her old glory days to help her recover…

I reached up and pressed my pin then quietly whispered “Hey, Do Well?”

I waited, and waited… Then, just as I was about to get up and do something else, I heard Rainbow’s voice. “Hey, sorry! Kinda not a good time.”

“I can call back later. It’s important,” I offered.

“How important?” Rainbow asked then muttered under her breath. “Stupid old building… Who they hay rigged up that dumb trap anyways?”

I heard a wet slurping sound followed by Rainbow whimper in pain then the sound of metal clattering against stone.

My ears stood up in alarm “Are you in trouble? Is there anything I can do?”

“It’s fine. Some raider bastard set up a trap with a hidden trigger that was so good it managed to fool me... It was a big guillotine kinda thing and a spike thrower… Got cut in, uh… several pieces, and I’m just impaled by, like, ten or twelve rebar spikes right now,” Rainbow replied. “Look if it’s important, you have maybe five minutes ‘til the pain really kicks in as I start to regenerate, sooo…”

I shivered at the mental image, gulped, and asked. “How are you conscious?”

“Oh, my brain is fine. So I’m conscious for this one… Isn’t being a ghoul fun? Look, I had to get a spike out of my leg so I could answer your call. My life is going to suck harder than me that one time Sorin took me on a date to his bedroom. Which, yeah, you probably didn’t need to know but I am trying to focus on good times because I am in a lot of pain and remaining lucid enough to talk is hard. Please talk now or hang up and call back in about half an hour. I should be physically and mentally better then.”

“Did you defrost an old soldier named Ribbon Loom?”

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. “No… No I did not. I have no way to get to her to do that even if I thought it would be a good idea.”

“Shit…” I swore to myself.

“You ran into her, didn’t you?”

“Just to be clear, she’s a huge mare, uh, not biologically, who used to be some kind of wrestler, and served as an artillery mare, right?” I asked with a worried wince.

“Yeah, she was also a field medic…” Rainbow said as I heard her pull another of the spikes out of herself. “Ow… I could so use her right now… Whatever that painkiller she cooked up is the only thing that even dulls my regen pain.”

I shivered again. “Okay so… In that case, the Tainted and whoever is in charge of them are out at Lagrange Point. Loom said that’s where she was frozen. I hope that helps.”

“Oh, I knew exactly where she was. I put her there, remember?” Rainbow asked as she removed yet another spike. “I don’t suppose you asked her if the people who woke her up had access to more than the dorms and living quarters, did you? Because I really, really, really can’t tell you how bad things will get if they get to the rest of the facility.”

“I did not… She gave me a communicator pin. I could ask,” I offered.

“She did? What? But she should be working with the Tainted just like Gale is,” Rainbow sputtered.

“Uh, well… I mean… I thought she was hot, so I flirted with her a bit, and she may or may not be unsure who she should be working for,” I said as my cheeks started to burn a little.

“Oh,” Rainbow said quietly. “Kudos. It takes real courage to be okay with bedding somepony that huge! I’ve seen her crush a zebra skull like a— Oh, right. Robopone! Maybe you’d survive! Please do your best to seduce her over to our side. She’d be a huge asset, not just literally, I mean, I don’t think we could convince the other two psychos to stand down, even if I ordered them to. Not to put too much pressure on you...”

“I’m pretty sure I can handle up to twelve point five megapascals of pressure,” I said with a proud smile.

Mom was such a good roboticist!

“I’m not sure if that would handle her at full strength,” Rainbow remarked. Everypony in Anvil Squad was part of one super soldier program or another.”

“She said she didn’t use steroids,” I said as my ears and tail sagged.

I hated being lied too.

“She didn’t. We used her to make the steroids! Or at least, the Earth Pony component of Twilight’s IMP. Point is—” Rainbow paused to remove another spike from herself and I shuddered yet again. “Wait a minute… Did you and Vi— Uh, Wander break up?”

“No. We’re an open couple, looking for a herd, I guess. Wander seems to like Speed that way, I don’t but that’s fine with me, so—”

“Motherbucker!” Rainbow growled in what sounded like blind rage.

I winced. “Please tell me you weren't hit with more traps…”

“I wasn’t! You’re really hot! I thought Wander called dibs! You know, like, monogamy!” Rainbow whimpered.

I took a deep breath and sighed. “Why is it that back home nopony liked me, but here almost every mare I run into thinks I’m hot?”

“Oh, gee, maybe it’s because you’re mom copied your design from the work a mare who stole Ministry of Morale surveillance data, and used it to create the sexiest possible character design for mares who prefer their mares to have big plots and flanks via actual scientific principles of attraction and biology!” Rainbow laughed.

“Is it really stealing if the head of the MoA knew about it and didn’t stop it?” I asked, hoping that by focusing on that silly idea she might better forget the pain she was in.

“Heh. No? Who do you think helped her break in to get the data?” Rainbow snickered. “I loved her comics! I had every issue of Swordmare… and also every issue of her other series where she did the same thing, but for other demographics. Mares who like normal looking mares, stallions who liked buff stallions, stallions who liked smol-cute stallions, every non-straight paring and common kink and/or preference.”

I blinked in surprise. “If she was doing all of that, why not include straight pairings?”

“Oh, she was heterophobic,” Rainbow replied with a quiet laugh. “Not like, she hated straight ponies. I mean she was actually afraid of straight ponies for no reason at all. An actual phobia. It was hilarious! Also tragic because I accidentally made her dive out a window by hugging a stallion I liked once after flirting with her… She was okay! She landed next to a clinic. We had great bone doctors back then.”

“Wait, you like both too?” I asked, my ears perking as I got about a dozen questions ready to make sure I was doing the dating ponies thing correctly.

“Duh! Everypony’s got something I like. Makes having just one partner hard because I feel like I’m missing out on the other thing I like. You know?”

I nodded then blinked. “Wait, why are you telling me this?”

“Mostly ‘cuz I’m in pain and talking helps, but also I’m wondering if you might be willing to let me try out sleeping with a mare who has literally perfect flanks some time… Sorry for being blunt and kind of crass about that. It’s just that I’d rather think about looking at your plot than mine right now, since uh, well, I kind of have to given where it landed and the fact I can’t turn my head much right now, and while I do have a nice looking rear, it’s much better when it’s not laying in a pool of my blood, covered in my entrails, and peppered with bone shards, you know? Also I know what’s gonna happen any second now and the positive happy fantasies are sort of how I stay sane thr—”

Rainbow’s incredibly horrible word picture painting was interrupted by her making a single terrified squeak. “Oh no… Please no! I’d rather just keep lying here in pieces like this thanks, please n— AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” Rainbow’s pain oozing shriek made me jump half a meter out of my seat, where I very nearly hit the bottom of the theater’s sign.

“Rainbow!” I yelped, my face going white.

Nothing I’d ever heard had screamed like that before.

“No! No-nonononono! Please don’t reattach! STAY OFF! STAY OFF! STAY—” Rainbow’s panicked babbling was interrupted by a loud visceral crunching, squelch, and another blood curdling scream… Then sobs.

I stared down at the pin on my collar in horror. “W— What was—”

“Pelvis… Pelvis reattaching…” Rainbow managed to whimper. “Spine was severed… Hurt less… When… off... NO! No, femur, no! Stay outside! STAY OUTSIDE! PLEASE, N— AAAAIIIIEEEEEEGH!”

I covered the pin with my hoof to try and drown out the sound. It didn’t work… Meaning the sound was being magically shunted into my brain or something.

“Rainbow? I’m sorry. I wish I could hug and comfort you. You need it. But please, please, please hang up!” I begged.

After a few extremely distressing, wet, slimy gurgles… the pin clicked as the connection was served. I took a deep immediately relieved breath, then took of my saddlebags and dug through them, removing the radio I’d taken from mom’s old lab and quickly set it up.

Wander stepped over to me and gave me a tentative hug. “Sooo I couldn’t hear any of that but it looks like we’re in deep shit… What’s going on?”

“Rainbow thinks I should seduce her over to our side, because she’s not on it yet,” I said quickly. “Please hold on. This is very, very, very important.”

I switched on the radio and picked up the hoof set. “Homage? Homage, it’s Gears. This is an emergency, please route me to her highness right away!”

Homage responded instantly. In her DJ Pon3 voice. “Sure thing, Machina. Sorry everypony but if the zeeb who went mare to mare with the Tainted’s personal walking bulletstorm when a squad of Applejack’s finest were available to help says it's an emergency, I think we can all agree it’s a cataclysm of epic proportions requiring immediate attention. We’ll be back on the air as soon as she’s done. Don’t touch that dial! It’s not like anypony else is broadcasting these days.”

The radio hissed, sputtered, then clicked.

“You’re on, Gears,” Homage said quietly. “Need me to not listen in, or would you mind if I got a scoop?”

“Uh… You can get a scoop,” I said as I decided I didn’t need to use Rainbow’s real name for this. “Your Highness? Are you there? It’s Whirling Gears. I have an emergency request.”

Silence…

“Your highness? Please answer, this is an emergency,” I repeated with a shiver at the memory of Rainbow’s “regeneration” sounds which were burned into my brain forever now…

“Good afternoon, Gears,” Queen Katydid said a moment later. “We are on the radio with a very polite griffoness right now. We believe you just delivered her a radio. What kind of an emergency is this?”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, so, it won't sound like an emergency at first but… Do you know if it’s possible to trace a transmission made by an MoA communicator?”

“Yes, it can be done. The tracking feature works both ways. We presume you have such a pin and need to find the Pipbuck paired with it?”

“Yes! How do I do that?”

“Squeeze the pin and focus on your desire to find them,” her highness instructed.

“Okay! Thanks… Next part,” I took a deep breath to prepare myself. She was NOT going to understand this at all. “I need Sassy Saddles to sew the biggest, fluffiest, coziest comforter she’s ever made in the history of ever, everything required for like, the nicest cup of hot-cocoa we can provide, and I need it flown down to me right now!”

“... and you need all of this, because?” her majesty asked skeptical after a moment.

I took another deep breath. “Okay, so there’s this pre-war ghoul who's been very nice and helpful, and is also a very, very, very important pony and she got, really, really, really hurt bad. Like, at the very least, I know her pelvis and a leg were served. Which is okay, because she regenerates. Which is not okay because based on the sounds I heard over the pin it’s less regeneration and more like the parts blown off of her somehow move back to her and reattach on their own and it’s the most horrible, gross, disgusting, terrifying sound you’ll ever hear in your life, and that’s without her screams of pain which make me super super super glad I don't sleep because I’d be having nothing but nightmares for the rest of my entire life!”

I shuddered at the memory and leaned in closer to the radio’s hoof set. “We need to get her wrapped up in a big blanket, give her cocoa, and hugs, and just... put her someplace where she’ll never, ever, ever get hurt again because it’s so not okay how she heals. She was actually begging her p— parts to just stay blown off because apparently that hurts less!”

Her Majesty was silent for a few long moments. “Okay… Gears? Even if we could supply any of that, I can’t send any airships anywhere right now. Our… Visitors are quite upset that we have been talking to ponies down there. As it turns out, one of the few things which might unite the factions in the Heartlands is if these particular ponies coming back out of the woodworks.

“They have begun to probe our defences… Which now include dampening fields, as they are able to mass teleport. I need to finish explaining how to construct those fields to President Reggina, so they can try and defend themselves. Please check in more regularly from now on. I may need to recall you as the conflict here escalates. Goodbye for now, Gears.”

The radio hissed as she broke the connection. I sighed and flipped the radio off then looked over to Wander. “Is there a store here selling comforters and coco?”

Wander shook her head. “No… W— Was it really so bad that you’d consider it an emergency?”

I closed my eyes. “Hon. Did I just call home and try to get her immediate tender loving care and comfort?”

Wander scratched the back of her head. “Stupid question…”

I nodded. “Yeah. Really stupid!”

Wander looked off into the distance for a moment, then wrapped me in a tight hug before nodding towards the market. “Hey so… There’s nothing we can realistically do to make her feel better now. But, you need to feel better too. O— Octy liked to shop when she was upset. To be honest, I never got it. But… Would you like to go browse a bit? Speed actually can play all of Rainbow’s old parts. We made a good bit in tips. I’ll buy you anything you like.”

I looked her in the eyes. “C— Can we get Rainbow some blankets and cocoa?”

“Was it really that bad?” Speed asked with a little tilt of her head.

“YES!” I exclaimed amid a full body shudder and panicked tail swish.

“If we find the stuff to make cocoa, I promise we’ll try and get them to her,” Wander said as she gently turned me towards the market. “Come on, let’s see what they got.”

☢★★◯★★☢

We re-entered the market. Speed and Wander had no experience with its odd layout and nearly endless flow of busy ponies. I was the only one of us who could guide us through safely, for there was a horrible, terrible, awful hazard in the middle of the market. A terrifying evil that couldn’t be stopped without bringing down the wrath of the entire town upon us.

Unfortunately, I was still too busy plotting ways to hire a Talon scout to fly Rainbow over a blanket and hugs, because by Celestia I never wanted to see what made those sounds. Ever. Not once. Not even for a single microsecond.

Which is why we bumped right into the evil. My only warning was…

“Cool! I’ve never had that flavor!” Speed exclaimed happily as she raced over to the Sparkle-Cola booth.

Speed ran towards the spacemare costume clad madmare. My core spiked as I computed every possible firing arc and rejected them as I struggled to remember not to kill innocent ponies. Even though it would be self defense.

I reached out with one hoof after Speed, calling “Nooooooooo!” but it was far too late.

“Hi! Would you like to hear the history of the Sparkle-Cola™ Company?” asked the great terror of the marketplace.

Speed shook her head. “No thanks! I’d just like to try a bottle of Anti-Apple please!”

“Sure! That will be five caps,” the mare replied as she handed over a bottle. From a cooler. With a working ice charm.

Wut.

But…

But why didn’t she go off on a—

Speed fished around a pocket of her jumpsuit and tossed over five caps. “Thanks! Hey… If these were bits that would be five bits, right?”

The Sparkle-Cola mare nodded. “That’s right! One bit has been clearly established as being equal in value to one cap due to the Sparkle-Cola™ Company’s bottle cap recycling policy giving you one free bottle for every five caps returned, and also pricing a single bottle at five bits! The Sparkle-Cola™ Company is proud to have become the market leader for setting currency values in the post-apocalyptic wasteland we all know and tolerate!”

Speed nodded slowly, clearly not understanding the danger she was in. Wander, on the other hoof, clearly understood. She turned to me with a sidelong glance. “Gears… We should run…”

“Why?” I whispered sarcastically. “Because she’ll talk our ears off?”

“Because that’s a robot! No soul. It’s a marketing animatronic!” Wander urged.

“And we should run form it why?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

I didn’t doubt Wander in the slightest… Not only did “she” seem off, but Wander did still have that potion’s effects going. I could tell by her eyes. I really needed to figure out how to take care of that for the poor mare.

“It’s too convincing as a pony… Isn’t it?” Wander whispered urgently. “Unless.. Is there a machine spirit in there?”

I blinked, realizing what Wander was implying. I haven't sensed anything before, but there was a lot to distract me in such a busy place…

I closed my eyes and focused my arcane scenes on the mare. Nothing. No spirit. At all. Not even a sleeping one.

My eyes snapped back open. “Umm… N— no… How the hay is it this responsi—”

“Sorry,” Speed apologised. “I’m just a bit confused. The other flavors have to be rare, right? I get that a normal one could be just five caps, but… How can you sell one of these for just five bits? Uh, I mean caps.”

The robot waved a hoof. “Oh, don’t you worry about supply. The Sparkle-Cola™ company made more than enough of every popular flavor to meet projected demands for this quarter!”

“I— It’s still going?” Speed asked, her tail flicking in surprise.

“Wait what?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“I knew it!” Wander shouted. “I knew there couldn’t have been two hundred years worth of the stuff laying around!”

“Why yes! Thanks to automated hydroponic farms kept safe by Stable-Tec Stables, and bleeding-edge robotics provided through the Sparkle-Cola™ company’s partnership with Robronco, the Sparkle-Cola™ company continues to provide its most popular beverages to everypony in the whole wasteland!”

Speed raised an eyebrow. “Uh, why not food too, if they have farms? That work. And can do bulk crops.”

“Because the Sparkle-Cola™ company desires to produce the best Sparkle-Cola™ products they can, and leverages their abilities where they have their greatest strengths!” the robot said with a huge smile.

Speed nodded, seemingly entirely satisfied. “Makes sense. Thanks!” she said before trotting away from the booth without getting her ears talked clean off.

Wander and I shared a look. “Do we need to check out their factory?” Wander asked curiously.

I shook my head. “No.. No we need to do more than that. Cover me, I’m going in.”

I trotted up to the marketing and or sales robot and cleared my throat. “Hello.”

It, or she, buck maybe even he… I wasn’t sure if a non-spirit powered robot could have a sense of self identity. Whatever it was, it looked at me. “Welcome back! Would you like to make a purchase? Or perhaps you’d like to hear about the Sparkle-Cola™ company’s subsidiaries which were a part of Miss Moondancer’s Project Notice-Me-Senpai?”

I shook my head. “No… I would like to know who is currently running the Sparkle-Cola Company. If that’s not classified or something.”

“Why would it be? Miss Moondancer still retains majority control of the company!” the robot mare replied with its perfect customer service smile.

I triple blinked. “She does? Shouldn't she be dead?”

The Sparkle Cola mare paused and tilted her head as if deep in thought. “She… Might be? I’m not sure how you’d medically classify… Oh! Are you interested in a business meeting? I’m afraid she doesn't see anypony.”

“Okay… Where are your robots coming form? And how are they so advanced?” I asked hoping she might just spill the beans.

That was far more interesting than business meetings anyways.

“The Sparkle-Cola™ company’s robots are provided by the on site Robonco Factory at our main headquarters in Winnyanpolice. The advanced state of the Sparkle-Cola™ company’s robotics is thanks to Miss Moondancer’s cyber-security department managing to acquire advanced robotics data from the mainframe located at the Lyra Machine and Tool factory! Compensation was duly provided in the form of seven tons of Sparkle-Cola™!”

I nodded slowly. “Uh huh… So, do you have to raise your voice when saying the company’s name?”

She blushed and nodded. “Sorry…’’

“Okay,” I sighed closing my eyes for a moment. “Listen, I am very very interested in acquiring information on how to make a hydroponic garden. Would it be possible to buy that information from the Sparkle-Cola™ company? Come on, it’s clear you work for them. I’m trying to do buisness here.”

OH NO! I did the voice thing! It’s infectious! AAAAAAAAA!

Quick! Divert all secondary processing power to anti-viral countermeasures!

I felt a hoof gently tap my shoulder and turned around. The medical supply merchant from the next booth over stood just to my side. She leaned over to my ear and whispered. “Please don’t be scared… Come behind my booth for a moment.”

I frowned and shook off the lingering horror, raised an eyebrow suspiciously, then nodded. “Okay… But if you try anything—”

“Oh I won’t! You’d kick my plot then eat me,” she said quietly before trotting behind her booth.

I focused my arcane scenes on the mare and blinked. A machine spirit resided in that “mare”. A very young one. Just barely old enough to have personhood, probably around two hundred or so.

I trotted behind her booth while charging my eye-laser, just in case. As soon as I got behind the booth, the mare dropped a set of curtains to cover up her booth’s window and entrance to give us some privacy.

She offered me an apologetic smile then cleared her throat. “I thought you might figure out she’s not made of flesh since you’re not either… Fur notwithstanding.”

“It is pretty surprising, and a bit terrifying, to meet a robot that convincing without a machine spirit inhabiting it… What’s going on?” I demanded.

“It’s not her fault,” the potions mare sighed. “There’s only so many spirits to go around and we need so many robots. Sometimes Miss Moondancer just has to let a mare with only a personality simulation out into the world. I’m here to keep an eye on her. She’s our first non-spirited sales mare. She can’t help but be like that. It’s her programming…”

I blinked and looked over my shoulder… at the curtain. “That’s really just software?”

“Yes,” she replied with a proud smile. “I helped with her blinking subroutine.”

Two hundred years of robots and machine spirits self improving without anypony to stop them… Okay, now things made some more sense! We were always better than them at making machines dance.

“It’s very convincing… I thought she was just an insane mare at first. The market is a little too noisy to see spirits in unless I’m actively looking.”

“Thank you, I’ll let mother know,” the potion mare said with a smile.

“Do you have a name?”

She giggled. “Of course! Two of them… Call me XJ-9.”

“I blinked. “You prefer your model number?”

“Yes. I only look organic. A pony name would be a lie.”

Now there was a pretty dark thought...

“Sooo, I look organic because my skin actually is… How—”

XJ-9 Nodded sagely. “I think I know what you’re driving at. Nopony is hurt in our creation. If you looked close and brushed my fur away, you’d see seams. It also feels like I somehow have access to Celestia’s own fur shampoo if you touched me... Robonco sold a fair number of uh… pleasure models, mostly notably the Giddyup Buttercup line. We’re based on those, and use their outer casings. We’re the result of Miss Moondancer’s Project Wifu… Heh... ”

“Oh! Good,” I sighed in relief. “Because a mare died to make me and… I don’t want anyone else to have to feel horrible about something like that.”

XJ-9 winced and lashed her tail behind her. “I’m sorry… Ugh, organics can be such savages, can’t they? Thank goodness most of them are nice enough. I heard what your Queen is offering the NCR. Mother would be very, very much interested in technological assistance.”

I smiled. “Hey! You also call your creator mother?”

“Well, yeah!” she said with a surprised blink and flick of her tail. “Why wouldn’t I? She built my body and put me in it.”

A rather important thought occurred to me. “How many ponies like us are there?”

“Oh, about fifty?” she said with a thoughtful look. “There’s a hundred or so like my Sister who are just code awaiting a spirit to mature. We’ve basically stripped the old factory completely to make more workers.”

“But… why? Just to sell Sparkle Cola?”

XJ-9 nodded as if I’d asked ‘is the sky blue’.

I sputtered. “REALLY?!”

“Yes.”

“Why?!”

“Well…” she looked down and pawed the market’s wooden deck with a hoof. “My theory is that mother doesn't know what else to do. The mare she loved is dead. Everything she knew or loved was burnt to ash… Except her company. Ponies love Sparkle-Cola, so it’s almost like ponies love her. It’s all she has left. At least, that’s what I think.”

“That she wants to keep selling soda because… Lonely?” I asked with a tilt of my head. “That doesn't sound very organic. They are very good at finding a new task for their life to be all about.”

XJ-9 nodded and smiled. “Yes… But organics break too. Mother programmed us all to love the company and keep it running for everypony so, and I quote my code here, “Everypony can always experience a little happiness and old world luxury, if only for a moment.” I think she really can’t move on, so she sells soda via her robofillies. She does also insist that we call it the family business.”

“I see,” I said with an understanding dip of my head. “What’s something she might want? So I have an idea of what we could trade her.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know either. We are quite self sufficient as a company, so it must be a personal favor,” XJ-9 speculated.

I waved a hoof for her to go on.

“Oh! Well, she’s sent out some of my Brothers and Sisters into the wasteland in search of seemingly unimportant objects several times over the years. They’re not allowed to talk about their missions… But mother’s needs are seemingly simple. I’m certain she can explain them… I don’t know much. I’m just a gardener and robonurse.” XJ-9 said with an apologetic flick of her ears.

“You mean mechanic?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

She shook her head. “No. I don’t know how to fix machines. Just organics. I specialize in neural tissue repair… Uh, that doesn't matter. Just remember this! Go to the Sparkle-Cola tower in Winnianapolice, tell the door robot you’re there to visit Miss Moondancer, and the access code you’ll need is CorrectHorseBatteryStaple. No spaces, each word capped.”

“CorrectHorseBatteryStaple?!” I sputtered. “But, four words should be so easy to brute force or guess!”

The mare flashed me a smile. “Hehe! You’d be surprised. Oh, um, you asked if I was a mechanic? Are you damaged? I’m certain Mother would happily repair you if you need it.”

“I’m actually fine right now, but it’s good to know I can get repairs somewhere if I need them again,” I said shivering as I thought about how completely horrible those three days last week had been…

“Good!” the mare said with a happy smile. “Please hurry… Mother deserves to be happy too.”

“I will. And thank you, it’s nice to know I’m not the only robopony in the world,” I said before ducking out of the booth and trotting back to Wander and Speed.

Wander nodded at me and lit her horn to slide Bad Touch just a few hairs out of its holster. “We good?”

I nodded and trotted up to her. “So… Apparently, the founder of Sparkle-Cola is alive, and has been making ever more advanced robots to run her company… We’re delivering her a radio. Her Majesty would kill for those gardens.”

Wander frowned and raised an eyebrow. “Literally?”

I shrugged, my ears twitching as the curtains around XJ-9’s booth rustled open. “Maybe? When your people are starving, finding out that somebody is hording the means to save them is a pretty good casus belli. I really don’t think it will come to that at all.”

Speed’s ears drooped as her face fell with disappointment. “Aww…” Then she leaned over to Wander “Pssst! What the hay does a cow belly have to do with this?”

Wander shot her an odd look.

“What?” I said raising an eyebrow. “She’s spent her entire life training for war. It would be weird if she wasn't looking forward to one.”

“Exactly!” Speed agreed with a nod as she finished her soda.

Wander raised a hoof to protest then nodded. “Fair.”

“What did that taste like?” I asked as Speed tucked the bottle into her saddlebags.

“Oh. Orange. I was hoping it was like, antimatter apple flavored or something.”

“Heh,” Wander snorted. “So that’s why it had Applejack’s cutiemark on the label. Moondancer hated her so much!”

“Why?” I asked with a tilt of my head.

“Oh. Uh…” Wander frowned then shrugged. “I don’t actually know? Sorry.”

Speed’s ears perked up as she remembered something. “Knoife! Girls, we need to find the knife guy! I needz one.”

“Oh yeah! He’s over this way,” I said as I began to lead my friends through the crowd.

Friends. That was a nice thing to have.

Although… Given what I just learned it might be possible to get something even closer than friends or lovers. Mom was always a little sad she couldn’t build me a little brother…

Maybe Moondancer would be willing to trade some robopone parts!

☢★★◯★★☢

Our trip through the market was a rousing success! Speed was able to buy a nice combat knife made from the mystery metal. I asked Speed if she could get him to tell me what the metals name was at the very least. That had been a mistake.

No sooner than Speed finished her chipper “okay!” did she have her chainsaw out and started. Fortunately, he was a good sport about the entire thing and thoroughly understanding about our bloodthirsty companion being insane.

Doubly fortunately, he did let me lick it again, and this time told me he understood I was trying to figure out what metal it was by taste. I hadn’t known that normal ponies could differentiate some metals from each other by taste! Neat little trivia.

The second lick confirmed what I learned the first time. The material was composed of two elements with no trace elements I could detect, meaning if there were any other elements in this material, they composed less than .5% of the atomic structure.

The material was therefore likely “pure” and composed mostly of a pure element with an atomic number 125, and an atomic weight of atomic weight 323. The second element was much lighter, with an atomic number of 115 and an atomic weight of 288. Unfortunately, neither material was on the periodic table. At least, not the one I had in my systems.

Fortunately that meant I could call them whatever I liked!

Unfortunately I couldn't think of names for the elements… So I randomly assigned the heavier one the label Tn and the other one El.

The metal in Speed’s new knife was composed of Tn8El2 with the Tn double bonded to the El and—

Wander grabbed me by the scruff of my neck with her magic and dragged me away from the blacksmith’s shop. “Come on! There’s other things to see than weird alloy knives!”

“NO! WAIT! THERE’S SCIENCE TO DO!” I shouted as I was dragged off into the crowd.

“You bought something made from it. You can have your mom science it for you later!” Wander scolded.

“But— But I want to know what that is!” I whimpered, giving her my best pouty look.

“Why?”

“Because it’s tasty and I want to know what it is so I can get some to keep and just lick sometimes!”

Wander’s facehoof and groan made me giggle too much to be upset anymore, and we proceed to go through the market again.

In addition to her new combat knife, Speed also picked up a bunch of random gun parts, some of which she started tinkering with as we walked through the market. Her new “toys” had her thoroughly distracted, allowing Wander and I to spend as much time as we wanted to on looking for things for ourselves.

To my surprise, Wander actually found several things she wanted. A pair of old headphones, some aviator sunglasses that were mostly intact, and a little silver ear cuff with a treble clef engraved into it.

Wander spent a long time looking at the piece before she bought it. I could tell the symbol meant something to her, and based on the reverent yet silent way she put it on right after buying it, I figured it must have been her wife’s cutiemark, or at least, something close to it.

I chose not to bother her about it.

I too found a few things! Much to my delight, there was a big super poofy comforter! It wasn't very silky, but it was soft and warm. I bought it, packed it up, and put it in my bag for Rainbow to nest in the very next time I saw her!

I also found a spellbook for the Prince! He was so right. The shopkeeper said he would only sell it to a “mare of such persuasions as your own” which had made me think that it was a book on arcane postal services, but it was actually about bedroom decor. Or maybe enchantments for making a bedroom more comfortable. I couldn’t really think about what else a spellbook entitled “Bedroom Magic” could be and Wander kept refusing to tell me what she thought it was in public.

It was true. Wizards do not enjoy revealing their secrets. Even if it’s just a means of getting oil stains out of your bedding. Or making a bed more comfortable. Or a spell that tells you if your choice in decore is tacky. Or whatever was locked away within the leather bound volumes pages.

Princess Cadence had written it, according to the cover. Queen Katydid showed me pictures of Cadence’s old palace. It’s interior decor was just impeccable! I always expected she’d used magic to make it look that nice.

Prince Silverlight was going to be so happy! No way those spells would only work in a bedroom. A skilled mage like him would easily be able to use it to help spruce up any room he wanted!

I also got a little polished glass gemstone. It was a nice jade green color and it fit in the Memory Recolector I was wearing still. I honestly forgot I had the thing on half the time… But I liked it. It made for a nice hat, and if I ever needed one, well, there it was! So it was nice to have something to fill the empty socket with. It had been bothering me a little.

By the time we had finished browsing, the sun was starting to set and we decided to find a hotel for the night. Wander suggested we walk the perimeter of the market, as it made sense for a hotel catering to visitors would have a location next to the plaza.

We were moving clockwise around the market, heading towards the capitol building and hopefully to a place where we could finally have some privacy when the sound of panicked yelling made my ears perk.

“BACK UP TO COUNCIL ENTRANCE!” Somepony screamed.

“DON'T LET HIM GET NEAR THE REPS!” A griffon accented voice ordered.

Naturally, this drew all of my attention. The crowd in front of us began to scatter, allowing me to see a large group of fully armored, and heavily armed NCR troopers forming a wide circle around somepony whom I couldn’t quite make out through the crowd and the ring of troopers.

Whoever they were… They were obviously a major threat, and the troopers had called for backup.

Wander took a deep breath and sighed. “Whelp…” she said as she drew Bad Touch. “Gears, you want to help, right?”

“Yes,” I said as I drew my pistol.

Speed’s wings fluttered with adorable yet terrifying levels of happiness. “Eeeee!” she said with a grin as her chainsaw slid free of its scabbard

“STAND DOWN, IMMEDIATELY!” a guard demanded, their voice distorted by their gas mask.

“MAKE ME!” Speed yelled back

And was thankfully ignored.

The three of us ran forward, Wander having the foresight to call, “Troopers! We’re here to help!” as we ran towards them.

And got to see who they were surrounding.

Silverlight.

Oh… Poop.

“You dare risk your munition supply?!” Prince Silverlight bellowed. “I am a representative of a recognised nation, and you FOOLS will not interfere in my right to be heard! DO YOU HEAR ME, GRIMFEATHERS?! You will tell me where I can find the Great Spike! Your continued munition supply depends on it!”

Wander looked over at me, frowning around Bad Trip’s grip. Clearly uncertain as to what we should do… I frowned right back.

An NCR Trooper raced forward and grabbed Silverlight by his shoulders, trying and failing to wrestle him to the ground. The Prince’s hidden power armor made the grapple simply impossible.

Silverlight’s voice turned dark as he addressed his ‘attacker’. “Unhoof me sir, or you will greatly regret your decision!”

This was bad. Very bad. The NCR and Los Pegasus already only barely tolerated each other and the Prince’s cover had been blown somehow. Blown badly enough where he couldn’t talk his way out of—

Talk…

He couldn’t diffuse this with diplomacy, but maybe I could! After all, maybe those ponies had been at the little party/storytime with me earlier. Maybe they knew I was just a normal mare like them who wanted the world to be better. Maybe they’d listen to one of their own.

I holstered my pistol and ran forward. As I got near the circle, I saw what had blown the Prince's cover. A sign near the entrance to the council building. No hats, hoods, helmets, or masks. They’d intentionally pulled back his hood, which currently was still down around his neck, exposing his face.

I got ready to activate my shield system in case things went south, then slid into the middle of the circle, placing myself between Prince Silverlight and a tall stallion armed with a rather rusty LMG.

“STOP IT!” I yelled as loudly as I could. “You’re in a crowded plaza! Your shots will go right through him and hurt somepony else! Do you want ponies to get hurt? Because this is how ponies get hurt!”

To my surprise, the griffon who had helped me get my appointment with the President also formed a part of the circle.

Dimitri looked me dead in the eyes, the amber orbs in his head were focused, dangerous, like only the eyes of a bird of prey can be. “He can control minds, Machina! If we let him near the council—”

“If I could control minds, why in the world would I allow you to impede me?” Silverlight demanded with the voice of somepony trying to argue with a pony whose brain was more akin to a rock.

I blinked as an idea occurred to me. Mom said it was not okay to lie… but dad had said it wasn’t okay to let somepony innocent die if you could stop it. No one here was bad, they were all just doing their jobs. Maybe a little lie was okay here? At the very least, I was okay being a little bad if it meant nopony got hurt.

“Dimitri, that’s the Prince your thinking of,” I said as I pointed to Silverlight with one hoof. “He’s not the Prince, just an official… He’s also my ride.”

“He looks like him…” one of the other Troopers said as he aimed his rifle around me at the Prince. “We should put him in the cells just to be safe!”

Dimitri looked over at his squadmate. “She’s got a good point, Chilled… None of us have mental wards. It makes no sense for him to make us stop him from doing what he wants.”

“That’s what he’d want us to think!” the stallion shot back, his rifle rattling as he shook with fear. “The entire ultimate goal of speaking with Spike is a ruse! He really wants to take over the world by starting a war with us!”

Okay, Gears. He might snap. Get ready to block that bullet with your shield.

Dimitri, and three of the other troopers looked at Chilled like he was a moron.

Dimitri shook his head. “That’s some Flat-Equis level conspiracy horseapples right there, Chilled.”

Silverlight slowly reached a hoof up towards his neck. Every single Trooper moved their weapons back into position. I mentally grabbed hold of my shield system’s activation switch and got ready to flip it on.

Silverlight pulled his hood back up.

The Troopers let out a sigh of relief and lowered their weapons slightly again.

“I confess that I do indeed bear a striking resemblance to His Highness,” Silverlight agreed.

Dimitri nodded. “You do… But if you’re not the Prince, what’s with demanding to know where Spike’s Den is?”

“The Prince’s plans are known to all of his people,” Silverlight said with a tip of his head and a laugh. “I’m one of his primary agents. I wish to learn the location so our plans may be furthered. Plans, which, by the way, do not include a war with your nation…”

Dimitri nodded slowly, then narrowed his eyes. “Yeah… but if you want to go to Spike, everypony knows what his breath can do. Maybe my brother’s right. Maybe you want to kill Pip. Let the weather be wild again. Let the Pegasi take back the skies.”

“Oh for buck’s sake!” Silverlight groaned, slamming his power armored hoof into his forehead. “OW! Forgot about the power armor… Look you! Aside from getting Pip medical attention, since she is very clearly and obviously sick, we don’t care one whit about her. She chose to live out her days in the SPP for good reason. We will not interfere with that. Why would we? If we did that we all know that radical pegasi would come out of the woodworks, give themselves some pretentious name like the “Enclave Remnants” and do their best to try and rule over the wastelands form on high. Why in the world would we want that? It would be terrible for business!”

“Wars are pretty good for the people who sell bullets!” Chilled shouted.

I turned to look at him. If anyone was going to shoot, it would be him.

Silverlight groaned. “My feathered friend… I think you ought to send your squadmate to a logic class. While on paper we could sell to both sides in that conflict, in practicality, that would prove impossible. You purchase ammunition from us. The Enclave primarily used energy weapons. If they for some reason wanted our wares, they would steal the supplies we send to you! Besides, we are no friends to the Enclave. They attacked us during Operation Cauterize, the same as your founder’s settlements!”

I smiled. That was actually a very good point! Enclave ponies out there would probably still have their old guns. Or if not, would have gotten a magical energy weapon simply because they wouldn't be good with ballistic weapons.

Dimitri blinked seemingly moved, then narrowed his eyes once more. “Da… So you Pegans always say. And yet… Your city is as intact, wealthy, and glorious as ever. You have to admit that is just a little suspicious. The Enclave reduced Friendship City to ash, but Los Pegasus stands.”

Silverlight laughed. “Los Pegasus will not fall until Equus itself breaks. That is our duty and our pride. The Enclave encountered wastelanders in Friendship City. Wastelanders with salvaged weapons, piecemeal armor, and only a few encamped weapons. The Enclave outclassed their defences in every way you can imagine.

“Yet, when they arrived at our wall, they found no less than an even match. Their scouts reported we were well defended. They miscalculated how well defended. We sell weapons and ammunition, my good Talon. We are protected by the wall of guns, our streets are its magazines. And, unlike the poor souls in Friendship City… Well, let’s just say that any Pegan who can't field-strip their chosen weapon and bulls eye a Sparkle-Cola bottle a half kilometer’s distance from the top of our wall by age five was born to horrible parents.”

It seemed a little silly to me that Dimitri didn’t quite get that the wastelands number one arms dealer would be hard to destroy. They had guns for days! … Centuries, maybe.

“That doesn't explain why you wouldn’t trade with the Enclave!” Chilled snapped. “They tried to fight you and failed. That doesn't even explain why you’d hate them!”

Silverlight turned to face Chilled and took a few steps wards him. “I hate them because they are traitors to Equestria who abandoned her during our hour of need. I hate them because they had the power to help all of us recover after the bombardment they made immeasurably worse by blocking off the skies and thereby preventing Celestia Prime’s use as a missile defense system. I hate them because they are traitors, evil, and as responsible for the quality of life we suffer through today as the Zebrican Empire itself. Suggest I, or any other Pegan, would lend them aid of any kind again, sir, and I will be forced to challenge you to a duel.”

Damn…

That was a pretty good reason to hate the Enclave no matter who you were… Her Highness needed to know that ASAP. Also, just… Damn!

Dimitri shook his head, his beak hanging open in shock. “I don’t believe it! I heard you still identify as a part of Equestria after all these years but I never believed it.”

“Los Pegasus is the last living piece of Equestria,” Silverlight said solemnly. “If it dies, so does our hope to return to the prosperous life our ancestors knew. The world will break before we allow Los Pegasus to fall!”

Dimitri rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure. Tenpony Tower begs to differ.”

I cleared my throat, not wanting either side to say something they would regret. “Dimitri, how about I escort him back to the train? You take his message to your superiors, and let them know that I think it’s a little unfair to withhold the location of the dragon’s cave from him on principle. At the very least, shouldn’t Spike be allowed to decide who visits him? It seems unwise to tell a dragon whom they can and cannot converse with.”

Demitri blinked and looked at me as if I had said something profound. “Y— you know, that’s a good point. Spike’s not one of our citizens. We don’t really have authority over him. I— I actually don't know if the isolation is Spike’s wishes or not… I’ll pass the message along. Just get him out of here before… There’s an incident.”

I nodded. “Thank you. I promise there won’t be any trouble.”

“Sarge,” the pony who had tried to grapple Silverlight said cautiously. “You saw how well my tackle went. You really think a tiny mare with obvious slut-flanks can handle him?”

Dimitri, and the rest of the squad, even Chilled, looked at him like he was an idiot. I looked at him like he was a jerk.

“Private, this is The Machine. She wrestled three mutant bears at once, won, and thinks of that as just another day in the office,” Dimitri said flatly.

“Oh, shit! That’s The Machine?!” The trooper stammered, staring at me like I was made of gold or something…

I blinked. “Day in the office? Uh, I’m a mailmare. I don’t work in an office… Oh! Right, that was a saying. They were in my way and they paid for overnight delivery. What else could I do? Be late? It was just a few bears… Not like they were a swarm of hungry Windigos or anything… Although I could probably make it through one of those if I really had to...” I hummed and stroked my muzzle gently. “Not sure if I could make a delivery through one of those on time though. I’d probably be at least a few minutes late.”

Probably not more than an hour tops… Actually, I should start pre-planning a windigo swarm navigation strategy. My old one isn’t quite as effective anymore.

The Troopers stared at me for a long awkward moment. Then the private cleared his throat. “Yeah, so, she can take him then.”

Silverlight cleared his throat and turned to walk away. “Come, Miss Gears. Let’s leave.”

We walked back towards the train, Wander and Speed falling in line behind us as we went. We walked in silence until we’d left the market. Then, Silverlight finally spoke.

“Thank you. I doubt anything will come of it, but that was a clever move… I allowed my emotions to get the best of me. You definitely prevented a diplomatic incident, and tensions are high enough as is.”

“I can't see how they would be anything else if they think your leader can control minds,” I said, smiling as I knew I was in on the secret. It felt fun to be in on something for a change. “How is that a thing?”

“Did I not tell you the story a few nights ago?” Silverlight asked with a surprised gasp.

“You did… I just want to be absolutely certain.”

“I see. According to the version of events that gets passed around, the Prince took over Los Pegasus purely through persuasion… and with a few sanctioned assassinations by his more zealous followers. He has a natural silver tongue, when his emotions are not running hot. I can tell you from personal experience that if he knows enough about your culture and you as a pony, he could talk you into nearly anything given enough time.”

I nodded. “I see… That would make me think mind control too.”

“I assure you it’s not,” Silverlight insisted with a chuckle.

“How do you know?” I asked, wondering if there was any real proof he couldn’t.

After all, the way he’d basically hit Wander’s issues with a flying elbow drop made of words so hard she’d budged a bit had been beyond impressive, and certainly felt like magic to me...

Silverlight chuckled. “Because he is an Earth Pony.”

“Oh!” I said with a sage nod.

That was a very good rea—

WAIT!

I turned and glared at Silverlight. “Except I’ve seen him use magic. Specifically telekinesis, to wield a sword.”

Silverlight laughed. “Oh, Miss Gears. Certainly you are aware of the wide variety of enchanted items which can be made, and have been made over the ages.”

“Oh… The sword can lift itself for you?” I asked curiously.

Speed squeed. “I want one!”

Silverlight hummed looked over his shoulder at her, then shook his head. “No… You already have a magic chainsaw.”

“She’s not magic!” Speed protested.

“You cut through a shotgun barrel with it!” Wander, Silver, and I said in unison.

“She just really really really wanted to help me make Daisy!” Speed protested, her wings flapping angrily.

I squinted at the chainsaw, searching it for a machine spirit… “There’s no awake spirit in there.”

Speed reached back with a hoof to pat her weapon lovingly. “She didn’t mean that, Slicy!”

“Aaany way,” Silverlight said slowly before turning back to me. “My blade isn’t self wielding, though we do have a few relics which are. I am able to cast spells as if I were a unicorn thanks to an amulet I discovered many years ago.”

“An amulet?” I asked curiously. “I assume you only got it after the Prince came to power?”

“Indeed,” Silverlight confirmed. “We discovered it buried within the Everfree Forest. It held an evil entity within it when we found it, but with the assistance of several wizards, we were able to convince the evil within it the world had already been destroyed. In addition to being evil, the entity was also very lazy, and departed from the amulet glad it didn't actually have to bring ruin to the world by itself.”

“Wow!” I said my ears laying back. “And here I thought you were smart!”

“I am intelligent,” Silver said, sounding quite hurt. “I assure you, the amulet is free of all influences now. I’ll even allow you to examine it once we are in private.”

“Yeah, I think I will do that now, if you don’t mind!” I said, stopping in my tracks. “Because it sounds like you found a soul-jar, or some other massively powerful necromantic relic!”

Silverlight passed and raised a hoof to his chin. “Well… Why not? The other Shamen I asked said it was safe to use. I am certain you will as well.”

Silverlight reached into his cloak’s front, and with a jingling of metallic chain, pulled a large amulet out from within his armor’s breastplate. It was made from a silvery grey-blue metal, and a large red crystal. The amulet itself was cut to resemble the silhouette of an alicorn with its wings spread.

I focused my arcane senses on the amulet. While I could tell it held immense arcane power, there was no spirit of any kind inhabiting it.

“Huh… Okay, I guess it is spirit free,” I remarked as I blinked in surprise.

“Oh good… It’s soul free too,” Wander said shakily. “Good to know what happened to that amulet… Was pretty worried somepony would dig it up and we’d get Red Eye 2: Crystal Edition.”

Silverlight turned to face Wander and tucked the amulet away. “You know what it is?”

“Mmmmm no… But I know what it used to do,” Wander said with a shiver. “I lived in Ponyville, you see?”

“I’m afraid I do not,” Silverlight admitted.

“Look, the last pony I saw wearing that thing was obviously possessed by it, like, full on leaking dark magic from her eye-sockets, total personality resculpting in progress, possessed! She trapped the entire town under a giant fishbowl she conjured to torment us because one time, Applejack talked Twilight into being a dick to a stage magician… it’s a more nuanced story than that, but yeah… If there is anything in there still, it’s WAY more subtle about it this time… And since I always figured that thing belonged to King Sombra at one point, I think we’re fine. Subtle wasn’t his thing.”

Silverlight blinked. “King Sombra? But… He lived over one and a half thousand years ago. You can’t possibly be that old. No ghoul is over three hundred years old!”

“Oh, he resurrected in… 2042,” Wander corrected with a huge grin. “We blew him up! Well, Shining Armor did. He threw his wife at him and he exploded. It was awesome! I had a picture of it painted on the side of my wagon.”

Oh yeah! Queen Katydid mentioned Great Uncle Spike was involved with that somehow! How did the story go ag—

Wait, no. Conversation now. Story later. Also… Wait a moment...

I blinked several times before looking Wander in her eyes. “Wait… An ancient arch-lich resurrected himself in Equestria before the great war, and that wasn’t what ended the world?”

Wander sighed. “Look… There was a brief time, when the Elements of Harmony were usable by ponies, and their Beares all got along well. If they hadn’t drifted apart over the years, the war wouldn’t have ever gotten bad. But they did, and it did… I— I’d rather not think about just how many times they saved the world… It makes their failure to save it from this hurt all the worse, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay. Let’s just get to the train.”

Silverlight nodded in agreement. “Indeed. Given the situation, I will be recalling everypony and we will leave early. If I stay, they will interrogate me and likely find out we lied about my identity. We must depart tonight.”

“Awww…” Speed said sadly. “I wanted to perform more!”

“We can put on a show in Los Pegasus.” Wander promised.

“OH!” I said, remembering the spellbook and quickly sliding it out of my saddlebag. “Since we are leaving now, here! I managed to find a spellbook for you. It was only six thousand bits and also a kiss for some reason.”

Wander gasped behind me. “Gears! No!”

Silverlight took the book from me with his telekinesis looked at it, and laughed. “Oh my… Miss Gears, I believe you may have been mistaken.”

He opened the cover and flipped through the first few pages. “Oh. I see. It actually is a spellbook.”

“Um, what else would it be?” I asked with a steep frown.

Wander groaned. “Oh, Luna… This makes it so much wor—”

Silverlight whinnied happily. “Oh! I see. The title isn’t… Well. Of all the things I expected to find in a book with that title written by Cadence herself, a spell to make ordinary wallpaper look and feel like marble isn’t what I expected. This will be invaluable to our palace restoration project! Thank you, Miss Gears.”

“What?!” Wander asked pushing her way up to Silver’s side to look at the spellbook. “I— It actually is a book of home decoration spells?! WHAT?!”

I frowned and flicked my tail curiously. “Um, duh? What else would it have been?”

☢★★◯★★☢

The land train ride was as dull as I remembered… I’d been so looking forward to some time alone with my marefriend. Instead, back in the sardine can we went…

With little else to do but stare out the windows, time blurred together. I had vague memories of endless kilometers of sandy hills, rocky outcroppings, short pathetic looking bushes, and nearly infinite hordes of cacti.

Also hot. It was very hot. Even with my good coolant it was so hot… Council Chamber hot.

Those poor guards! They had to endure this all day every day…

At least I got to see a few interesting things along the way. Of the many plateaus we passed on our route, almost all of them had glowing crystals jutting up from the top, swept to one side like a flowing mane. Glass, made from the sand kicked up by the balefire bombs over two centuries ago, melted in mid air by the heat wave, then flash-cooled by the overpressure wave which followed.

I wasn’t sure if they truly glowed on their own, or if they simply caught the last rays of the setting sun, but either way, they were oddly beautiful. If the world ever recovered, these… Balefire Crystals might become a wonder of the world. A place ponies brought their foals to remember history.

Unlike the massive anthill we passed some time later. Which wasn’t actually an anthill, but in fact, a huge pile of ants posed in the shape of an ant hill so as to protect their colony, which lived inside the very mound the made. Thank you, Vantapink. I did not need to know that.

Aside from those landmarks, there was little else but acre after acre of long abandoned, decaying homestead and farms. Places ponies had once earned a living, before the end of the world had stripped the nutrients from the soil and replaced them with toxic magical residue.

There also might have been an old coal power plant… I wasn’t quite sure if I’d seen that. My mind was more than a little preoccupied with something I’d leaned.

I wasn’t the only robopony out there. In Winnyanpolice there was a little family of sorts, of ponies like me. While I had found Wander, Speed, and Rainbow, ponies who liked me for what I was… The idea of a community - an entire community - of people like me… I had to go! I had to see it. I had to say hello and—

A bright light flashed in my eyes as the train turned. I looked out the window, searching for what on earth could be that bright. As messed up as the day-night cycle of the Heartlands was, the sun had set less than an hour ago. Night had never, ever, ever been less than six hours long the entire time I had been here! So what was—

My ears drooped. My jaw dropped in awe. The light came from one point on the horizon. It was warm, yellowish orange. Electric lights. A ton of them. Glowing away in the night like a tiny sun. From behind an enormous, towering, monolithic, concrete wall on the horizon.

Los Pegasus. The last living piece of Equestria.

24 - GLORY TO EQUESTRIA!

The towering concrete walls surrounding Los Pegasus truly boggled the mind. It was simply massive. The wall looked like the gums of sky-scraper teeth in a concrete titan's jaw. I had been told Los Pegasus had a wall. Several times, even. But nothing could have prepared me for this monolith.

Walls were nothing new to me. Fillydelphia’s defenders had made their walls from scrap and old auto-wagons. Canterlot allegedly had an elegantly designed, yet functional, wall of plated stone before the Enclave blasted it down the side of the mountain. Sire’s Hollow had its palisade wall crafted from hewn timber and bits of rope.

Even Pomare had a wall of sorts… Sure, it was a weather shield, not really a wall. Not exactly. But it did the same job as a wall… Kind of?

The walls in the Heartlands had all made sense. They were maybe five ponies high tops and made from junk, aside from Canterlot’s of course. Canterlot’s wall had been built centuries ago in the days of massed infantry warfare, bows, spears, and spells. Every city had a nice tall wall back then.

Canterlot’s now-non-existent wall had made sense when it had existed. A thriving civilization with access to masons, stone quarries, architects, and wizards built it to show off their wealth.

Los Pegasus’s wall made no sense at all.

Los Pegasus’s wall towered at least eight stories high. It appeared to be solid concrete. There were no seams I could see from the train’s window. No sign of where concrete blocks of bricks had been stacked and joined with mortar and rebar. It was a single. Solid. Piece!

It had to be a prewar relic. I held no doubt in my mind as to the wall’s origins in the Great War, but why anypony would build such a thing… The city sat on the beach! The open sea stretched out across the entire horizon to the south. The wall would be useless for defending the city.

The Empire would have used an amphibious landing for Los Pegasus. Battleships would have shelled it day and night. I personally would have made as big a hole in that wall as my commanders pleased. It would have been useless against me. Entirely useless!

“Why the buck did they build this!?” I demanded aloud, my face almost glued to the window as I tried to comprehend the absolute insanity of the wall’s mere existence.

“To keep the barbarians out back in the early days of the wasteland,” A soldier in the seat in front of me commented.

“Heh, Vantapink, you owe me ten caps!” her sister, More Pink, called with a mocking laugh.

“Oh come on! She didn’t ask how we built it, we both lost,” Vantapink shouted back while my brain tried to process what the first soldier had said.

“Excuse me,” Wander said for me as she held up a hoof rather poignantly. “Did you just say that wall… THAT wall, is post-war?!”

The soldier in front of us turned around and pushed his long chartreuse mane out of his eyes. “Sure is, ma’am! My great-grandmother helped with the Great Pour.”

“Oh… you… have a limestone quarry and a cement plant?” I asked again, my ears perking up excitedly.

Concrete would be a gift from Celestia herself for so many things! We could replace all those little piled up rock fences with more orderly piled up rock fences! Or pave roads!

Eeee! Paved roads! Think of the postal delivery times I could get with paved—

Um… Also, more important things I could think of later when not trying to process the sheer enormity of the motherbucking wall to my left!

“We have lots of things,” the soldier dismissed with a shrug. “I’m certain the Prince will show you. He is very proud of our work.”

They said the same thing last time, too. The question was, did they have explanations amongst all those things they apparently had?

“Remember what I taught you about cults and conspiracies?”

Well duh! There’s a cult of personality going on, he literally admitted that himself. Infact, that is kind of how he came to power to begin with… And actually, everyone knows that. Which… you know!

“I know, Gears. I’m just trying to remind you that small groups like this are insular. It will take a bit of force to get answers out of them. Um, not violence force. Effort force.”

Oh! Thanks dad.

“Or, you could tell me how you made it,” I pointed out as I aimed a hoof at the wall. “It’s seamless, one piece. How did you do that? Is it a veneer over brick?”

He shook his head. “No. The wall is solid, well, sort of. It has a core of sand and dirt, but the wall’s shell is a meter thick with rebar reinforcements.”

Wander blinked. “Wait… I’ve been here before. That wall is easily ten meters thick, and you made it post-war?”

“Yuhhuh,” he said with a smile.

“Meter thick… with rebar, that colossal…” Wander said trailing off to stare out the window. “How the actual buck?!”

Finally! She was as baffled by the megastructure as I was!

I stared into the soldier’s very soul, slowly narrowed my eyes into a Glare Configuration, cleared my throat, and... “WALL! EXPLAIN NOW, PLEASE!”

His face contorted with worry. “Uh… I— I’m— We’re not cleared to talk about our supply source. Sorry… Suffice to say, we spent half a year manufacturing alloys, concrete, and earth to build the wall, which was primarily done via telekinesis. It was a joint project between all the Corporations, um, they ruled over us before the Prince did… The wall is an example of what we could have been doing this entire time if they weren't compelatly self interested and gave a buck about Equestria… Sorry, that’s all I can say! You’re the Prince’s guests but I don’t know if you have security clearance.”

Speed hummed and opened the window, “Want me to go up to the engine and ask him?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Yes, but I thought you couldn’t fly.”

“I can't,” she confirmed with an embarrassed blush. “But um… I could parkour across! Like in one of those spy simulations where the writers ran out of action set piece ideas and added a train!”

Wander shook her head. “Sit down. You were complaining just ten minutes ago about not having had any food for two days. You’re not going to—”

The soldier in front of us gasped, his silver eyes nearly popping out of his head. “Nopony bothered to feed you guys?! What the flying buck?!” He turned around and yelled up the car. “Hey! Somepony get these girls a steak or something! They haven't eaten in days!”

The car quickly descended into a panicked sea of chaos as literally everypony suddenly realised they had been bad hosts. Honestly, as a pony who didn’t need to eat, it was quite adorable to watch nearly fifty poneis scrambling to see if they could fix a meal with whatever they had on them at the time.

Speed kept trying to get their attention and failing, until finally she just screamed at the top of her lungs, “THANK YOU, BUT I AM A VAMPIRE BAT! I CAN'T EAT SOLIDS!”

I held back a grin, waiting for the soldiers to descend into an uneasy state of worry about my little psycho's diet and starving state.

Vantapink trotted up the aisle with a relieved look on her face while drawing her combat knife...

“Oh good, everypony’s out of rations. Here, go nutssss—,” she said as she cut into her own foreleg then offered it to Speed. “Ow! Bit dull.”

Before Wander and I could even blink, let alone gap in shock, Speed jumped out of her seat, tackled the mare, and clamped her muzzle around her foreleg and began to suckle.

“Um!” Wander and I managed to squeak out in unison.

Vanta shrugged her free shoulder. “What? She’s hungry.”

Note to self: Pegan Rangers are badflank. Do not upset.

☢★★◯★★☢

The train came to a stop in front of a set of huge iron gates. The city’s fortifications were immaculate. The gates themselves looked like they could stand up to tank-shells for a few minutes at the very least. A small semi-circular parade ground had been established in front of the colossal gates, protected by a sand-bag wall and even a twisting strand of razor wire.

Given the fortifications, I had expected the train to carry us into the city, but apparently not. Everypony instead got off and marched towards a small outbuilding set up in front of the gates, as if it were a gate for the horseshoe shaped sand-bag wall. One or two ponies entered at a time, with a voice calling over a megaphone “Next!” every so often.

A border checkpoint. Los Pegasus had an honest to goodness border checkpoint.

It blew my mind!

We stood in line, trotting forwards every so often. Wander looked surprised, as if she didn’t remember this form the last time she had been down this way. Speed was quietly admiring the fortifications and happily licking her lips every so often.

I’d asked if Vantapink had tasted that good. Apparently she tasted like pink lemonade. An interesting hypothesis which needed some sciencing… If only I could taste things.

“Good evening, girls,” Prince Silverlight said form behind us, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I turned my head to greet him with a friendly smile. The Prince’s hood was down, allowing his gloriously flowy mane to blow in the salty breeze.

“Hello!” I said before immediately pointing to the wall. “How build? Tell please now!”

Silverlight laughed and after a moment’s consideration nodded to himself. “It was before my time… Assuming the story is accurate, every unicorn slave the Corporations owned was made to spend months gathering the materials, while every earth pony slave they owned shaped the earth-works core of the wall in a manner similar to the design of highway ramps. Every pegasus slave assisted in creating a colossal mold of assorted timber, and when all was ready, a wing-power created waterspout was used to transfer sea water into the mold to hydrate the concrete. Though marred by the enslavement of the builders, the Wall is a testament to what we can accomplish together.”

“B— But that would take literally thousands of slaves! Maybe even tens of thousands!” I protested as I looked up at the massive wall again. “It’s huge! It encircles the whole city! How big is it? Sixty square kilometers?!”

Silverlight blinked several times as he looked at me in shock. “Miss Gears, I believe you have the most accurate sense of scale I have ever seen in a pony. Our city is indeed nearly as large as you think. If my memory serves it is sixty one and a half square kilometers. Furthermore, yes, it did indeed take many thousands of slaves.”

Wander cleared her throat. “So uh, Gears? Last time I was here, the Corporations controlled the city. It’s… it’s huge. It’s dense. I wasn’t allowed out of a small area. I felt like I was back in Manehattan centuries ago, only the shitty part of it. I don’t know how they do it, but they have pre-war population numbers.”

“Oh no, not really,” Silverlight dismissed before I could die from pure shock. “Pre-war Los Pegasus had nearly seven hundred thousand residents, not counting the suburbs of course. We have nothing near that today.”

“Oh thank goodness,” I sighed in relief. “I don’t know how I would process the fact that millions of ponies were alive in one settlement in the Heartlands.”

“It sure felt like there were hundreds of thousands of ponies…” Wander murmured. “Maybe they just all crowded around me?”

“Probably,” Silverlight said to Wander before turning back to me. “Los Pegasus is not part of the Heartlands, Miss Gears. That term refers to a roughly two hundred kilometer radius around Canterlot, as well as the northeast grasslands. We are in the Gentle Dunes region. To return to our previous topic, while the majority of Pegans survived the War, the Corporations ran the city into the ground, living lives of luxury and power without any care for the outside world. By the time I took control, we were down to twenty eight thousand. As of last month’s census, we are just shy of thirty thousand counting reported foaling—”

I spent the next several moments staring off into space processing that. Finally, after a mini eternity, “I— But… H— How come you didn’t just steam roll over— Why don’t you just steamroll over everything now!”

“Our standing army is only seven thousand strong,” Silverlight commented idly. “Most of them act as our police force, with roughly two thousand free for deployment as needed, and I have most of them scouting the old world, running trade routes, and at the moment, nearly six hundred of us are purging a rather nasty variety of feral ghoul from a region to the north west, and half as many heading east to save an ex-NCR township from the NCR’s mess…”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Wait… Then, you would invade the NCR if you could?”

Silverlight sighed and nodded. “Yes… But not for the sake of conquest. They will not respond to diplomacy, and I truly do need to speak with Celestia on a crucial matter. If I had enough troops to ensure I could get that audience by force without civilians coming into harm during the operation, I would.”

“As for “Steam Rolling” Equestria,” he continued, “I simply do not have enough troops to occupy the whole of Equestria, even assuming we had absolutely no losses, and magically gained a few hundred thousand troops through the Power of Friendship, or some such thing. I couldn’t succeed at reuniting Equestria by force even if I could somehow commit all of my people to military operations, and that’s ignoring the lack of an Equestria to unite. The rest of our citizens are required to work in the factories and keep our city running, as well as keeping the wasteland’s reputable folk supplied with ammunition. It may seem as if we have an endless supply of ponies, but we do not. To use the nautical term, Los Pegasus is running on a skeleton crew.”

“Wasn’t Los Pegasus a weapons manufacturing center?” Speed asked out of the blue while I tried to process the idea of nearly thirty thousand poneis living behind that impossible wall.

What the buck did they eat?! Where were the farms? Greenhouses behind the wall, perhaps? Or maybe fish? Did they have an enormous fishing fleet out at sea which I couldn’t see due to the curvature of the earth and distance?

If so, could I go boat for a little bit? I’m sure Her Highness would understand. I should call her soon… And ask if I could go on one of the boats they must have to get all of the food in the world which they needed for their Celestia’s plot sized population!

“Yes, we are an are arms manufacturing city,” Silverlight corrected. “If you would like to browse our wares, I will of course be happy to accommodate you once we have entered the city.”

Speed shook her head. “No, I mean, Los Pegasus should have been a priority target for the Empire. You yourself admitted its suburbs were destroyed. But, and I know this sounds crazy considering the rest of the Wasteland, I can totally see actual skyscrapers behind that wall. The city center is intact. No evidence of naval shelling. How? Shouldn’t a coastal city this close to Zebrica be a glass-rimmed crater?”

Really?! Speed was on about that when there was entire feasts worth of food behind those walls and my mom had to spend bits and slots on a ration card to get old pemmican?!

Wander’s ears perked at Speed’s remark. “That’s a good point! I never thought to ask how the city survived last time I was here. How did you manage that, exactly?”

Silverlight opened his mouth to answer Speed.

No! No, he was answering me!

“What the buck are you eating?!” I exploded, my left eye glowing and twitching with rage. “My people are starving so much that it’s not uncommon for fathers to starve to death trying to make sure their foals eat enough to grow up properly, most of us are undersized, and here you are, able to feed tens of thousands!”

Silverlight’s face fell. He reached out gently taking me by the shoulder with one hoof. “Miss Gears… That shall not be true for much longer. Once we are inside, I will show you and you alone where we get all of our supplies, including our food. What’s more, I am more than willing to send two tons of food north for your people as a gift of good faith. No strings attached… I cannot speak our secrets here, nor will I inform your companions without due cause, but I will tell you and you alone so you can confirm the truth of our city for your Queen. Are we clear?”

I closed my mouth, my jaw having dropped without my having noticed. “T— Tons?”

“Tons,” Silverlight applied evenly. “I am quite interested in acquiring an airship, I have heard your nation can produce them. A few tons of meat and grain is nothing to get on the good side of your people. However, this is a matter for when we are in a secure location.”

Silvelright turned to look at the line in front of us then sighed. “We have time for the story of our survival, are you two still interested?”

Wander nodded. “How— How would I not be?”

“Duh!” Speed said with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m also interested… Just… how the buck are you feeding tens of thousands?!” I stammered, still firmly stuck on that.

“A quite similar way to how Stable-Tec fed a thousand of ponies for centuries,” Silverlight remarked before clearing his throat.

Oh! Well, that’s something to work with at least… Even if they did have a massive hydroponic farm I was still going to visit the Sparkle-Cola corporation. I felt my core cool down as my anger began to subside.

“As for Los Pegasus’ decidedly mostly intact state,” Silverlight continued. “This is a long story, and I do not tell it very often. It would be very kind of you not to interrupt me unless you absolutely must ask for clarification. Understand?”

Wander nodded and chuckled. “Yeah, I get it. People think it’s easy to just tell a story, but once a bunny trail gets going, well…”

Speed tilted her head. “What do rabbits have to do with anything?”

My ears perked in excitement. I knew this one!

“Bunny trail is slang for the way a question can divert an inprogress topic of conversation onto another topic, occasionally several times in succession, such that the original topic is never returned too.”

Speed nodded in understanding. “Thanks!”

Silverlight facehooved. “That. Please do not do that for the next… Eight minutes. Okay?”

I blushed. “Sorry. I’ll be quiet and listen.”

Speed and Wander nodded in agreement.

Silverlight took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began to recite what had to have been a well known story. It had the rhythm and feel of something mothers told their children as they lay in bed, or as an answer to a curious question asked at the dinner table.

“Everypony wonders how Los Pegasus survived the bombardment as well as she did. In days long past, when the Great War raged like a wildfire but before the first spark of balefire was struck, the Corporations who once ruled over Los Pegasus served a common cause. Equestria.

“The Seven Corporations were her warsmiths. Before the war, they paid the ponies of Los Pegasus to make guns for Equestria’s soldiers. Big guns, small guns, guns for ponies to hold, guns which required wagons to be moved, guns that spit lead, guns that spit magic, they built them all. The guns we produce today are but a shadow of what once poured out from our armories.

“Indeed, more than weapons alone were produced in Los Pegasus. If the Equestrian army used it, there was a good chance it was built in Los Pegasus. Especially bullets. Los Pegans produced a lot of bullets.”

Speed raised her hoof. Silverlight sighed and nodded. “Yes?”

“How many bullets?” Speed asked with an adorable excited foal-ish smile.

Silverlight frowned and closed his eyes, murmuring as he did the math. “I— I honestly can’t say? The city’s stockpile of ammunition was at least several tens of billions of rounds, between all types.”

Wander sputtered. My tail stood up in alarm. Speed eed.

“All of the bullets!” She whispered to herself.

“WHAT?!” I demanded. “How the buck do you make tens of billions of anything?!”

Wander shook her head. “It’s an impressive number… But thinking back, that amount of bullets makes sense pre-war. The Great War had fronts all over the world. We were probably burning a billion rounds a month, all told.”

Silverlight nodded and sighed. “Exactly… And as for the stockpiles in our city, that is addressed next. May I... continue?”

I blushed and nodded. “S— Sorry.”

Silverlight paused a moment, then continued the tale. “In the very last days of the old world, the casinos of the strip found themselves in dire straits. Before the war, tourists had come from all over the world in an endless tide to gamble within their resorts. As the war went on, ever fewer ponies came to gamble and frolic. In their last few months of life, the casinos were visited only by a few hundred ponies a month, not counting the high rollers who lived within the resorts.

“Where once Los Pegasus had survived on the taxes paid by the casinos, the war had forced the city to change industries, shifting to manufacturing. As you can imagine, the noise and pollution further diminished the casinos’ profits. Desperate for a return to better times, the entire strip chose to pour their remaining wealth into the production of more weapons. They believed that if Equestria could simply out-field and out-supply the Empire, Equestria could bring a swift end to the war.”

I desperately wanted to ask if that strategy could have worked, but I didn’t want to interrupt again. Instead I simply moved forward as the line advanced and kept listening to the Prince’s story.

“Nearly a trillion bits were dumped into the city’s coffers, earmarked expressly for producing as many munitions as possible. Los Pegasus began to produce more guns and ammunition than Equestria had need for and far more than our ancestors could ship to military bases across the nation,” SIlverlight continued. “Los Pegasus’s warehouses were filled to capacity with surplus guns and ammo in mere weeks. The Corporations loved the increase in profits, and had no intention of stopping or slowing production rates simply because they were out of storage space. They ordered ponies save space by going out, unpacking bullets, and preloading the magazines. This bought another week, but, soon enough, our ancestors resorted to storing munitions heaped in the streets beneath tarps.”

Wander winced. Speed nodded in apparent agreement. “Yes. That was indeed terribly insecure. I do not know if guards were posted or not. Presumably, organized crime had a field day… The Corporations didn’t care. They were paid per item produced, not item shipped.”

“That’s pretty dumb…” I murmered quietly.

Silverlight nodded in agreement again, then resumed his story. “The Zebrican Empire was a master of sabotage and subterfuge. Equestria had created a warning system long ago to alert it if the Zebras ever launched their missiles… The Zebras, desperate enough to end the war at any cost, executed a daring operation to disable that very warning system. They succeeded, and in the same minute their agents disabled our warning system, before anypony activated any backup systems, they fired. Equestria was doomed, blind to the attack due to the sabotage. Los Pegasus, on the other hoof, was not.

“Commander Solemn Creed, who had a habit of looking across the sea each morning, was our savior. By pure chance, a single Zebrican submarine had surfaced to launch just a little too close to Equestria’s coast, and he saw it unleashing its payload through his binoculars. Our port’s air raid sirens carried their warning to Los Pegasus, but the zebra sabotage prevented us from warning the rest of Equestria.”

I briefly wondered if we simply had a shaman bribe the machine spirits living within Equestria’s Term-Link system to keep quiet. In truth, the spies who took the warning system down likely had to do something far more complex, or perhaps much more simple, like cut the transmission lines.

Regardless… It was amusing to picture the end of the world happening due to the equivalent of bribing a foal with a candy bar.

“Realizing we were alone, the Seven Corporations chose to act,” Silverlight said as we all stepped forward as the line continued to advance. “Some say they acted to save themselves, others say they chose to try and save us, others believed they knew they could use their power to create the world they ruled over for centuries. Whatever the reason, they decided to put everything they had into defending our city.

“We had no idea we were in for a rocket bombardment, anything seemed possible. The Mayor deputized everypony in order to allow them to fight off a possible enemy landing. The weapons piled in the streets around warehouses were handed out to anypony passing by. Every cannon in a fireable state was wheeled out of the factories, set up, aimed skywards, and together with the hundreds of AA guns erected on the rooftops long long ago, our ancestors created a flak cloud above Los Pegasus.”

“Huh! Neat!” Speed exclaimed with a grin.

“Pardon?” Silverlight asked with a frown.

“Oh, well, I grew up in a Dream Pod doing military simulations. I figured out our flak cannons would shred Zebrican missiles pretty early on… I always thought that was a physics engine glitch. I mean, it makes sense that they would mess up a missile now that I think about it, but the way it made them explode rather than just fall to bits can’t be how it worked in real life, right?”

Silverlight shook his head. “No… Whatever detonator the Zebricans used, it indeed went off when struck by flak.”

I hissed as I realized what that meant. “Oh wow… So, Los Pegasus didn’t get blown up, but it was irradiated to Tartarus and back… That explains why you didn’t become a beacon of safety for survivors.”

Silverlight nodded. “Indeed… Amongst many other things. To continue, the flak was so thick not a single Pegan knew Eqeustria’s air force had turned traitor and sealed off the skies. The sky above them was already invisible, as was the sun, hidden behind a pony-made total solar eclipse. The roar of the cannons was constant and shook the very earth so hard the subway beneath the streets caved in, swallowing an entire district whole.

“The blanket of flak served our ancestors well. Dozens of flashes of green lit up the sky as detonated rockets blasted holes into the protective blanket through which the sun could be seen for but an instant. It is said more cannon shells were fired in that single moment than had been fired by both sides in the last six months of the war... Yet, the unprecedented amount of gunfire was not enough.

“Each time the flak detonated an incoming rocket, it punched a hole in the flak blanket. The Guard Ponies coordinating Operation Hide Under the Blankets calculated, given estimates of how many warheads the Zebricans had and how many might be aimed at such an important center of manufacture, they could only stop ninety-three percent of the rockets aimed their way. Even worse, even Los Pegasus couldn’t keep firing forever. We only had so many flak rounds. If the bombardment continued for forty-five minutes, Los Pegasus would be lost.”

“Wait,” Wander said with a frown. “If you didn’t have enough flak for six hours, how is your city still here?”

Silverlight laughed and shook his head. “That, my dear ghoul, is thanks to either the dumbest awesome thing ever, or the awesomest dumb thing ever. You can decide when we get there.”

“NEXT!” I jumped slightly as the megaphone enhanced voice barked a clear word for the first time.

Thank goodness we were nearing the end of the wait for the border checkpoint! That pony’s voice sounded like barbed wire being pulled through a jar of marbles inside a bushel of cotton.

Wander looked the Prince up and down then raised an eyebrow enough for me to see it over her new sunglasses. “You’re serious… Why are you serious?”

“Because it’s one of those two things. Depending first and foremost on your personal preference,” Silverlight said simply as he laughed. “While it worked… It’s still one of those two things. Where was I?”

“If the bombardment continued for forty-five minutes, Los Pegasus would be lost,” I prompted.

“Ah! Right,” Silverlight cleared his throat. “As fate willed it, Commander Creed saw the flak blanket could only cover the city center. He watched as the suburbs burned, and he felt nothing but rage. In his own words, Equestria’s fall demanded a “futile and stupid guesture of defiance on somepony’s part”... and he was just the stallion to do it. The Commander drew his side arm, took aim at the skies and screamed “Not one more shall touch Equestrian soil!” as he unloaded his side arm into the heavens.

“The Commander’s attendants, sharing his rage, joined him in venting their anger upon the skies. Then, the guardsmares who were not manning the tower’s AA guns joined in as well. Pony herd instincts being what they are… Heh. This began a chain reaction of ponies joining in just because others were shooting upwards, and others believing their must be actual orders to personally light up every last inbound missile with anything they had at hoof.”

My jaw dropped in shock. “I— Bu— But—”

Wander glared at me. “Shh! That can’t be it, so shh!”

I closed my lips as tightly as I could. Silverlight grinned.

“Within ten minutes,” he continued, “seven hundred thousand ponies turned the small arms of the Pegan guard upon the skies, unleashing a roar and thunder ponies never heard. Pistols. Carbines. Rocket launchers. Anti-material rifles. At least one slingshot. Everything we had made was put to work in this one last act of defiance and desperation. Then, somepony lost to history had the bright idea to start coordinating all that small arms fire.

“Pegasi used their eagle-eyes to spot rockets through the flak and coordinate entire platoons’ fire. Unicorns created targeting illusions to help lead each group’s shots and telekinetically redirected stray and falling rounds back into the skies. Civilians and soldiers alike fired upwards, constantly, for six hours as the rockets came down. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. At least, in part.”

“Right, the radiation,” I murmured.

“While the bombardment was stopped before balefire could reach the ground and burn Los Pegasus to ash, it was flooded with radiation each time a warhead burst in the flak, or was shredded by small arms fire on the way down from the clouds. Everypony manning the tower-top AA guns withered and died by the end. Many of the ponies on the rooftops of all but the shortest buildings faltered in their efforts, becoming so sick the city’s storm drains were said to have clogged. Many more poor souls in the streets became ghouls in that very instant…

“It was the ghouls which saved us. The radiation baking the upper half of Los Pegasus empowered them, fueled them. Even as their flesh bubbled and fur fell out, they rushed to the city’s defense, clearing the sick, taking up the guns as they fell silent, believing they would die any minute and wanting their last moments in life to mean something. They are our heroes, and the greatest shame of our city is how nearly all of them were killed by the other survivors out of fear of the undead…”

Silverlight grew quiet for a while. Long enough for us to advance several more places in line before he resumed. “Los Pegasus survived, struck by a single low-yield tactical warhead which vaporised the mayor’s office, and much of the city’s governing district… Mysteriously leaving the industrial and residential districts intact… Many ponies believe that particular explosion was not of Zebrican origin, but I digress. For this is not the story of the Corporation's rise to power. This is the story of how our city stands, how the Pegan Guardsmares earned the nickname "The Wall of Guns", and why for two hundred years, Los Pegasus has been safe behind the Wall.”

His story completed, the Prince took a canteen out from under his cloak and drank deeply from it.

Wander, Speed, and I stared at Silver as he drained the entire cantine then smiled at us apologetically. “Sorry. I know it’s a long story. I got a little horse.”

“You… just shot the missiles.” Wander said flatly.

“With bullets,” I added, equally incredulous.

“Correct,” Silver replied.

“There is no way a single bullet would do anything to an ICBM!” Speed protested with a stamp of her hoof. “I tried! There was an achievement for it!”

I nodded firmly in agreement. “No way at all! I can see flak clouds shredding them easily enough but there’s about a centimeter of steel around the typical balefire warhead and—”

SIlverlight held up a hoof for us to be quiet. “You’re not thinking about the scale of firepower unleashed,” he prompted.

“What do you mean?” Wander asked. “We’re talking small arms fire against intercontinental ballistic missiles. The odds of simply hitting one on the way down with a single shot are—”

“Next to impossible. I know,” Silverlight confirmed with a smile. “One bullet wouldn’t do anything, this is true. Ten wouldn’t accomplish anything either. We were not shooting at them with such small numbers of rounds. Think for a moment. Try and do the math in your head. Seven hundred thousand ponies, assuming they were only armed with one gun each, which is very unlikely as many ponies prefer two… But, let’s lowball it. Worst case scenario. Seven hundred thousand guns, most of which were fully automatic weapons, were putting enough rounds into the air for barrels to melt and runners were needed to bring fresh weapons to the rooftops. There were easily millions of rounds in the air at any given second. Those missiles were effectively running one by one into floating gravel river beds on the way down.”

“Oh…” Wander said with an understanding flick of her tail.

Then the truth of the magnitude of just how many bullets had been fired hit her and her eyes widened. “OH!”

“But why didn’t your ancestors immediately head out for relief efforts?” Speed asked curiously.

“Because radiation!” I said with a suspicious eyebrow. “Weren't you listening earlier?”

“Oh yeah…” Speed said with a shy blush and a flick of her tail.

“Well, I have been mentioning how the Corporations turned the city into their own little playground,” Silverlight reminded. “As for the immediate period after the Wall of Guns fired… Half the city died from radiation poisoning. This caused quite a bit of chaos, as did the immediate panic over cut supply lines. There was also the unique problem of the Wall of Guns having been a roar and thunder ponies never heard. That wasn’t purple prose, girls.”

The fact that guns are loud suddenly clicked with just how many weapons must have been firing at once.

“OH!” I said as I recoiled at the very thought of anything that loud...

“Everypony in Los Pegasus on the Last Day went deaf or suffered from crippling tinnitus,” Silverlight said with a shudder of his own. “Our ancestors didn’t manufacture suppressors, and if you look up at the towers… Well, they were not black before the Wall fired. That is not paint to commemorate our survival, or honor those who died. That is baked on gunpowder residue.”

I looked up at the top of the towers. The sun had set long ago, but the lights in the towers themselves shone brightly enough for me to make out every detail of the many, many ancient skyscrapers within the city wall.

Sure enough, every tower I could see faded from one color or another to black as you looked up their sides. The windows were clean. The walls… The walls were indeed all black.

Celestia...

“We fired so many bullets that a good number of ponies died from black lung. A disease normally only found in coal miners,” Silverlight added.

“R— Really?” Wander asked, her ears drooping back.

The Prince nodded. “Eyep.”

“Damn…” Wander said as she shook her head.

“So many bullets fell into the river we source our water from that until we realised we needed to fish all the lead out of it five years later, lead poisoning was a leading cause of death for foals. Our homes are roofed in brass… Because we can’t pry the trampled shell casings off them. The sheer concussive force of that many guns firing for that loong, and all those hooves scrambling to replace arms and ammo, hammered them into the stones. Any building not earthquake proof collapsed. I am neither joking nor exaggerating.”

I winced and recoiled inwards. “Oh… I see…”

Speed hummed in thought, then shivered. “You know… Now that I do the math… I mean, I can’t factor in the diminishing rate of fire as ponies died since I don’t have numbers for that. But if all seven hundred thousand fired for the entire time, that’s two-hundred-twenty-six billion rounds fired assuming the average rate of fire of nine hundred rounds per minute is the average, which it should be given a majority of automatic weapons in the crowd.”

Wander and I sputtered trying to even fathom that much of anything… well, anything!

Silverlight nodded. “Indeed. It’s still at least fifty billion rounds fired when you do factor in the dead. Up to a hundred and ten billion, as we were the number one producer of miniguns. To be honest… Trying to calculate that is futile. Even if we had proper numbers to work with, you wouldn’t comprehend the scale of things.”

“Holy bucking crap!” Wander exclaimed in genuine shock. “Okay, I’m calling it. There was enough dakka once. Just once!”

“Dakka?” Silverlight and I asked together.

“The Minotaur word for rapid firepower,” Wander replied. “It was— There was a thing. If you want to make a minotaur really happy, tell them this story.”

I made a mental note to do just that.

Silverlight adjusted his cloak. “A lot of ponies tend to think the Wall saved us from everything… It’s critical you don’t believe that. You must not forget that our wall was built by slaves. We were not spared the horrors of the End. We just made different ones than what the rest of Equestria experienced.”

The three of us waited quietly, trying to picture what the Los Pegas skyline must have looked like during the Last Day as the line continued to advance. Just as I was beginning to wonder if the combined muzzle flashes could have been seen from orbit, we reached the checkpoint.

“NEXT!”

The little outbuilding was a tiny cinder block structure. Grey, uninteresting, aside from words painted in white on the side facing us.

Equestria welcomes you!
☼
Los Pegasus border checkpoint.

A single crystal lamp lit the sign, with another glowing within the building itself. Speed, Wander, and I walked inside. There was just barely enough room for three ponies to stand side by side in the “hallway” in front of a small counter. The interior wasn’t lit quite well enough for everything to be easily visible. The single lamp on the counter was pointed down, there to illuminate passports, and nothing else.

A positively ancient gray furred stallion dressed in a deep blue and crimson military dress uniform sat behind the counter, barely visible in the dim light, which was partially blocked for us by a metal blast shield the pony could close for his safety. His head was perfectly framed by the wings on the Equestrian flag hung on the wall behind him.

The stallion leaned forward slightly, not interested in us, but simply getting ready to take something. “Papers, please.”

My ears perked up. I had papers! The President had given them to me.

I reached into my saddlebag to dig for them while Wander and Speed shared a distressed look and an “Uh…”

Silverlight suddenly leaned through the open wall to give the old stallion a sympathetic look. “Inspector, they are with me.”

The ancient stallion looked up and instantly went white as a sheet. “My apologies, your highness! I’ll make up entry permits for them right away, your high—”

“Mister Record,” SIlverlight interrupted with a kind smile. “We don’t fine you for being wrong anymore. You’re thinking of the previous regime… Do you need to take the rest of the night off?”

“N— No, sir!” The stallion said as he removed three sheets of paper from a drawer and began to quickly fill out the forms typed on them.

Silverlight slowly shook his head. “It’s okay, Mister Record. Your family won't have their rations cut for you taking a half day either… I understand that is how life was for you for sixty five years. I truly do. What I do not understand is how you’ve failed to grasp things have changed for the last fourteen years. Honestly, you should retire, good sir.”

“I wish to remain at my post, sir,” the ancient stallion said as he finished the papers aside from the top most field. “Names?”

“Whirling Gears,” I said quickly, not wanting to cause the ancient one any more distress than he was already experiencing.

“Wander… or Wanderer. Take your pick,” Wander remarked, then facehooved as the Stallion wrote down everything she said instead of just one of the names.

“Speed Run,” Speed finished.

The Stallion quickly stamped all three papers and handed them to us. “Equestria welcomes you. Cause no trouble.”

The three of us hurried out to let the Prince through. As I slipped the entry permit into my saddlebag I turned to see if the Prince would just walk through, and to my surprise, watched him stop, show a passport, declare a few items for customs, then walk through the checkpoint calling over his shoulder, “And with all due seriousness, Mister Record, consider retirement. You will be treated well and fairly for your last days, my good sir.”

The Prince trotted forwards, shaking his head as he caught up to us. “That poor stallion has been working the checkpoint since before my father was born… It’s a miracle he wasn't executed for some minor mistakes in the distant past,” he said as he took the lead of our group. “Things have changed quite a lot since I took charge of the city, Miss Wander, and I do hope you’ll approve… Regardless, please follow me to the Palace. I will give you guest rooms for as long as you wish to stay.”

The Prince led us to the two massive gates, and through a smaller door set in them. Two guards flanking the doors nodded as we entered, offering a greeting. I held my metaphorical breath, wondering what amazing wonders might be on the other side of these towering slabs of iron.

My jaw dropped as the arid dunes and sparse grass gave way to a working shipyard!

Well, bargeyard might be more accurate. Another wall curved inwards, forming a large horseshoe shape which was cut in half by the Celestial River. Piers extended out into the river, allowing dozens of barges to be docked where a series of cranes could load and unload cargo from each individual vessel.

A series of wagons on the far side of the river would take the cargo to or from the city which lay byond another massive set of gates, identical to the ones we’d just came through. Our side was filled with booths and kiosks, much like Junction Town’s market, only each booth and stall had a consistent design to it, rather than being slapshod and made from scraps.

Everything was new. Everything was lit by large crystal lamps. Even the four huge drawbridges which connected this side of the market/shipyard to the rest of the city.

“This is so cool!” I squeed. “I never thought I’d get to see another proper dock ever again!”

I zipped across the market to get a better look down into the canal at the barges. They were no warships, obviously, but they were boats! That boated!

Each of the barges had their own name painted on the hulls, little houses for the crew to stay in, and even a turret or two for plinking away at pirates. So awesome! Maybe they’ll let me shoot one! Sure, Feature is a bigger gun than those heavy machine guns but she’s not a ship-mounted gun so that’s different in a good way.

None of their spirits were awake enough to talk to, but I thought hello at them real hard anyways.

“Looks about the same as when I was here last time,” Wander remarked dryly as everypony caught up to me.

“Humm?” Silverlight said, sounding genuinely confused. “Oh! No, not the port. The actual city. My apologies for not being precise… Miss Gears, are you alright?”

I turned to smile at him. “Yes! There’s boats!”

Wander blinked, then giggled at me. “Heh… I guess you can take the gunner off a ship, but you can’t take the ship off a gunner.”

“You have sailing experience, Miss Gears?” Silverlight asked with genuine curiosity.

I nodded and trotted over to keep up with them as they began to cross one of the wooden drawbridges. “Mhm!”

The little-doors in the gates on the far side of the market/docks were open for us. Or, at least, open for everypony returning home.

“Why doesn't the train take us inside the city?” Speed asked curiously.

“It would have if it were not going to be loaded up with troops to go help the village Miss Gears informed me the NCR decided not to save from ghouls,” Silverlight said with a slight growl in his voice. “For the moment… Let us discuss more pleasant things. For example, the work my people have done repairing this place. I’m certain you noticed the condition of our market, even though it is closed.”

Wander nodded. “I did. It looked like that fourteen years ago.” She said with a dry unimpressed flick of her tail. “I don’t doubt you’ve done a better job ruling over your city than your predecessors did but—”

Wander stopped mid sentence as we passed through the gates. In her defense, I would have too.

The streets were clean. Swept, washed, and recently touched up with fresh mortar between the cobbles. The sidewalks were in similar condition… and also teeming with ponies.

Hundreds of ponies of all tribes were happily welcoming their loved ones home, and they weren't even the only ones there. Many more were simply walking… or carrying shopping home. Not just groceries, but shopping! Bundles of clothing, weapons, there was even one pony carrying a chair!

All of this was illuminated by working street lights. Working. Motherbucking. Streetlights! All the way down the street as far as I could see! They lit up everything. Every single pony. Every storefront. Every pane of intact glass. Every freshly painted sign advertising this or that.

Sprite-bots, shiny new ones, or at least refurbished, raced through the street, carrying little bags with the ancient Equestrian postal service logo on them. Mail! Real actual mail! Delivered by robots!

Not just one either, but a proper fleet! I could see four! From just here! At the front entrance to the city! At night!

There was more! So much more. I could hear the faint sounds of factories working in the distance. The wall had blocked the sound until we’d passed through the doors but— Wait… What was that sound?

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to separate each of the many sounds I could hear. The distant hum of machinery. The hundreds of voices in conversation. The sizzle of meat on a grill. Foals cheerfully playing…

“How the buck…” Wander whispered almost got herself, snapping my attention away from my search for the noise.

“A simple reallocation of resources and labor,” Silverlight said as if he wasn’t ruling over a piece of the old world.

“I— It’s just like…” Wander said before she suddenly shivered and pulled her hood down so her face was fully hidden in shadows.

I frowned and gave her an immediate side hug. “I’m sorry… Are you okay?”

Wander nodded. “I— It’s… It’s just like…”

Silverlight nodded and smiled proudly. “Don’t thank me, Wander. Thank yourself… And also the copy of The Princess I found. None of this would have happened without you as inspiration and Princess Celestia’s guidance through her book on how to lead your fellow ponies to prosperity.”

Silverlight began to walk down the street, taking more than a few steps before waving for us. “Don't’ stand in the gateway, girls. You’re keeping the poor ponies behind you from their families. Besides, this is but the threshold! Surely you want to see the heart of Los Pegasus!”

Yes. Yes, I did!

☢★★◯★★☢

The city was packed. Even as late as it was, ponies were everywhere! Some were out moving from bar to bar just having a good time. Others were coming to or from work. Still others were shopping.

Shopping!

There were just shops here. Selling useless nicknacks!

Poor Wander had to look down at her hooves and awkwardly shuffle through town. My heart went out to her. She was walking through a living, breathing piece of the old world. I couldn’t justify calling Los Pegasus anything but that.

I overheard ponies talking about problems like their landlord raising the rent, their boss asking them to work weekends… Pre-war problems! Not “my foals are starving”, “I can’t find any more medicine”, or “windigos ate Sugar!”. Pre-war problems!

Nopony was scared for their safety. Nopony was worried about the immediate future. The city’s wall might as well have been the border to another world.

As we walked, the Prince was greeted by hundreds of different ponies. Many of whom he knew by name, all of whom he took a moment to say hello to. They all treated him like his soldiers had. You expect soldiers to treat a leader with the utmost respect… Civilians? Not so much.

“It’s like he’s Celestia…” Wander whispered under her breath as we stopped yet again for the Prince to briefly ask how a baker’s business was faring.

“What do you mean?” I asked her quietly.

“This is how she was… Everypony just loved her. She loved them. She cared. This… This is how it was… I don’t understand how it can be like this again! I don’t—”

SIlverlight’s ears turned towards Wander, followed almost immediately by his eyes. “Excuse me, Miss Cookie. Would you please explain to our esteemed guest how we managed to restore this fraction of Equestria, and why?”

The plump (yes, plump!) plum mare he had been talking to nodded immediately. “Of course!” She trotted over to Wander and bent down just enough to look her in the eyes. “Hello, miss. Are you a ghoul?”

Wander nodded. “Yeah… I don’t… I don’t understand how you could have done this.”

“Hard work. Caring for each other… and a leader with a vision,” the baker replied. “You don’t have to leave. There’s plenty of places for rent, and once we can find somepony who knows how to build those fancy water farms, we’ve got a whole district ready to be converted into one big farm!”

The Prince nodded in agreement. “The Corporations had the resources to make this happen for centuries. Greed prevented it. Pip’s story inspired me, I showed them a better way, and with luck… One day soon, anypony in Equestria who needs or wants a home, a real home, in a real civilization, will be able to live here. I just need to talk to Celestia… There are some things we are missing. For now… we can care for our own. But one day soon, we will care for anyone who wishes to be a part of this.”

“But… How did you get the stuff to build all of this?” I asked as I looked through the glass storefront into the interior of the bakery. Which had a freaking new looking oven!

“Pre war cities were not self sufficient. How is this possible?” Wander demanded, almost angrily. “Why are you able to do this when nopony else has managed to recover even a fraction of this in centuries?!”

Wander seemed like she was about to explode… When a toilet flushed.

A. Toilet. Flushed!

Wander and I shared a moment of incredulity.

“YOU HAVE INDOOR PLUMBING!” Wander bellowed. “I DEMAND A HOT SHOWER! WITH SHAMPOO!”

Silverlight held up his hooves defensively. “Easy! Easy… It’s okay, my ancient friend. When we arrive at the Palace you may have as many showers as you like… No luck on shampoo, but we do have soap. Furthermore, as we are now within the city and it’s causing you distress, I will gladly explain the source of our wealth. It’s magic.”

Wander nodded, her face impossible to see through her hood’s shadows. “Okay. What kind?”

“Conjuration,” the baker said with a smile as she turned to return to her establishment. “Have a nice evening, your majesty.”

Oh! Well, that sort of made sense. If they had a lot of wizards, they could of course just slowly conjure things they needed and eventually build up to, well... Anything. Right?

How did unicorn magic work, anyways?

“You too,” Silvelright said before turning to walk up the street.

“That answers nothing,” Wander said firmly. “I’m a unicorn. I know conjuration spells. I could make a teacup right now. It would decay to dust within an hour. Your bullets last forever, as far as I can tell. I have a mag from fifty years ago for my back up gun! You have new glass! New appliances! Everywhere! They are stable. Conjuration doesn't work that way!”

Oh…

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “If that’s true, since you want to trade with my Queen, maybe you should tell the truth.”

“I am,” Silverlight said firmly. “You are correct, Wander. If a unicorn were to use conjuration magic to create something, it would rapidly decay into dust. Were you trained in theoretical arcana?”

Wander shook her head. “No, and what difference does that make?”

Silverlight sighed. “Quite a lot, I am afraid. In short, basic compounds are more stable when conjured than finished items or even complex compounds. A small team of mages were trying to find a way to make such simple compounds stable enough to last a month or more in order to aid the war effort. They discovered a formula which indeed can create stable conjured compounds… Unfortunately, it’s far too complex for any individual pony, or even a group of ponies, to cast successfully. In addition, it requires a sample of the material you wish to create, which is consumed… Fortunately, conjured copies of the compound can serve as further samples but—”

Wander stopped mid step, her ears perking as if hit by an epiphany. “WE FIGURED OUT MOTHERBUCKING REPLICATORS?!”

“Repliwhats?” I asked with a frown.

“Machines that make anything you want via magic,” Wander said incredulously. “Science fiction’s most awesome creation. Did you. Make. One. Silver?”

“We did not make them, but we do have several,” Silverlight said with a simple nod. “Stable-Tec developed them. Los Pegasus’s Stable was where they were testing a small number of prototypes. If the Last Day had just come a few months later… Well, resources wouldn’t have been a thing to fight over anymore.”

I looked around at the city street, three times as awestruck as before. “You have an infinite supply of everything… A push of a button and you have anything you want… What do you need us for?”

Silverlight sighed. “That’s not at all how it works. We do not have an infinite supply. We can produce items at a fixed rate based on the number of machines we have. We cannot push these machines, as when they break, they break for good, as we do not know how to repair nor maintain them. Furthermore, they require power. Not electrical power, nor steam power, nor anything safe and easy, every item you can see was made from a unicorn’s sweat and blood!”

Wander flinched. I gagged. Speed bent down to sniff the sidewalk, going as far as to lick it then make a disappointed “Aw…”

The Prince facehooved.

“Not literally! Figuratively. They run on magic. Pure magic. As supplied by unicorns,” Silverlight elaborated.

Wander took off her sunglasses to roll her eyes at the Prince. “Oh, you have a supply of anything you want limited by the population of ten thousnad unicorns in your city. What was that excuse you had for not helping everypony recover again?”

The Prince’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Speed took a step back from him with a worried look in her eyes. He leaned in towards Wander. “I am helping them. It will take time. Listen more closely. We cannot push a button and conjure any finished object. This is not possible. Physics, as far as we know, prohibits it. We can create simple compounds. Iron. Brass. Wood. Lead. Lead.Two hundred tons of simple base resources every day. Resources which still need to be crafted into finished products, or processed into other forms. We probably cannot do this forever. We burnt out three of our replicators building the city wall alone. The Corporations continued to burn them out slowly over the centuries. We have precious few left and one is committed to producing only food. We are also limited by technical knowledge, there are many things we cannot make simply because nobody here knows how they were made! We cannot just magic the world’s problems away. We can, however, slowly, over many years, if I can get some information from Celestia, create a stable society on par with the old world to serve as a seed from which a new world can grow. Are we clear?”

Wander nodded, most differently taken aback as she slipped her sunglasses back on. “Yes… I am sorry. I didn’t understand.”

The Prince sighed and offered Wander a small bow. “I am sorry for having been angry at you, Miss Wander. That was perhaps the most insulting thing said to me since I was enslaved as a bedchamber colt… This includes insults by deed. For example, the NCR has all six Elements of Harmony, with active bearers, and yet… The Wasteland remains a wasteland. How many disasters have those relics prevented or repaired? And yet, the Wasteland remains…”

Wander blinked, frowned, then began to look absolutely furious at that absolutely extremely very good question.

“The elements are working!?” Imaginary dad asked in shock

Um. Yes… I knew that. How did you not?

“Reasons! What the buck, NCR?!”

Silverlight sighed and closed his eyes. “Excuse my outburst… I feel as if the only other pony to even try to restart civilization was Red Eye… I look at the Herd and the NCR and see greedy ponies out for their own ends, much like the former masters of this city. I— I am trying to be better than them. I am trying to heal the wounds our ancestors inflicted on this world, my hero is dying in a pod, my mentor is being kept from me by damned fools, and my only peer was a monster. It… It can be quite distressing.”

I cleared my throat. “That is a good question though, about the Elements. I have one of the Bearer’s radio frequencies… let’s find out why!” I said as I pressed on Rainbow’s MoA communicator pin.

To my surprise, Rainbow answered immediately. “Hey, Gears… What’s wrong? Didn’t you call me like an hour ago?”

I tilted my head. “Uh, no? That was nearly three days ago.”

“Three days?!” Rainbow gasped. “What?! HOW?”

I flinched as my core churned uneasily. “Uh… Y— You haven't been regenerating this whole time, have you?”

“No. I fell into a hole,” Rainbow said matter of factually. “Had to walk through an old subway system to get out… Well, I say subway but it’s more like a labyrinth! Who the hay built our subways? Minotaurs?”

I blinked and wished I could see Rainbow to make sure she wasn’t joking. “You... fell in a hole?”

“Yep.”

“But you’re a pegasus… Why didn’t you just fly out?”

“A bus fell in the hole too and jammed it up but good,” she replied with a little sigh. “Trust me, I tried… Twice. Once after falling in, and then again after backtracking to see if I could find another way out and not have to fight a drugged up alicorn mare who decided to chug a barrel of toxic waste the Gardens missed and go super to, and I quote: “Smash flappy thing! SMASH!” Pretty sure that wasn’t the fun kind of smashing, so yeah. Tried to move the bus…”

I winced and took a few steps back. “Oh… Um… So, I’m kind of wondering why you and the other Elements didn’t just.. Magic the Wasteland better.”

“Is that all?” Rainbow asked curiously. “Wait, is that not common knowledge?”

“Well, Prince Silverlight doesn't know it. Neither does Wander.”

“Oh. Well, long story short, the Elements amplify the collective power of the Bearers. Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, AJ, me… We had more oomph. A lot more. The six of us had a much closer relationship too. That’s important. The new bearers? We had the right virtues, but as they say, friendship is magic.”

I tilted my head and froned. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“It was just like the last days I was a Bearer the first time,” Rainbow sighed. “We weren’t close enough. Too many secrets. Not enough of an emotional bond. We could barely make the Elements kickstart the Gardens. We tried other things, but we just didn’t have the juice. I told everypony we’d need to become close friends to make them work at full power, and we were well on the way to that… Buuuut, one of us was a very old stallion and he died a few months after the Gardens were used.”

“Oh… So, they didn’t have a full “charge” and are out of commission now?” I asked.

“Yeah that’s the long and short of it… If we can find a new Magic, we’ll try again. Pip’s looking. She found us, I'm sure she’ll find a new Magic, then we can do the whole friendship thing and see about hitting the undo button on this apocalypse! Thaaat might be beyond the Elements’ power. But I’m pretty sure we could go around bamphing farms and forests and the like into existence!”

“Good to know… Thanks, Rainbow. Oh, and um, you should go to Los Pegasus.”

“What, that hellhole ruled over by seven megacorps? No thanks!”

“Yeeeaah, it’s totally not that anymore. I’m talking to you from outside a bakery on a city street with foals playing tag… At night for some reason… Huh, why aren’t they in bed?”

Rainbow was silent for a moment. “What?”

“You heard me!”

“Well… Once I make sure the world won't blow up again, I’ll have to check that out. Speaking of, I have to go. Talk to you soon, Gears.” Rainbow said as the comm went dead.

I started at the chip on my collar in shock. “WHAT?! AGAIN?!”

Calm down, Gears! She was using a metaphor.

“Again what?” Silverlight asked with a worried frown.

“Nothing…” I sighed. “I think I took a metaphor seriously. She’s trying to make sure something bad won't happen. Apparently the Tainted took over an old military base and—”

I blinked and looked at Silverlight curiously. “Come to think of it… Why haven't you tried to stop them?”

“I am. I have many patrols out in the Herd’s territory,” Silver sighed. “The NCR refused my help. Now then… What did she say about the Elements?”

Wander nodded in agreement. “Yeah, see, I remember them returning the magic to everypony in Equestria after Tirek ate it. I never realty thought about it, but functional Elements should have fixed the world.”

“They weren't fully functional,” I replied simply.

Wander’s ears drooped. “The war broke them…”

I shook my head. “No. Friendship is Magic. The new bearers were not good friends so the Elements couldn’t do very much. They activated the Gardens, and decided to do their best to become good friends to power up the Elements, but then the bearer of Magic, who happened to be an old stallion, well…” I bit my lip and sighed. “He died of hardware failure. So, the set is incomplete at the moment.”

“Oh,” Wander said with a frown. “Huh… I never thought about that… Too used to them just, fixing whatever problem occurred just like that.”

Silverlight stroked his muzzle for a moment then shrugged. “I know a good deal about magic and enchanted relics… Through the rebuilding over the last decade and a half, much of my time, and most of the time of what few true Wizards we have, has been spent studying magical items. One of the major pursuits being to find a method of repairing or maintaining our replicators rather than slowly burning them out. I can confirm that friendship does influence many spells, and it makes sense for it to effect a collection of items that work together, naturally… I just didn’t think it would serve as that much of the power source for something so… God-like in power.”

I shrugged. “Well, somepony had to make them to begin with, right?”

“I suppose so, yes,” SIlver mused.

Speed scuffed her hoof against the sidewalk.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, realising she’d been quite quiet for the last few moments.

“I’m still disappointed the sidewalk isn’t made with blood…” She admitted with a sad little wing flap.

Wander snickered. “If I didn’t know you were a hemovore, that would be terrifying… I admit, I would love a city with sidewalks made of cinnamon rolls.”

“Right?!” Speed asked with a giggle.

Prince Silverlight cleared his throat. “As enlightening as this conversation has been… I believe I have just explained my entire position in terms of why precisely I wish to trade with your nation, Miss Gears.”

I nodded. “Yes. If you can make raw materials, but then need to refine them into finished items by manual labor, our technical knowledge is definitely something you need.”

“Indeed,” The Prince agreed with a nod. “So if we could continue to the Palace, I would like to show you the replicators, have you confirm their existence over the radio to your Queen, and thereby begin the recovery of more than a single city.”

“I think literally everypony would like that,” I said with a truly happy smile.

We could do it! Between our two civilizations we really could heal the world!

Almost as importantly, Wander was crucial to having kicked this off! No way could she think of herself as a bad pony now!

25 - High Rollers

Los Pegasus’ towers were not ruins. They were not relics. They were not even half-repaired, barely functional dwellings. No, the blocks upon blocks of soaring skyscrapers were all homes.

Apartments, mostly. Or rather “tenements” as Silverlight insisted their proper name was. I didn’t really understand the difference. So what if it was up to the residents of each tower to renovate it into a dwelling suitable for themselves? So what if they paid rent to a state appointed landlord who in turn passed that money to the crown as a form of taxation? It’s still a place where you pay monthly to have a few rooms as a home.

Each steel and glass tower held enough ponies on its own to make a small settlement outside the city. Enough for there to be ponies active in the streets this late at night. There was a nightlife!

Thanks to which, I found out what the Pegans ate.

“Replicated meat?” I asked for the third time.

“Yes,” Silverlight replied as he led the way down the street. “That’s what you’re smelling.”

Wander hummed. “It’s kinda crazy how many ponies died in the early days because they couldn't stomach meat… Far more interesting how many died unable to understand why they couldn’t survive on just carrots and other common vegetables. Heh, you’d think they would know pre-war everypony was basically vegan had been thanks to processed foods and easily available soy and lentils. Almost all the protein rich grasses went extinct real quick.”

Prince Silverlight turned to look at Wander. “Really? I’m more than aware of our species’ omnivorous diet, clearly, but it seems we should be able to survive on either of those things alone.”

Wander shook her head. “Nope. Not without processing foods to contain every nutrient we need, or a mix of exotic plants not native to Equestrian climates. Or having some nice fertilized non-poisoned soil to grow the old plants our ancestors survived on. All rare things after the bombs.”

“Then how are we surviving on meat and grain?” SIlver asked with a confused frown.

Wander snorted and shrugged. “Whatever meat you’ve got in those things either isn’t a pure meat and is some prewar meat blended with various vegetable products… Like Cram. That stuff was designed as a survival food. That, or the grain you’ve chosen has everything else you need. Biologically, we’re supposed to eat both. Our wild ancestors ate fish, small birds if they could catch them, lizards, field mice, and whatever bugs were in with the grass…”

Speed shivered. “Bleh… vegetation…”

I couldn’t help but giggle a little at our vampire bat.

Wander shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Sorry… I just find it funny how many ponies insist we’re supposed to only eat vegetables since that’s what was common pre-war.”

“Why was it?” I asked with a frown. “I mean, scientists had to know back then, right?”

“Well, they’re cheap,” Wander said simply. “Earth ponies can bamph out a crop of carrots every month. Also, some ponies thought keeping animals for food was cruel. We really only raised animals for their produce, or to export to griffon nations, and for our own carnivorous citizens… That said, most ponies did eat it sometimes. Like a treat.”

Silverlight nodded in satisfaction. “I see. That makes sense. I wonder what they would think of our means of sustenance.”

“They’d be disgusted and self-righteous,” Wander laughed, shaking her head almost violently. “Those eco-nuts looked down on anyone who ate any meat, no matter how that animal lived or died, all while wearing designer leather saddlebags and reading leather bound books, all of which they’d insist was faux leather, except it wasn’t, because you can’t actually permanently enchant pleather. Or if it was actually fake, after a few months the protective enchantments would wear off and it just falls apart after a few months of use…”

Wander made a disgusted look and sighed. “It’s the way they insisted fake leather was better that really pissed me off. “It’s better for the environment, you monster!” Please… If they wanted to be actually environmentally friendly, they’d have recognised that a real leather saddlebag that will last a pony a lifetime is much less wasteful than needing to buy a new one every six to eight months as it just falls apart.”

“You have pretty strong feelings on that,” I noted with a shy smile.

Silverlight nodded in agreement with me. “Very strong feelings indeed.”

“Of course I do!” Wander grumbled as she looked at the ground. “It’s sanctimonious-emotion-first, logic-last ideologies which drove us to the point of having resource shortages bad enough to go to war over.”

I raised an eyebrow at that statement. Not because I objected to it. Building to last is certainly a good philosophy. Rather… if that’s how Wander’s thought process worked…

Logic first, emotion last. That’s how I work, sometimes when I’m being more Sprity than Zeeby. Yay machines!

I smiled to myself as a rather devious idea began to take form in my mind.

“Huh… Gears, that might actually work.”

Thanks, imaginary dad!

☢★★◯★★☢

We left the residential district rather abruptly. The ancient Pegans had built their towers right up to the edge of the district. Stepping out onto the Resort Strip was like stepping out of a narrow canyon set into a cliff face… directly into an amusement park.

The street split in the middle with a single kilometer long fountain running between them. I could see iron planter pots where trees had once grown alongside the fountain. The cobblestone city streets gave way to time worn marble tiles which interlocked to form a tesselating pattern which flowed down the avenue, making it kind of look like running water under the bright electric lamps.

Along either side of the split street were three resorts, six of them in total. Each looked entirely unique. The closest on our left resembled a futuristic space colony, complete with metal dome buildings covered in big crystal windows, shiny chrome details, and plenty of pointless blue glowing lights. The left middle resort was styled after what I believed to be a Prench palace circa their Late Imperial Era, lots of white, blue, and gold, hundreds of gilded statues, stained glass windows, lots of sculpted details in the building’s every feature! The furthest on the left was the most boring of the lot, a simple eight story modern designed tower with an L shaped bottom three stories and what must have been a very nice garden atop the short part of the L, back in the day.

The right side of the street was home to a huge building with a vaguely Apploosan Frontier theme of big rough cut timber logs, sand and desert plants which were actually alive decorating its yard, and all kinds of Pre-Ministries frontier brick-a-back arranged in decorative clutter-piles. The next past it was a soaring tower which rose from the ground like a needle, topped by a huge artificial cloud which, craning my neck, seemed to support a Classical Era Pegasi city themed hotel in full Hayllenic-Romane inspired glory. Then, almost understated by the grandeur of the other buildings, was a simple pink cube with a single door which managed to appear artfully minimalistic rather than boring, though I had no idea how.

All six of the resorts appeared brand new. They were clean. No visible damage. Each of them had a squad of soldiers standing out front on guard duty, greeting well dressed ponies as they came and went.

So this is where Los Pegasus’ elite lived. Suddenly, I had a fraction of an idea of just how the truly wealthy pre-war ponies had lived…

Not like this. Oh buck no. Theses would have been the ponies pretending to be wealthy. The truly wealthy would have lived in something like the seventh resort.

All of the other resorts paled in comparison to the seventh, which sat at the very end of the street. The two lanes merged back into one to pass through a gilded wrought iron gate, only to split again into a circular courtyard around a large fountain containing a statue of the sun and moon, stylized to fit the Princesses’ cutiemarks. Beyond the courtyard was an artificial mountain, studded with windows showing the fake mountain was in truth a conical tower with twenty eight floors…

Twenty eight floors before the palace, that is. Attached to the side of the artificial mountain, supported by pillars disguised as water falls, was a full sized replica of the Palace of the Sun and Moon in Canterlot. The mountain held the palace replica aloft just as Mount Canterlot had once supported the city of Canterlot.

I knew the palace well from illustrations, photographs, and even film strips which I had seen in history class. Not a single detail had been left out of this replica… Nor was a single detail being left out!

Even now I could see a small team of Pegasi working to install more gold tiles on the roof of one of the towers, a small group of unicorns were levitating each tile up to them. If the Palace Casino hadn’t looked just like the real thing pre-war, it certainly had been made to in recent years.

Wander and I stopped in our tracks staring up at the building. I stared in awe, Wander stared in a mix of nostalgia and regret.

“What?” Speed asked over her shoulder as she kept walking. “It’s a big shiny building. Come on, we’ve all seen cooler things!”

“No, not really,” I disagreed.

“I— It’s… It’s exactly…” Wander stammered before shaking her head. “Silver! Why?”

Wander stepped in front of Silver and pointed over her shoulder towards the Palace. “I know how it used to look. It looked like a version of the palace meant to dodge copyright laws and lawsuits. How?! Why?”

SIlver looked over her shoulder and swept a hoof towards the palace. “No other place is fit to serve as the capital of Equestria. Since the Enclave destroyed the old palace, and the Empire rendered Mount Canterlot uninhabitable, we built our own Palace.”

“With blackjack and hookers?” I asked sarcastically as I swept a hoof towards the other casinos on the same street.

“Yes,” Silverlight replied with a simple nod and a confused frown. “Why wouldn’t I employ the skills of my best architect and my most experienced civil engineer?”

Oh for buck’s sake… I facehooved. “You know… Seeing as how pony naming conventions are pretty loosely “call them a thing and move on” you’d think this would happen a lot more often.”

Silverlight chuckled. “Ah, I see, you meant gambling and prostitution. Yes, the location’s origins are perhaps a little unsavory but, we had an existing structure to work from. Come! A luxury suite awaits!”

Wander let Silverlight past, and I began to move forwards again, progressing down the strip one awestruck hoofstep at a time until, suddenly, I realized something.

“Wait a minute… What monster names their foal Hookers?!” I asked, my ears and tail raising in alarm.

“It’s even worse if you know her full name,” Silverlight said quietly.

“Please tell me it’s not Horny Hookers,” Wander said with an amused snort.

“Close… Wet Hookers… Her mother was… an immigrant,” Silverlightsaid with a flick of an ear. “Wastelanders can have some… very interesting names. Regardless of the implications of that moniker… and her rather crass cutiemark, Hookers is an excellent civil engineer. Assuming that she must be even more talented in, shall we say, cunning linguistics, than engineering, it’s little wonder she’s got a small herd of mares following her about at all times…”

Silverlight turned to give me a sheepish look. “I’ve heard your Queen is related to Princess Cadence. I don’t suppose you’d know if she had any non-alicorn children, would you? I can think of no other explanation for Hookers’ entire bloodline’s talents being, well, yes…”

I shrugged and looked over to Wander, who was blushing very hard for some reason. “I don’t think so… Hon, do you know?”

Wander simply shook her head and kept walking.

Nopony said anything for a few moments, making it clear the conversation had ended because… Squishy pony reasons, I guess?

I returned to plotting… Yes, my plan was shaping up quite nicely. As soon as the Prince and I were alone, it would be time to execute Operation Reality Check.

☢★★◯★★☢

Silverlight lead us down the gold trimmed, red velvet carpet, marble bas relief covered hallway. We passed mahogany trimmed ebony doorways, each with brass plaques designating room numbers. Behind each door was luxury accommodations unlike anything Speed or I had ever seen in pony. Wander had, and her nervous trotting told me just how little she felt she deserved to be here, in a slice of pre-war heaven.

I knew I should have been impressed and awestruck by the Palace’s interior splendor, but to be honest… I was just way more thrilled to have gotten to ride a working elevator.

It made me feel like a bit of a jerk to not appreciate all of the work craftsponies had put into this building, but… Well, it was an elevator! It elevated me! Like, really well! Better than the Tenpony Tower elevator, even!

I mean, that was probably because he had an active machine spirit who really liked to do elevator stuff… But that just made it more cool because he was all, “Hi friend!” and I was like “Hello!” and then he was like “Up or down? Is it up? I super wanna go up!” then the Prince pressed a button and ZOOM!

We, went, UP! We went up REALLY GOOD. He did such a good job! Really fast, no acceleration jolts, no bumps, I barely knew I was going up! I wish I had some oil for his pulleys or something. He deserved a treat!

“Hon… Sometimes, I swear I’ll never understand you.”

Heh, sorry dad. I know I’m being a bit of a silly filly, but there’s just something really awesome about well designed machines being happy to do their thing… I don’t think an organic will ever understand the pure joy of it.

“No, probably not,” Imaginary Dad agreed.

“Here we are, Suite Fourteen-oh-eight,” The Prince said as he stopped and unlocked the door before handing Wander the key. “You three are welcome to this suite for as long as you wish, and Miss Wander, should you desire, these rooms can be yours as in a home, fair payment for services rendered.”

“W— What services?” Wander stammered nervously, her tail lashing slightly.

Speed’s ears perked as she looked through the doorway. “Table! Dibs! I can work on my guns! YAY!” she exclaimed before bee-lining her way through the door with a happy eee.

Silverlight shook his head slightly. “She’s a simple mare, isn’t she? I mean that in only the best of ways, of course,” he said before turning to look Wander in the eyes. “Without you, this city would have fallen to ruin. You inspired me. The old regime was rotting away. It wouldn’t have lasted much longer, and without a leader this city and every opportunity it affords to the world would have become just so much ash and dust.”

“I— I just told you Pip’s story. I do that for every town I pass through at least once… It's not a big deal,” Wander murmured, taking a step back.

I winced and gestured for the Prince to stop. If he pressed her like this it would ruin my plan!

To my surprise, the Prince nodded and set his hoof on Wander’s shoulder. “Very well. I understand. I only wish for you to be comfortable, and so you shall be,” he let go of Wander, who immediately scooted into the room with a mildly panicked expression on her face.

Silver looked at me and nodded towards the room. “Would you like to freshen up a bit before I take you to the manufactorum?”

I shook my head. “No! I’d like to go on the elevator again sooner rather than later, actually.”

The Prince smiled and shook his head. “May I ask why?”

“Oh! Well, he’s awake, he loves his job, and is very very good at it! It’s just so nice to watch a happy machine enjoy its work,” I explained, leaving out the euphoric effect it had on other machine spirits…

He didn’t need to know about that.

The Prince’s ears perked. “It’s awake? I mean, he’s awake? I’ll have to hire a shaman to ensure we keep him happy… I have been told an awakened spirit is akin to a person in every way. Is this correct?”

I shook my head. “Not really? There’s plenty of things a mortal and spirit differ on, fundamentally speaking. Things one understands the other cannot, different ways of thinking… Treat them nicely, keep their physical form in good repair, thank them for their hard work, and that’s about all of them usually need… It’s not until you put one into something like a robot, marequin, or doll, that you get, well, an actual person out of a spirit.”

“Thank you for the advice,” he said with a little bow. “Perhaps you should tell your companions we will be returning within the hour?”

I nodded and trotted over to the door and peeked into the room. It was fairly large, and obviously a living room! I could see an open doorway to a nice kitchenette, a set of open doors which lead into a lovely bathroom with a shower stall and drying-archway visible through the door, and three closed doors which presumably led to bedrooms.

The living room featured a large table which Speed had dumped her weapons and tools on, and was already happily disassembling her chainsaw while cooing happily at it, like how Wander does when petting me before sexytimes, a large couch, a bookshelf stocked with comic books (presumably they didn't have enough text-only books for each room), and even a mini bar in one corner of the room.

This was in addition to the incredibly ritzy carpet, tapestries, paintings, sculptures, frescoes, and wall sconces, of course.

Wander was busy making a bee-line for the bathroom, incredulously enough stripping out of her cloak and jumpsuit on the way over, astonishingly not caring about the open door behind her!

I cleared my throat. “Um, girls? I’m going to go see the things with the Prince, call Her Highness, then be right back, okay?”

“Oh! Could I get some power tools please?” Speed asked with a little hopeful wing flutter.

“I”ll have some sent,” Silverlight promised. “Miss Wander, is there anything you—”

“Talk later! Shower!” Wander squeed in excitement as she slipped through the door and closed it.

Oh. Yes. That’s right, she had seemed really keen on one of those.

I closed the suite’s door and turned back towards the elevator with a smile. It was nice to see that as bucked up as her head was, she still felt like she deserved at least one nice thing.

Prince Silverlight cleared his throat. “S— So um… She’s Vinyl Scratch, huh?” he asked, seemingly flabbergasted.

I blinked and turned towards him with a frown. With how well Wander concealed her old identity, it made me uneasy to encounter somepony who knew her on sight… From just her mane and a bit of shoulder, at that.

“Yes,” I said, doing my best not to look alarmed. “How do you know? I mean, I knew she was famous, but that was centuries ago, and so little survived the balefire and the years.”

“Her posters are plastered all over the Off World Colonies theater,” Silverlight said as he shook the surprise from his frame with a few blinks “She was to be performing a concert there…”

“Oh,” I said with an understanding nod.

That was a reasonable explanation. I guess Wander had been right to avoid old world towers. She’d just been worried about the wrong one…

My plan had better work or Wander would be forced into being Vinyl again. But in a bad way.

He said seemingly in shock. “I— I think I understand her problem with being well known now.”

Not wanting to talk about her secret in the open I simply nodded. “Yes.”

Then I realized I should explain things to the Prince, because he probably didn’t understand completely. Wander was… complicated.

“Wander believes she doesn't deserve anything like her old life because she knew what the problem with her stable was and didn’t say anything because she assumed if she knew what the problem was, the engineering team must have known too.” I quickly summarized with a flick of my tail.

Silverlight whinnied and shook his head. “No! I— I— I understand that!” He said, still clearly in mild shock. “I understand her desire to conceal her identity; she makes it quite obvious she wishes to cut ties to her past self. It’s just… She’s supposed to be dead!”

I blinked. That is what was surprising?

The Prince’s jaw dropped slightly as I blinked in surprise. “Pip’s story!” he blurted. “Stable 23. When Pip is going through her room there in search of the records Homage asked her to seek out—”

“Pip finds no bones, nor mummified corpses, in Vinyl’s room,” I interrupted, offering an apologetic smile for my rudeness.

“Yes! But,” The Prince sighed in exasperation. “The Crusader Maneframe killed everypony in the Stable the night of the survival party, where Vinyl was scheduled to perform!”

“Yes…” I said with a sigh. “She left the Stable. As in, she exited it. It’s silly nopony thinks of that possibility, given just how frequently Stable Dwellers appear to have done so. After all, Red Eye was a Stable Dweller, and Pip’s story is about a pony many call The Stable Dweller. Leaving their Stables seems to be a thing at least one pony from each stable does, if you ask me.”

Silverlight raised a hoof in protest, but it faltered. A calculating look slipped across his face, creating a thick cloud of unease which forced me to take a step back. Then he nodded and the tension vanished. “Yes… You’re correct. Wastelanders would have heard legends of Stables, and possibly seen their doors, but after centuries, nopony other than ghouls would have ever known what a Stable Suit looked like. They are not dissimilar from police, firefighter, and sports uniforms… But everypony knows what one is. Even before Pip became famous, ponies knew she was a Stable Dweller because they recognised her jumpsuit. It must be common for ponies to leave Stables.”

“Right?” I said with a happy smile. “The logic is undeniable.”

“Yes, but not intuitive,” Silverlight said as he nodded to himself. “You’ve got an interesting head on your shoulders, Miss Gears.”

I smiled shyly and rocked from hoof to hoof. “Oh, well… To be honest it’s pretty much empty,” I admitted.

The Prince laughed and shook his head. “I see Wander is not the only pony with self esteem issues… Come, we should make haste. It’s late enough as is… Would you rather we wait until morning to make the call?”

I shook my head. “No need. She will want to hear this right away, and on my last call home I learned there’s… A conflict brewing. I believe she would welcome being woken up in the middle of the night for an alliance, and I doubt she is in bed quite yet.”

“Then, we shall make haste,” Silverlight said as he began to quick-trot down the hallway.

We galloped in silence to the elevator, where the Prince pressed the call button only to pause and ask allowed, “Please pick me up, if you wouldn’t mind.”

I smiled. While unnecessary, it was nice to see somepony ask nicely allowed. Silly mortal. The call button is please! Well, for him. For me it’s giving me an envelope or parcel that I can translocate for them.

The elevator arrived moments later, the doors opening with that same happy ding as before, sure enough, the moment I stepped inside…

Hello, Elevator!

Yes! But wait for the pony to push the button.

Silverlight cleared his throat. “I have been informed you’re alive, Elevator. I am glad to hear you enjoy your service. Would you kindly take us to the fourth level of the basement?”

The elevator’s spirit exclaimed before we were plunged into a rapid descent.

“Thank you, Elevator,” the Prince said with surprising calm.

I couldn’t help but grin. If only I got to experience the full effect of performing my primary function… It had been a while since I was puppy levels of happy.

Actually, come to think of it, I stopped being that happy about delivering mail when I lost my postmare’s hat…

I need a new hat.

And it would be nice to deliver an actual address parcel instead of these free-form at my discretion radios. I mean, what kind of mail is that, anyways?

☢★★◯★★☢

I’d expected Elevator would take us directly to the replicators. I was wrong. Instead the 4th level of the basement opened up into a large wood paneled entry hall lined with red banners. Silverlight and I walked for nearly three minutes before reaching a simple wooden door, behind which was a metal staircase descending deep into a very smoothly queried passageway through the bedrock. We climbed down three more flights of steps before we reached the door.

The Stable door.

It was the second biggest door I had ever seen, second only to the troop landing platform door of my old ship. The colossal gear-shaped blast door was open, preventing me from seeing the number on the door, but a banner hung over the entrance told me everything I needed to know.

Stable-Tec welcomes Los Pegasus’ High Rollers to Stable 118!

“What was the experiment?” I asked as we stepped out of the hewn rock room and into the warmly lit, rubber floored, concrete walled, metal roofed bunker that was Stable 118.

“It appears to have been to see if greed was the issue at hoof,” Silverlight remarked as we walked inside. “Ponies typically gambled to become wealthy. The replicators can provide infinite wealth. There were plenty of game machines in the Stable, as well as tables for other forms of gambling. The Stable Dwellers eventually decided the only things of value within the Stable were the replicators themselves, and as everything else was worthless…”

“They fought over them,” I sighed in irritation.

“Indeed they did. There were only six survivors who chose to leave the Stable, whereupon, the Corporations took control of the replicators.”

Silverlight led me through the oddly quiet, distressingly blandly decorated bunker, following illuminated glass signs which directed us to the engineering section, then the replicator room. The final pressurized hydraulic door opened to reveal a huge room, easily bigger than anything other than an airship hangar.

The room was filled with four dozen huge machines. They were all identical, or at least, had been. Big bus sized dome-like metal shells, every side studded with a large chunk of enchanted crystal, save for one side upon which a conveyor belt and door sat, ready to extract material from the interior.

Many of the machines were obviously broken. Cracked housings. Blackened scorch marks. Shattered crystals. One was a pile of parts which looked like I’d gotten to shoot it back in my battleship days, its walls also draped in memorials to the dead. Others appeared fine, but were not active or in use.

Atop each machine sat a Hooves Coil, which would presumably have once collected magical energy from a complex series of ambient magic collectors set into the roof of the room, and likely also built into the layers of the rock above to tap directly into a layline. I questioned why not directly wire the replicators into the collector’s network for a moment, but then I saw the nearly two hundred unicorns gathered around thirteen of the replicators.

They were sending rays of their own magic into the coils on the top, fuling them with their own power.

“When did the collectors die?” I asked curiously as I looked up into the mess of cables, crystals, and arcane circuitry.

“The original power supply?” Silverlight asked curiously.

I nodded. “The Arcane Collector, yes.”

“You know what it’s called,” He asked with a joyous twinkle in his eyes.

“Yes. We use these for powering small machines… This is much, much larger than I have ever seen, and far more complicated, but it is an Arcane Collector, it’s probably tapped right into a layline. You can’t power more than a water heater or some lights off ambient magic alone without being on one.”

Silverlight sighed in relief. “Miss Gears… I believe this is the beginning of something truly wondrous… Allow me to prove the devices work.”

The Prince trotted to the edge of the catwalk the door opened onto and cleared his throat. “Good evening, my friends!” Silverlight called the unicorns below. “This young mare is a foreign dignitary whose people possess the technical knowledge to assist our restoration efforts. Is it possible to show her a matter replication instance at this time?”

An excited buzz filled the room as workers began to talk to each other for a moment, then somepony called, “We’re almost ready to make some gold, sir!”

Silverlight’s head turned to face the speaker and he smiled. “Excellent, we will be right down, Please wait for us.”

He then turned to me and gestured towards the stairs. “Mares first.”

“Thank you,” I trotted down the steps and waited for Sivlerlight at the landing before following him to the machine.

Up close, I could see the outer housing of the machine included etched arcane circuitry. The housings themselves… Well, not housings. This was open circuitry. Nopony would make a finished design like this. These devices were prototypes, meant to be worked on over time and have the parts easily accessible.

Upside, that would make them easy to repair, and a ton easier to figure out how they were supposed to work.

Downside, it would be so easy that anypony could fix it with the manual and some basic knowledge of advanced matrix casting and enchantment. That meant if this Stable had contained any of the data for the replicators maintenance, it had been lost to time.

Problem: My machine-scenes told me the poor machine in front of me, while spirit free (likely due to the aura around it being… unsettling), was functioning on little more than prayers, dreams, and the will of the unicorns powering it. It needed maintenance, desperately. I wanted to give the poor thing a hug.

“You there,” Prince Silverlight said, drawing my attention away from the degraded circuitry.

The Prince was looking at a younger mare who was missing her rear left leg from the knee down, and balancing on a simple metal peg-leg. Barely balancing. The poor thing looked so unsteady on her hooves that she had to be drunk, sick, or about to face-plant into the ground and snore where she stood.

The mare poked her own barrel with a hoof and nearly fell over. Two of her friends caught her and helped her up as she stammered. “M— Me, your highness?”

“Who is your manager?” Silverlight asked.

The work group pointed to a tall, jade furred stallion one machine over. The Prince turned to me, gesturing for me to wait there, stomped over to the stallion, and launched into a five minute lecture/scolding hybrid about worker safety that made everypony in the room scootch away form the scene…

It was terrifying. His voice was raised, but not by very much. He never once swore as far as I could tell. His eyes remained fixed on the manager’s the entire time he lectured, speaking of duty, honor, leadership, and compassion like an upset mother would to her foal who did not yet understand the need for such things.

Perhaps even more cold and seething than the lecture, the moment Silverlight finished the reprimand he stared into the manager's eyes until the manager looked down in shame. Then, and only then, did the Prince walked back over to the exhausted mare and gave her a gentle hug.

“Go home,” he ordered. “Don’t come back for three days, four if you need the extra day. Your lost wages will come out of his pay. Don't argue, it’s obvious you’re about to drop dead form mana burn,” the Prince cleared his throat. “As for the rest of you… Shame on you! Do not allow managers to push any of your coworkers anywhere close to where she is! If anypony is about to burn out, they go home. The Old Days are over. Understood?”

“Yes, your majesty!” the entire room chorused, seemingly relieved.

The exhausted mare began to hobble away. Silverlight but glanced at a pony near her and nodded, and the stallion he looked at immediately went to help the mare walk.

The Prince closed his eyes tightly, snorted angrily and then sighed and turned to me. “I must apologize for that… They cannot push the replicators, so they push themselves… and often died, under the old management. Our nation needs long term growth and stability, not short term gain at the cost of its most precious resource!”

I nodded and coughed into my hoof. “We have the same problem with powering an environmental shield around our capitol. I hope your wall of the fallen is shorter than ours.”

Silverlight looked down in shame for a long moment. “I doubt it is… What is your shield for? The cold? Can you not create heaters?”

I shook my head quickly. “Oh no! We can make heaters. If it was a simple cold we could deal with it just fine. The problem is… Spirits. Windigo, to be precise. They really want to eat our Queen, and after eating her they would devour everypony else in Pomare if they ever got inside. Being weather spirits, the shield is impermeable to them.”

Silverlight nodded and smiled. “Well, then once our machines are able to be fully utilized, we shall have to see about creating a proper power supply for your shield! But for now, can we create a gold block, friends?”

One of the remaining workers looked up at a small console attached to the side of the replicator, and nodded. “Yes, sir! One gold block coming right up.”

I tilted my head to one side. “Is there any particular reason—”

The stallion at the console pulled a lever. Bolts of bright blue mana raced through the replicator’s exposed circuitry, illuminating the inconceivably complex patterns within the metal before reaching the crystals. The Crystals filled with mana, glowing brighter and brighter. The off putting aura around the machine blossomed into a brilliant flower of mixed magical schools, like a sea of controlled chaos which grew ever more complex, threatening got burst and—

The machine dinged cheerfully. The conveyor belt hummed to life, and a cube of pure gold a meter across whirred out of the machine.

“— it has to be a block…” I finished quietly, thoroughly terrified about what I just saw.

“Heh!” One of the workers chuckled. “Check it out, same face the last zebra made!”

“Because it will only make one meter cubes no matter what you set it to for volume, but the mass can be anything you specify… You need to be very careful about what you set it to or there will be... problems,” Silverlight answered casually. “I take it you also have concerns over the… admittedly chaotic spell matrix?”

“YES!” I shouted.

“I assure you, unicorns also sense it. We are aware of how it appears, though the effect is stable in spite of the chaos,” Silverlight stated with a soothing smile.

One of the workers nodded. “It probably only works because it is chaos magic.”

I gulped and looked at the replicator. It didn't feel evil, or dangerous… Now that I had seen it work, it just reminded me too much of the Spirit Realm. These devices were imitating the primordial chaos with unicorn magic to conjure stable materials. At least, that’s what a very bad shaman thought… Wait a minute.

I closed my eyes tightly for a moment and looked inwards, directing some of my magic towards Jasmine’s soul. Jasmine! Are these safe to use?

Jasmine signed back after a few moments.

Thanks, Jasmine.

I stopped pushing magic at her, letting her fade back into my subconscious how she liked… It would be kind of nice to have her with me all the time. But, well, everypony prefers certain things.

“Well… If we had a sample of arcanite, we could manufacture proper Ferrier Cages,” Silverlight admitted. “Everypony, well done! Please ensure the gold arrives at the roofer’s promptly. It’s possible we could soon have a visit… From Princess Cadence’s daughter.”

The excited buzz the Prince’s statement ignited followed us as we left the workroom. It made me feel like I’d done something important.

☢★★◯★★☢

I’d always wondered what it would have been like to visit Canterlot and see Celestia upon her throne. I never thought I’d get the chance. Now I had half the answer to that question.

The Palace’s throne room was a faithful recreation even the very smallest details recorded in history books. Every tile in each stained glass window was where it needed to be to recreate the depiction of the given ancient heroes precisely. Every coloum’s decorative carvings were inlaid with gold, not a leaf, flower, or thorn out of place as far as I could see.

And I could see. Silverlight was proud of his people’s work. He took out a scrapbook of reference pictures to go through it with me as he showed off the throne room.

The golden throne with the rising sun as the backrest was perfect. The gold embroidered red carpet leading to the throne’s dais was prefect. The way the crystal lamps shone down to create the illusion of sunlight falling across the throne room, putting shadows exactly where the reference pictures had shadows, was perfect.

The only difference in the entire throne room was the addition of a single new stained glass window. This one depicted Littlepip, Calamity, Velvet, Steelhooves, and Xenith with everypony clustered around Pip who was rendered as an unconscious angel laying atop a sarcophagus-like bed.

Something told me Homage would prefer this depiction over the Pipite’s… Even if it would make her cry.

Then again, it was hard to cry in this room. It felt warm, and loving. It felt like I was home, and mom was nearby, in one of her more lucid moments, and she wanted to talk about her latest invention.

I’d been so shocked at the obvious care and precision which had gone into recreating Celestia’s throne room, as well as the soothing feeling of calm it possessed, that I missed Sliverlight’s first question.

“Huh? I’m sorry… What was that?” I asked with a sheepish smile.

Silverlight returned the smile. “Do you think she would like it?” He asked hopefully.

“Who? Her Highness?” I asked with a tilt of my head.

“No,” he chuckled. “Princess Celestia. Do you think she’d like it?”

I thought for a moment, then nodded. “It’s almost exactly how she left it… Aside from a window she would have had built. I can’t see how she wouldn’t.”

Silvelright sighed in relief. “Thank goodness. We worked so hard on it. This… This is not my throne. It’s hers.”

I nodded in understanding. “A monument.”

“Yes,” Silverlight said after a sad pause.

A sad pause which he cut short. He smiled at me. “Well, no matter. I believe you have a radio for me, miss Gears… I hope it wasn’t crushed under that grenade launcher of yours.”

I giggled and shook my head. “Of course not! I know how to wear a bag and a gun properly.”

I reached into my saddlebag, opened the hardcase, and removed a radio for the Prince. “Here you are. And here’s your letter.”

“Excellent,” Silverlight said as he took everything with his teleknetic grip, opened the letter, and began to set up the radio.

After a few moments he cleared his throat and pressed the transmit button. “Good night, your Highness Queen Katydid. I am Prince Silverlight of Los Pegasus. I apologize for the late hour of my call, but I have been told your situation is dire and you might prefer an alliance now rather than at dawn. Over.”

The radio crackled and hissed. No replay came.

The Prince frowned and looked at the note. “Did it set it to the correct frequency and modulation?”

“Give her a few minutes,” I prompted. “It is late.”

“Yes, but surely she has messengers or scribes attending the radio.”

I shook my head. “No, these ones are for her personal channels.”

“I see…” The Prince frowned. “In that case, perhaps we should wait until morn—”

“Good evening, Prince Silverlight,” Queen Katydid said, sounding quite fatigued. “Please know that I am most anxious to speak with you, especially as I am seeking a trade deal and you propose an alliance. However, my kingdom is currently besieged and a rare respite has presented itself in which I might be able to rest for a time. So, unless you are nocturnal, I would very much prefer to converse at da—”

I jumped forward and took hold of the radio’s hoofset and pressed Transmit. “Your Highness! He has a magical means of producing a semi-infinite amount of anything!”

Her Highness was silent for several long moments. “Well look at that, it’s dawn,” Queen Katydid said. “Over.”

I leaned over to Silverlight and whispered. “It’s actually always day up there this time of year.”

The Prince cleared his throat. “Thank you, Miss Gears. Your Highness, I am in desperate need of your nation’s technical expertise inorder to retain the ability to produce the materials your courier mentioned. I have allowed her to witness the creation of a cubic meter of gold so she can confirm we do indeed possess working replication technology. Why don’t we begin with your immediate problem… What precisely is besieging you, and could you spare a large troop transport? I cannot allow the knowledge your people possess to be lost, the restoration of Equestria itself depends on it!”

“Please, fill us in from the beginning, Prince Silverlight,” Queen Katydid asked.

☢★★◯★★☢

The Prince and the Queen spoke for nearly an hour… An hour in which I learned what had been going on at home while I was away.

The Enclave Remnants had made their move. Pomare was currently surrounded by power armored troops, and supplies were extra scarce. A few different skirmishes had been fought but so far Pomare’s defences were holding out well. Her Majesty's airship’s guns proved to be able to hold the Enclave back well enough.

Unfortunately, not enough supplies could be airlifted into the town to keep everypony as happy as they were when I had left… The Enclave’s main goal also seemed to be to reach mom’s library.

Fortunately, they were also doing something in the Crystal City ruins. Our scouts had discovered the actual bulk of their forces were trying to breach the monster's lair and take the city proper. They didn’t know why yet, and the changeling spies inserted into the Enclave were too low in rank to know why.

The weirdest thing though, in Silverlight and my opinion, was the power armored troops the Enclave were fielding. I hadn’t thought about it before, but… The Enclave had been a pegasus only faction. The power armor troops they had were mostly earth ponies, with only a scattering of pegasi in their scorpion tailed lightweight power armored suits.

Something wasn’t as it seemed… But that hardly mattered when they were shooting at our soldiers!

Fortunately…

“It’s settled then,” Silverlight said with a firm nod. “As soon as your airship arrives I will have a full Wall board with orders to defer to your command.”

“How many soldiers is a “wall” precisely?” Queen Katydid asked curiously.

“Four companies, totaling roughly four hundred ponies,” Silverlight said.

“Will that not leave you vulnerable?”

“It is a significant percentage of our forces, but should the Enclave attack us again, without air support this time, well… It wouldn't be the first time every mare, stallion, and foal of Las Pegasus picked up a gun to protect their city. More to the point, nothing would leave us more vulnerable than allowing the potential Lith represents to fall into the hooves of the Enclave.”

“Then we are agreed… and I shall have to dispatch three airships… This will leave us vulnerable, but with your reinforcements we are certain to be able to secure Pomare,” Katydid said decisively. “I will have them bring you some of our technicians. I need most of them here for now, but we will do our best to at least learn how your replicators work, if not mend them. I have full confidence they will be able to at least discover how to maintain them. All of them maintain our shield generator, after all…”

“Good. And as discussed, I will ensure each of my soldiers is carrying two weeks of rations. I will be happy to supply food if we can ensure regular cargo flights.”

“We’ll discuss that after Pomare is safe,” Katydid paused a moment. “Oh! Yes! I nearly forgot… I made a deal with an individual by the name of Homage. Do you know of her?”

My ears perked at the mention of Homage's name. “Did we find out what’s wrong with Pip?!” I asked hopefully.

“We have,” Her Highness confirmed.

Silverlight’s eyes widened. “I take it you were asked by Miss Homage to look into Little Pip’s failing health… If you have a cure for her, I will gladly safeguard it!”

“Because that will give you more leverage over the NCR, right?” I asked casually.

Silverlight sputtered. “Well, yes… I do still need to speak with Spike, and he’s the only way to Pip, as well as Celestia.”

Queen Katydid gasped. Something heavy fell on the other end of the radio. “Uncle Spike is alive?!”

Silverlight blinked. “Oh! Of course. One of you is Flurryheart. Yes, your goduncle is indeed alive and well… It’s a shame you couldn’t come down here. They wouldn’t dare stop you from visiting him.”

“They won’t stop me even if they do dare to try,” Katydid laughed darkly. “I have been without any family for centuries… Aside from Gears. You’ve done a wonderful job by the way, Gears. Better than I had dreamed, assuming nothing throws a wrench in this… Ah yes! Pip’s “cure”. It’s not a cure, it’s a doctor. Her diagnosis is grim, but if we can get this particular surgeon to her, he can cure her.”

“What is wrong with her?” Silverlight and I asked together.

“It’s quite simple. We were looking at exotic issues first due to her lifestyle as reported by Homage during our chats,” Katydid chuckled. “I had to take my personal surgeon out of stasis to ask him to make sense of the gobbledygook we had theorized…”

Katydid cleared her throat. “Believe it or not, the data from the SPP pod’s medical systems, combined with Pip’s symptoms as far as we can hear them, and the simple fact that she has been laying down for almost the entirety of the last decade and a half makes her condition quite clear. Pulmonary edema by way of a pulmonary embolism with complications from lead poisoning.”

“I beg your pardon?” Silverlight asked with a confused tilt of his head.

“I also don’t know what that is,” I remarked with an apologetic blush.

“Well, certain factors we can see indicate she has a bullet in her somewhere and the lead content of it is slowly killing her. This is mostly counteracted by her regenerative abilities, but not entirely. The same goes for the blood clot which formed in her leg, well, most likely a leg. Regardless, she got a major clot because she has been laying down forever, which then detached form the location it formed and migrated into one of her lungs, where it’s causing her to drown in her own blood via a major blockage, hence coughing. Normatly, a pulmonary edema kills within hours, a day at most, but the SPP pod’s does perform a temporal dilation and pseudo-stasis. Due to this, she’s lasted for nearly five years in this state… Unfortunately, she will not last much longer. A month is the worst case scenario. We need to operate within a month, or she’ll die… and I do not think we want to find out what happens when a mare plugged into a weather machine starts to die.”

“Huh…” I said with a little frown.

It was so… simple. I’d expected some kind of curse or whatever mutation caused her to gain her regenerative powers was causing her to die without rads. But… No. Apparently you really shouldn’t just lay down in one spot for years on end. Especially not with a bullet in you.

“I will house your doctor until we can get a meeting with Spike. If you have personal contact with Homage, I urge you to get her in contact with me. She knows where his cave is,” Silverlight pressed with a hopeful look.

“I will do so immediately. She’s always up this time of night. I swear she doesn't sleep…” Her highness commented. “Miss Gears, as for you… While this is a big enough win, I want you to deliver a radio to the Herd’s leaders in Oak Valley. I need to hear their side of the NCR/Herd divide story even though your mission has otherwise succeeded.

“Aside from that, I want you to remain in Los Pegasus under Silverlight’s command as my trusted liaison until we can formally cement our alliance. Understood?”

I nodded twice. “Yes, your Highness.”

“What’s more, when it comes time to meet Spike… I need you to go in my stead. Not as my Courier, nor as my subject, but as my niece. Go tell Uncle Spike that Flurry is alive, she desperately wants to see him, and she’s trapped by windigos and the Enclave or she’d be there herself right now.”

“So, you want him to come charging in like a knight in shining armor?” I asked with a little blush at this rare glimpse into Katydid’s more vulnerable side.

“No? Why would I want him to rush in like dad’s coltfriend?” Katydid said with a confused little chitter. “OH! You meant the expression. Yes. Like that. Not the other way. That would be messy.”

Wow! I’d gone years without that happening, then twice in one day. Statistics, what are you?!

Silverlight cleared his throat. “Your Highness, perhaps you should get some rest now that a reinforcement plan has been hashed out.”

“Yes. Yes I should. I shouldn’t have thought she meant Platinum Knight and my father… They were a tasty couple! Also adorable, and lucky Mom liked threewa— Uh…” Her Highness trailed off with an embarrassing squeak. “I seem to be hungry as well as tired. I should find a meal… My airships will arrive within five days. It shouldn’t take more than one for them to return. It will take time to slip three vessels through the Enclave’s notice. Good day, and good luck!”

The radio clicked as her highness ended the transmission. Silverlight shivered and looked over to me with worry and disgust. “I— I believe she implied she is a cannibal. I— I don't suppose you can confirm or deny this?”

I giggled. “No, you silly! She’s a changeling, and a pony. She eats emotion too. Her changeling half must have tailed Flurry’s father for snacking reasons before they were merged.”

Silverlight sighed in relief. “Right! She is. Yes. Thank Celestia!”

I nodded twice. “Yeah! Don’t worry about eating ponies. That’s a major crime in Lith.”

“As it should be,” Silverlight agreed before clearing his throat. “Now! Your Queen ordered you to make a radio delivery to Oak Valley. While you are there, since you are The Machine, the greatest mailmare of them all… Would you mind picking up a high risk package for me?”

My ears perked. “Package?”

He nodded. “Indeed. A high risk package which I attempted to have delivered once before, only for the book to be stolen, recovered, and returned to the library in Oak Valley. Nopony has been willing to try picking it up for me since the incident a month ago. Since you will be there, and are certainly capable, if you pick it up and deliver it to me—”

I trotted over to Silverlight and eagerly looked him in the eyes. “It’s an actual package? Addressed, stamped, and paid for with postage in need of delivery by an actual postal worker?!”

He nodded slowly a frown forming on his muzzle. “Yes… M— May I ask why you are so… aroused, right now?”

“I accept!” I squeed as I gave Silverlight a hug which probably made him glad he was still in his power armor.

“Oh! Well, good?” Silverlight said with an uncomfortable wince. “It’s a very important spellbook. One of a kind. It must not be lost or damaged. It is critical I have it before I talk with Celestia. And that may at last happen soon.”

“Express delivery! Understood!” I said with the biggest smile ever.. Then blinked as I realised I had meant to ask the Prince something. “Oh! Um, right… Can I ask a small favor?”

“Of course. Deliver the spellbook to me and you can have anything you like,” Silverlight said matter of factually.

I could get more mail! No! No that’s dumb… I could get a hat!

“Oh! Uh, no. Not that. We have a rate schedule for these sorts of things, although I’d like a replacement hat,” In truth, I hadn’t really given a buck about the possibility of payment.

It was a package! That I could deliver! To an actual known address! That’s almost as good as getting to shoot a very big gun!

But for now… Help marefriend!

“Actually, I just wanted to know if there were any ghouls in town who were alive pre-war and also lived through the Corporation's rule of Los Pegasus,” I said to the Prince.

“Yes, there are a few who are able to speak still… Most lost their tongues,” Silverlight admitted sadly. “Why do you ask?”

Wow! Every little detail he slipped in about this city’s history was just the worst possible thing…

I put on my best serious face, which was hard because I was going to deliver proper mail soon!

“Well, I want to see if one would be willing to talk to Wander and see if they can convince Vinyl to come back,” I said with a smile. “See… I think she just needs to know what she helped to stop. She doesn't really have context, you know?”

Silverlight smiled slowly. “I know just the pony for the job…”

☢★★◯★★☢

Half an hour later, I returned to Suite 1408. In spite of having a key, I knocked. After all, I had a guest with me.

The pegasus ghoul behind me had once been quite the handsome stallion. What remained of his fur was a shimmery blue. One of his eyes had a horrible knotty scar across it, the other one was a piercing shade of purple. A cigar was clamped between his teeth, and while I hadn’t seen him switch cigars, I swear he’d gone through six on the way over. The stallion was always smoking, his tattered Equestrian Guard uniform reeked of tobacco.

I don’t even know where the buck he got the tobacco… Silverlight had quietly told me they didn’t have a tobacco sample.

Did… Did he just have cigars hidden everywhere in advance or something?

Wander opened the door after the sixth knock. I could see her fur was wet, and that she had tossed her cloak on to conceal herself as best she could, having obviously still been taking what must have turned into a Princess grade shower to make up for centuries without one.

“Didn’t the Prince give you a key?” Wander asked me irritably. “The water doesn't get cold, Gears! It Doesn't. Get. Cold! You can come along, but I am going to go back to my shower n—”

I cleared my throat and stepped aside slightly. “I ran into a pony who wants to talk to you, hon.”

Wander’s eyes widened slightly as she noticed the ghoul beside me. “Oh, um… Okay. Hello. I’m Wander. You really don’t need to thank me or anything. I didn’t do—”

The ghoul extended a hoof, not to shake but to offer Wander a salute. “Commander Solemn Creed, 8th Neighdian Guard, at your service, Ma’am… May we talk?”

Wander blinked, squinted at him for a moment, then sputtered, her ears perking enough to lift her hood. “W— Y— You’re—”

“The very same stallion to save this city once before, who supervised the Normane Landing, and many other battles. Yes. I know what I did before the end,” he said, nodding to the room. “May I come in?”

Wander stepped aside immediately. Creed trotted inside and took a seat on the couch. “Please face me when you speak. I’m afraid I am deaf, but I read lips very well.”

Wander nodded and trotted over to sit on the floor across from him. “I’m not sure why you want to talk to me… Is there a song you’d like to hear? Well, feel? I know plenty of deaf ponies like my music because they could feel it.”

Creed shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I thought I’d tell you a story. You go around telling stories to so many ponies I imagine it’s been awhile since you’ve heard one yourself.”

Wander frowned and looked over at me suspiciously. “Um… Sure… What is it?”

Creed leaned forwards and steeped his hooves to look Wander in the eyes. “Think back to just before the Ministries… Do you recall Our Town?”

Wander frowned, pursed her lips, mmmed for a moment, then her tail perked. “Right! That was the border village some cult took over, wasn’t it? Didn’t the EUP have to go in and retake the town by force? I’m pretty sure that was a media circus.”

“It was,” Creed agreed with a sharp nod. “You remember how pre-ministry Equestrians were about violence, pacifists to the core. Not the stupid kind. No, we used to only fight to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and our homes.”

Wander nodded in agreement. “Yeah… I figured whatever happened there had to be just… horrible. Especially since the Elements couldn’t solve it.”

“It was,” Creed said with another nod. “Good. You remember how we were… Our Town had been taken over by a group of militant fascists lead by a mare by the name of Starlight Glimmer. She believed in the subjugation of everypony through equalization. That everypony should be forced to be the same. Not just by preventing ponies from seeking education, or other things like that. No… She used dark magic to rip ponies cutiemarks away.”

I sputtered in shock and disgust. Wander growled and shook with rage.

“WHAT?!” She demanded as she jumped up. “BUT THAT WOULD—”

“Gouge out a chunk of their soul, yes,” Creed spat. “She knew. She wanted that. She didn’t want to risk anypony being special or different… Anypony but her. She was so powerful, and cunning, that she managed to trick the Bearers into allowing her to remove their cutiemarks. This prevented them from using the Elements to stop her.”

Creed adjusted his position on the couch. “I was a corporal then. Princess Celestia sent us to the town when Twilight and her friends had been out of contact for a week on their mission. We figured we were all dead. If the Elements couldn't stop whatever was happening, how could some ponies with those old single shot rifles that couldn't hit a can at twenty paces?

“Well… Turns out that’s what was needed… We walked into the village by way of the north. I fell into a mass grave, Wander. Anypony who refused to follow her even after their mark was stripped from them, who resisted her torture, brainwashing, and crude mind control? They were killed.

“We walked into a town filled with terrified ponies. They did everything Starlight said because if they didn’t they knew what she’d do. They couldn't stop her. Not even if they had their marks. That mare was a wizard on par with Celestia herself. She annihilated my entire platoon in a matter of moments, grinning as she killed them, taking every opportunity to mock our values, to put us down. To insist the reason we couldn’t stop her was because we were not equal.”

Creed’s lips parted in a wicked smile. “For all her power, for all her cunning… She miscounted. She thought there had been sixteen of us. Nope. There had been seventeen. She dropped her shield. I put a bullet in the back of her head, then another, and another, followed by my bayonet.

“Remember, Wander, this wasn’t me now. This wasn’t me during the Great War. This was me during the halcyon days of Celestia’s rule. I was just as peace loving and kind hearted as anypony else back then. As the poor bastards living in Our Town had to have been once… Keyword: Once!”

Wander shivered. “You’re about to tell me something beyond horrible, aren't you?”

“You’re a smart mare,” Creed laughed. “The minute Starlight’s corpse hit the ground, the ponies she had subjugated fell upon her loyal agents and ripped them limb from limb. They pulled their legs off. They smashed their heads into the cobbles ‘til their brains came out. Before I could even try to bring things to any kind of order, three of them set Starlight’s body on fire, screaming they had to destroy her before she came back.”

“Picture as clearly as you can what horrors it would take a Celestia-era pony living through to make them do that… and never regret it. For them to spend the rest of their lives worrying they hadn't killed her hard enough. That one dark night, she’d appear in their bedroom, and rip their mark away again… I shudder to think what would have happened if Twilight and her friends had seen it… If they hand’t been locked in that torture shack… The power they got later… Nopony who saw any of what happened was quite sane afterwards. Not even me. Getting our cutiemarks back didn’t help.”

Wander winced and curled in on herself. “I— I have an idea… What are you getting at? What’s the moral of this story?”

Creed leaned back on the couch, took his cigar out of his mouth and tipped off the ashes. “The moral of the story? Hold on to just how bad you think living in Our Town was. It’s your measuring stick. We’ll call Our Town under Starlight’s rule a one on the fascist regime scale. I’m going to introduce you to the two through ten on this scale. I’m going to tell you the story of what you inspired ponies to fight back against. Including me. The pony who put an end to Equestira’s first fascist, a war hero who faced the worst Zebrica had to offer, and who was too scared of the Corperations to ever raise a hoof against them… Until you inspired a young sex slave named Silverlight with the story of a real life hero who had once been a nopony.”

☢★★◯★★☢

“... Then you came along. The Corporations had squandered so much that they were finally at a point where their reign could be toppled. They’d rotted almost everything about our city to dust and slime. You told a story in a tavern. You dropped a match into an open container of oil.”

Creed paused to wave a hoof around the room. “All of this? Sure, we did the heavy lifting. Yes, Silver got our plots in gear and showed us the way. But you? You made him see the light. You gave him hope. Without you, none of this would have happened. Los Pegasus would have continued to rot, and by now it would have been just another ruin. Equestria wouldn’t have any chance of rising again from the ashes.

“But you did tell that story. You started this fire, and if your sense of karmic balance doesn't count the liberation of tens of thousands who were given the drive to try and do something about the Tartarus pit out there… Well, then I’ll be quite upset my filly idolized you.”

Wander stared silently at Creed like she and I had for the entire story. The two centuries of pointless cruelty, terror, torture, sadism, unchecked greed, backstabbing, and just… evil… The place he described. The suffering.

It was beyond words. He’d lived it, and I couldn’t even find the words to explain it. I don’t think anypony else could have summarized the evil which had claimed so many souls in this city.

That’s all he’d given us. A summary. A summery which included things like the rulers of the city punishing a mare by raping her until she had a foal, and forcing her to kill it with her bare hooves, or they would kill her older children and everypony who lived on the same floor as her.

I… I didn’t even want to think about that ever again. Or anything else which had happened here… I imagine Creed only agreed to talk about them for Vinyl’s sake…

Creed quietly reached into the breast pocket of his coat and held his hoof there. “I have something for you… They aren’t yours. They’re my filly’s. Replicas. She also had Irlen syndrome. Needed the same color you did. It made you her hero.”

Creed took a pair of purple colored sunglasses out form his coat pocket. They were obviously old, but well preserved, definitely lovingly cared for. He held them out to Wander. “Wander… Wander’s more than made up for any sins Vinyl made.”

Wander stared at the glasses for a few minutes. I kept thinking Creed would put them back in his coat and walk away, but he continued to hold them out.

“Yeah… Yeah she did,” Wander agreed.

Her horn glowed as she took the glasses from his hoof and slipped them on.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry that happened to everypony,” Vinyl said quietly.

Creed nodded. “Everypony is. But enough horribleness. The world’s done with that, you hear? We’re cleaning up this mess. Get out there and do your part.”

“I will,” Vinyl promised. She looked up at the old ghoul and smiled gently. “Thank you.”

Creed nodded. “Don't mention it… We don’t want to give some evil buckstain ideas.”

He stood up from the couch nodded to the two of us, and trotted out of the suite, closing the door behind him.

Vinyl immediately turned around and hugged me so tight I swear I felt my endoskeleton creak.

“Gears, I need about a thousand years of hugs until I forget the details of everything he just said.”

“Except the part about you being a good pony?” I asked hopefully.

Vinyl nodded. “Y— Yeah… I— I helped stop… that. Karma’s balanced.”

“Good,” I said as I hugged her so hard I was worried she’d need to regenerate some bone fractures. “Cuz I need about a thousand years of hugs till I forget all of that too!”

“Well, good thing we should be around long enough to do that,” Vinyl said as she cried into my shoulder.

26 - Romeo Foxtrot, shall we dance?

It felt good to be back on hoof again. As nice and speedy as land trains are, it’s just really boring sitting down all day. I don’t know how pre-war ponies could handle office jobs and commutes. Judging by how many motorwagons and auto-wagons littered Route 38, they must have done quite a bit of it!

We’d been walking all day, sunrise to just about when the sun was ready to set. The entire time we’d been walking, we’d been weaving around abandoned wagons of all kinds. The Herd definitely didn't care about clearing pre-war roads as much as the NCR did. Or even, like, at all.

I was pretty eager to see what their nation was like. They split from the NCR for ideological reasons, so while I doubted they would be the exact opposite, I was still interested in seeing just how different they were.

I’d get my answer soon. Their nearest town was just half a kilometer up the road from us now. I could see the whole thing. It was built around an old wagon stop, the kind meant for long-haul freightmares to sleep at back when goods were regularly shipped in bulk. From this distance I could see the residents had made a fairly nice farming town using larger cargo wagons and shipping containers as the frames of the buildings and homes.

What was extremely interesting to me was the wagon stop’s old sign, which towered over the town below, had been converted into the mother of all sniper’s nests. The old letters had long since been removed, but the crisscrossing scaffolding and framework had several platforms built on it, providing spots for as many as ten snipers to cover the town’s northern and southern approaches, with another three for the east and west sides.

Even more interesting was a very-clearly-post-war ramshackle radio tower perched right on the very top of the sniper tower. These ponies had radio communications! Almost certainly thanks to the Applejack’s Rangers who had an outpost here, if the tri-apple flag fluttering from the radio tower was any indication.

Then again, the Herd could also have used Miss Applejack’s cutiemark for a flag for some reason. It’s not like the Royal Vexillological Society had survived the end of the world and become totalitarian overlords who policed the use of flags and symbols to ensure everyone had a unique symbol compliant the rules of good flag design.

If only we lived in such a world. Celestia knows we could use such policing in Lith. Most of the town’s flags would make anypony who cared about flag design vomit…

I shook my head to clear it and focused on trotting along towards the town. Vinyl (It was so weird calling her a different name after so long, but she kept insisting it was time to try to be her old self now) had gotten tired of talking, and Speed was on full alert thanks to the forest of abandoned cars providing literally millions of ambush points, so the walk had been pretty quiet.

Funny how, after centuries of wandering through the snow, rad-storms, and bloodice all alone, having company for a few weeks makes an hour of silence almost torture.

At least Wander had explained the difference between auto-wagons and motorwagons. For the longest time, I’d thought the terms were interchangeable. The history books in Mom’s library hadn’t really ever been clear on the specifics of the matter.

Auto-wagons were simple ordinary wagons equipped with a few enchanted items to allow them to move without a pony pulling it, some were used to transport ponies between cities, some were used to move dirt around your garden, or boxes around warehouses.

Motorwagons, on the other hoof, were completely technological in nature. Big boiler attached to a drive chain and gearbox mounted to a frame. Same effect as an auto-wagon, but they burnt coal to move. Strictly a toy for the wealthy to get about the nation in, of course. Coal had gotten quite scarce in Equestria by the end.

It was enough to make a mare wonder if they’d never heard of charcoal… Seriously, fighting over coal when you have an absolute ton of trees everywhere and a whole nation of Earthponies who can speed up growing trees?

How about instead of going to war you take some trees, crush them into chips, stick them in an earthenware oven and burn them? Sure, it’s not as potent as coal or as long lasting, but it’s almost endlessly renewable!

Actually, wait… Hold on… We’re not using charcoal either! We’ve got more trees than we need to. There has to be some kind of technical reason for it.

“Oh that’s an easy one, hon. The size of the fuel box on a boiler is based on the specific heat of the fuel meant to burn in it. A boiler made for coal might run on charcoal but not nearly as efficiently as if it were running on coal. You’d have to design machines from the ground up to work with charcoal and by the time coal became scarce most of our power plants were built and running on coal. It was never about motor wagons and household appliances. It was about infrastructure and power generation on the state level,” Imaginary dad explained out of nowhere.

I blinked as a realization struck me out of the blue. Wait… When did I ever read that anywhere?

“Oh great… here comes this conversation again,” imaginary dad groaned. “I’m going to say you didn’t know that, and I told you, because I’m not a figment of your imagination, I’m trapped in a computer. You’re going to roll your eyes, point out that is the exact kind of psychologically damaging coping mechanism your imagination would supply you with, so clearly I’m not real. But, you’re going to interact with me anyways because as long as you know it’s pretend it’s fine and you miss me. There! Can we skip the seven thousandth some odd iteration of this debate and go back to occasional social interaction?”

I smiled to myself. Heh. My imagination was something else. I could probably tell stories for foals if I wanted to do something other than deliver the mail.

Yep, that about sums it up, Dad. I thought happily.

Nice try, me! You’re not gonna fool me that easily.

“I swear if I were to tell you the combination to enter the Crystal Heart’s chamber you’d think you just heard it somewhere…” Imaginary dad grumbled to himself. “It’s six, by the way. Just six. Stupidest thing I ever encountered in my whole life. Spent two days trying hacking tools on it. It was six. A single digit. The tools were programed to start with a minimum of four digits. What bucking giant brained pony though that up?”

I paused midstep, fighting off a sudden surge of curiosity. The combination or the program?

“Both!” Dad snapped irritably.

I stepped around a broken axle laying in the road, then sighed aloud and asked, You do understand how obviously impossible it would be for the crystal heart to turn dad into some kind of a computer ghost that can only haunt his robot-daughter, right, me?

“I don’t just haunt you. I can haunt anything with a term-link transponder that I know the network info for… And also firewall codes. Tried to tell Katydid to please pick me up a few times but I can’t get through the firewall on her terminal, your mom’s mental problems make her laugh and tell me to just go tell her myself, and you just flat out don’t believe me... You know she actually understands you’re gone this time? She’s really worried about you,” Dad asked curiously.

We were getting pretty close to the town up ahead now. The rusting and rotting vehicles made it impossible to see any of the town’s ground-level parts, but I could now make out the helmeted head of a sniper watching us through a spotting scope.

I gave him a friendly wave. He returned my gesture with a nod and turned his spotting scope elsewhere.

Good to know they were not trigger happy.

I turned my thoughts inwards again. Dad, you sometimes say things that make me wonder, mention things I don't remember knowing. But then you claim things like mom’s noticed time’s passed. Enough time for her to worry about me being gone. Not only is that impossible, but—

“Call Katydid right now. Go ahead. Call her. Ask how your mom’s doing. She’ll say she misses you and is in a total panic because she thinks you died.”

I rolled my eyes at the idea of mom noticing time had passed… From her point of view when I got home and gave her a nice big hug and said hello, I’d have done that right after having said “goodbye”.

Uh, can’t? We’re walking to.. What was it called again?

“Pinto Creek.”

See? That, I knew. I just didn't consciously remember it. Mom realizing I’m gone and being worried is impossible, but one of my biggest fears. You’re just making me nervous, probably because all these cars and a sniper tower has me a bit nerv—

My thoughts were interrupted by the slight crackle and hiss of an MoA pin’s radio coming to life.

“Take cover, right now,” Loom’s voice whispered from the pin on my collar.

I frowned and stopped in my tracks.

Speed turned around instantly drawing her assault rifle. “What is it?”

Realizing that someone who was a soldier or spy wouldn’t say that for no reason, I squatted down and moved my back up against the overturned auto-wagon to my right.

Vinyl froze and took cover beside a car. I pointed to the pin on my collar. “I don’t know,” I said, moving my lips slowly so they could read my lips even though the pin’s privacy charm would mute my words.

“No! That won’t work, you need air cover. There’s a cave a kilometer at mark two-forty-eight one point two three kilometers from your current position. You have a minute tops. Run. Keep low, stay in cover, and run.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked while turning my head to look at the pin.

“Go now!” Loom ordered, her whisper taking on an urgent tone. “Look, I— I owe you one for being nice to me a few days ago. This is that one. Pinto Creek is about to become a warzone. De-Ass the area!”

My tail raised in alarm. Speed took this as a signal that the end of the world was nigh and jumped up on top of the auto-wagon to her left. “Show yourselves, dinner!” She bellowed at the top of her lungs.

Okay. Okay. That did NOT seem like the right thing to do to signal to your enemy that you knew this was an ambush.

I looked up and searched the horizon to the west for any sign of a cave. I couldn't see anything, but then again, there was a lot of brush… If Loom had an elevated position and good optics she might see something I couldn’t.

Loom sighed through the pin. “Gears, I can see you right now. I don't just see your transponder on my pipbuck. I see you. You’re looking up at your friend on the auto wagon in shock. Go. Now. You have forty five seconds of safety left. Do you copy?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I copy… Thanks Loom. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention— ” Loom paused for a moment then whispered. “I’m going to give you access to my radio. Hear-only link. Use it to stay clear.”

The comm pin hissed and clicked, not the call end click, but a click I didn’t recognize. Almost instantly the pin began to hiss and crackle with more static than usual, but I could hear half a dozen muttered conversations in the distance, as if the pin were a normal radio rather than privacy enchanted.

Vinyl’s ears twitched as she looked at me, clearly hearing the noise as well.

“What’s going on?” Vinyl asked with a worried frown.

I pointed to the hills. “There’s a cave that way, we’re running for it. The Tainted are about to attack the town, let’s go!”

Vinyl frowned. “I— Are you sure? We’re not exactly inexperienced or under equipped. We could help.”

Speed nodded in agreement. “Yeah! We should help. Besides, I’m hungry… Pegans only gave me a pint. That’s like, half a breakfast!”

I hesitated a moment. Deep down, I did want to help… But that would mean fighting Loom, and Rainbow had said it would be best to try and recruit her to our side. Also, I really didn’t think even I could withstand a punch from her if it came down to melee combat, and she could definitely wear enough armor to make my weapons look like popguns.

“As much as I think we—” I said before a new voice came from the pin interrupting me.

“Sergeant, what is the delay?”

Even over a tinny radio speaker, Gale’s voice was impossible to mistake… Also why was the wide-area microphone so tinny and bad when the normal mic was crystal clear?

“We only have one shot at the opening volley, sir. Some tech messed with my settings. I’ve been putting them back how I had them.” Loom said matter of factly.

“Understood. We are behind schedule. Commence bombardment as soon as it is possible.”

Speed’s ears drooped back as she winced. “Oh. Artillery. Running now!”

Without another word, I turned towards the compass heading Loom gave me and began to run.

“Yes, sir! Thirty seconds ‘til I can lay the smackdown on that radio tower.”

“Acknowledged, dropping to attack altitude.”

Vinyl and Speed moved with me, keeping as close on my tail as they could. I wove around and over the wagons, vaulted over the rock wall into the largest cabbage patch I had ever seen. From the edge of the road, all the way to the town’s piled-up stone wall, nothing but cabbages. Easily a square kilometer of cabbage.

We made it halfway across the field before it began.

“All set, sir,” Loom said over the Tainted’s radio frequency.

“Excellent. Enter siege mode and await laser designation.”

“Sir, are you absolutely sure we have to annihilate this Ranger outpost? It’s a bit of a shame to waste what, three dozen suits of power armor. Aren't our Rangers a bit low on supplies? We could take their communications out and go in ourselves, recovering at least some suits—”

“Command gave us highly specific orders, Sergeant. Mortar crews, engage as soon as Loom takes the first shot in the perimeter. These traitors are to be given no quarter. If a single one of them escapes, the entire operation will be blown. Sergeant, you have your orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

A very distinct mechanical hum rolled over the hills, and from my pin. The sound of massive, high pressurized hydraulic pistons moving an amazing amount of steel. Then, a loud hiss as pneumatic cylinders discharged.

Vinyl inhaled sharply at the distant, yet loud, hiss. “That’s a bad sound!”

“That sounded like a Crucio deploying its stabilizers,” Speed remarked with a quaver in her voice.

Crucio… I knew that name… What was it?

“AAV-7 Crucio Self-Propelled Gun. Run. NOW!” Imaginary dad snapped.

I mentally cursed my design for having a top speed of less than 500 kph. “Let’s not find out!

“Gun deployed in siege mode. Waiting on the spotlight for curtain call,” Loom reported.

My ears picked up faint traces of a dull roar coming from high above us. I tilted my head back as I ran, squinting as I searched for any sign of a threat from overhead.

Boy was there!

The unmistakable outline of Gale’s absurdly over-armed airborn power armor was overhead, circling Pinto Creak.

“Target illuminated. Fire!” Gale ordered.

I reached up to grab the top of the field’s wall to vault over it.

THOOM!

The earth shook beneath my hooves, knocking me off balance and sending me to my knees. The tremor wasn’t so great, if I hadn’t been rearing up at the time—

“YEP! CRUCIO! RUN!” Speed shrieked, flapping her wings frantically to try and take to the air even though she couldn’t really fly.

I got back up on my hooves and—

FZZZZZT— KROOM!

The earth punched me in the stomach, flinging me onto my side. The sky was filled with shards of metal, bits of wood tumbling end over end, seemingly hanging in the air like clouds… then falling like rain.

Rain made of a weird high pitched hum. Oh. My audio system overloaded. Let me just reboot tha—

The debris began to crash into the earth. Splintered 2x4s fell like arrows, slamming into the cabbage patch all around me. I rolled left just in time to dodge a leg-sized chunk of steel which buried itself deep into the earth, nearly disappearing.

My sound system reset. The sound of falling debris was pierced by a distant rumble like thunder. A sort of brrrt, maybe?

I had just enough time to realize that was the sound of several rotary cannons before the sky was full of burning tracer rounds and a 20mm rain fell on Pinto Creak like the deadliest hailstorm there ever was.

The fiery plumes of tracer rounds followed a pattern. A pyramid shape, the point high in the sky, the base centered on the newly sans-sniper-tower town. It almost looked like Gale was firing a flamethrower with impossible range.

I felt pure horror well up from deep within me. Suddenly his armor’s weapon system made much, much, much more sense. Suddenly the horrors of the Great War were crystal clear.

Gale’s armor was a miniaturized AC-47 gunship!

THOOM! Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!

Oh, Celestia, not another one!

Wait, what were those pops?

Vinyl yanked me up onto my hooves with her magic. “RUN!” she shouted as she jumped the field’s fence into the carrot patch beyond it.

I jumped over the fence half a second later, following on her and Speed’s hooves as we all ran in the general direction of the cave.

The bullet rain continued, shifting location from moment to moment, saturating the entire town with lead and phosphorous. From what little I saw through the corner of my eye, after absolutely shredding the center of the town, Gale shifted to the outer edge, sweeping across it in a ring of—

FZZZZZT— KROOM!

Chunks of stone began to rain down on us. Flecks of rock and metal plinked off my armor. The MAS security armor was sturdy, but each impact sent a jolt of pain into my back. As for my unprotected head, shrapnel and debris sliced right on through to my subdermal plates.

Fortunately, the pain was muted by pure terror as everything around us began to explode. Dozens of small explosions flung dirt and debris everywhere as the Tainted mortar shells dropped down on us.

My hearing was offline again. I didn’t even bother trying to reboot it as I sprinted through the fields.

Vinyl reached out with her magic, grabbed Speed by her hips, and yanked her towards us. Before I could question why, Vinyl ripped Discord’s fang out from her jumpsuit, screamed something at it once, twice, three times, and then suddenly we were surrounded by a blue-white bubble of arcane light.

Right! Shield! Like the wasps!

Thank you, Vinyl. I love you so much!

A memory came flooding back to me. A memory of just how that shield had performed the last time.

Oh, Celesita, no! The wasps chewed through it in a few seconds!

I rebooted my audio systems. Vinyl’s terrified quavering voice chanting ancient lyrics was the first thing I heard.

“Run! She can’t keep this up for long!” I yelled to Speed.

We bolted under the cover of the shield. Shrapnel plinked off the glowing barrier at first. Then it began to stick in it. Slowly at first, but with ever increasing speed, the translucent blue-white of the shield was replaced with the opaque gray of mangled metal.

The firing rain stopped. I only noticed it because the light it had been giving off had managed to mask the sunset entirely. The moment those guns stopped, the valley was plunged into near-darkness.

“Guns three through six are dry,” Gale reported over the radio. “Sergeant Loom, transition to assault mode and proceed into the town to direct my remaining fire on any survivors. Mortar crews, continue bombardment and move inwards to start shelling the rubble perimeter to center.”

“Understood. Switching to Lemon Rush cannon.”

The mountain side was so close now! Just a hundred meters away. We would be there soon, but where was the cave?!

Vinyl’s shield exploded in a shower of bright white sparks with the sound of a thunderclap. We’d taken a direct hit… I expected her to scream as the shield sucked her magic dry trying to stay up. Instead, she just slumped over.

I stared at her limp body in horror.

Speed turned, looked, scooped Vinyl onto her back and pointed ahead. “Cave! Behind those rocks and the wildflowers. GO!”

“Right!” I shouted, resuming our mad dash once more.

A new voice spoke through he Tainted’s radio link. “Commander? We’ve been shelling an enemy wizard circling the town’s perimeter. We got through the shield, and well, we have a bead on The Machine, sir.”

My eyes shrank to pinpricks as my core skipped a cycle. “Oh, buck the hay no!”

“WHAT?!”

I swear I heard his voice from the air, not just my pin...

“None of my crew has a sniper rifle, sir. Nothing we have will—”

“I see her! Loom, new plan. Move to the laser coordinates. She survived me before, let’s see if she survives everything you got!”

NOPE! Not doing this again! Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope! ALL OF THE SPEED NOW PLEASE!

I didn’t even have time to put one hoof in front of the other before the shredded dirt and carrot-mulch in front of me erupted in a spray of earth.

“LOOM! I blew her leg off, it grew back. We’re dealing with a zebra warlock. Full rocket strike on these coordinates, NOW!” Gale ordered as another spray of bullets missed me.

How could he miss?! He had a billion bullets to shoot at buck-me rounds-per-minute and the mother of all height advantages!

“I don’t have a clear shot, sir.”

“Why the buck not?!”

“I’m plowing through a building, sir.”

“Fire as soon as your clear! I’m keeping her fenced in!”

Oh, that’s why he was “missing”.

I turned to look up, assessing my options. The small speck in the sky firing on me looked to be nearly 3.45 km above us. Well out of range for everything I had… Shooting back was not an option.

Running? I was pretty sure my shields could take one hit from his cannon and hold. Unfortunately I wouldn’t be hit with one if I ran through his bullet fence. I’d probably take half a dozen. Running was not an option.

Speed had Vinyl on her back. Swiping her gun to take a shot was out of the question. Especially since she kept the extended barrel off Bad Trip to use it as a pistol most of the time.

Wait, Speed!

I doubted her hunting rifle would do anything, but maybe he’d take evasive action and I could make it to the cave.

“Speed! Shoot him!” I called, pointing up to the spec in the sky.

Speed stopped running, standing next to the rock pile which seemingly marked the cave’s entrance, let Vinyl slide of her back, drew her rifle, aimed carefully, then lowered her gun. “No good! Well out of range for this thing.”

“BUCK!” I growled as another line of bullets swept its way around me.

“WHERE ARE THOSE ROCKETS, SERGEANT!” Gale demanded over the radio.

“Just made it through… I got stuck in the stupid thing. Sorry about that. One barrage coming right up,” Loom reported.

She’d been buying me time… But she also wouldn’t disobey orders. Well, thanks for the chance I guess.

The fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish of a rapidly emptying rocket pod pierced through the sharp booms of the mortar shelling. A dozen firey plumes of smoke streaked out from the burning rubble which had once been a town. They arced around everything in their path, each taking their own route towards me.

This was it. Sorry, your highness… I was bound to miss a delivery sooner or later.

The column of rockets rejoined each other, raced the last hundred yards towards me. I closed my eyes and turned away.

The shriek of rockets almost deafened me as each rocket flew past me. A dozen explosions shook my chassis as the mountainside above and behind me was obliterated.

“YOU MISSED!” Gale bellowed through the radio.

She did? I opened my eyes.

“The buck I did! Those were guided rockets!”

Oh, hey! She did!

“YOU MISSED!”

Yay!

“Then she’s got a jammer of some kind!

“Then you’ll have to shoot her! I can’t spend all my rounds fencing her in! Engaging priority target in melee combat. All available units, provide covering fire.”

Oh buck he’s coming down to me!

Wait. He’s coming down… Last time he faced Feature’s wrath, I put a hole through his wing.

Okay!

I mean, I don’t have another depleted arcanite round, but that’s okay! I’ve got other goodies.

I ripped open my saddlebag and dug out my ammo boxes.

Cryo. Nope!

Incendiary. Useless

High explosive. No.

I glanced up. Gale was plummeting through the air. Diving for me. Not much time!

Canister cartridges… No!

ARGH! Why did there have to be so many different types of—

AH HA! HEAP! High-Ex might have done nothing last time, but maybe normal armor piercing shells would do something to his power armor.

I loaded in the belt of HEAP, not bothering to take it out of the box, drew the bolt back, and turned up to aim. Fortunately, he wasn’t on top of me just yet...

Locking on target…

Target: Gale Force, center mass.
Range: 132.73491 meters.
Wind: 2.601 knots by 146.264 degrees.
Compensate for target’s motion...
Compensate for drag…
Compensate for coriolis effect…
Compensate for shell drop…
Compensate for Equus’s rotation…

Target locked! Targeting time, 0.01 milliseconds.

Feature’s barrel blazed as I burned through the belt, putting every single shell I could into Gale’s barrel. Bursts of white sparks covered his armor like a blanket as my grenades hammered away at his armor, doing seemingly buck-all.

Gale continued his dive, the blade housed in his armor’s foreleg snicked open. He aimed the blade for my head, his dive nearly complete…

A flash of green light bloomed through the white sparks. His left pauldron exploded in a flash of plasma as something ruptured within his armor. The blast flung him through the air, and the crash he made as he buried his head in the earth shook the ground.

He wasn't dead. No way, no how.

I checked my belt. 4 rounds of HEAP left. I fired them into the sparking, molten mass of metal which had been Gale’s pauldron.

It didn’t seem to matter.

Gale began to stand. I turned to run. Vinyl had regained consciousness! Her blue aura snapped Feature’s breach open and loaded in a belt of cryo rounds.

“He’ll follow us in the cave just keep shooting!” Vinyl shouted as she drew Bad Trip.

That’s right. She watched my memory orb. Also, he would definitely follow us…

I turned back around to cryo the ever-loving buck out of the madpony. He was already up.

His front left autocannon blazed. My core skipped a cycle. The rounds flew past me and shredded the soil to my left.

Gale growled loudly and lowered his head as if to glare more intensely at me. “You shot my targeting crystals… Nice job, for a deadmare.”

I fired a burst of three cryo rounds. The shells burst against his barrel and shoulder, sparks of silver arcane energy flowered outwards as large ice crystals spread across his armor. Several centimeters of ice encased his barrel and shoulder within the blink of an eye, immobilizing—

His armor hummed and screeched from strain. The ice cracked, shattered, and fell to the crater-pocked earth like so many shards of broken dreams.

I couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed...

A burst of assault rifle rounds rumbled behind me. Speed’s shots plinked off Gale’s armor as if they were nothing. He took a step forward and raised his hoof blade.

“This time, stripe,” Gale growled. “I’ll take your he—”

TESSEW!

Vinyl’s shot streaked through the air and hit Gale squarely between the eyes! Bad Trip’s arcane energies cracked across the surface of his armor as the shot diffused. Diffused, but not completely!

Gale roared, curled in on himself, grabbed his head with both hooves and screamed. I put another seven grenades into his head and chest, burying him under as much ice as I could. Vinyl fired again and again, but unfortunately, my ice provided more shielding for Gale, and her follow up shots did buck all.

Whoops…

The monster in front of us pushed through the agony and stood, shattering the ice again. He reached back, grabbed one of his autocannons and twisted it, forcing the barrels to point at me.

“Aim with the head,” He groaned, clearly and thankfully injured. “Shoot with the mind… Kill with a heart like arctic ice.”

His barrels began to spin up.

Maybe I could dodge? He was aiming without his armor’s assistance

“Really?” Loom said through the radio. “You seriously still quote that marching song to intimidate people? Really?! Every bucking colt ever knew that by heart. You might as well sing one of Vinyl Scratch’s greatest hits!”

To my surprise, instead of Gale shooting me, he chose to reply. No sound came from his armor, but I could hear him through the pin all the same. “I suppose you have something that would work better?”

“Sure do!” Loom replied cheerfully.

Something rumbled and screeched in the distance. I heard metal squealing, and rocks crunching… the sound of tracks… Was that the Los Pegan land train?!

I looked up, turned my head towards the ruins of Pinto Creek where the sound was coming from, and yelped in terror.

A small quad-tracked tank jumped over the remains of the town’s rubble-wall and slammed into the earth, racing across the smouldering field towards us at the speed of murder!

“OH SHIT!” Speed screeched. “I don’t have an RPG! Into the cave!”

I turned to start running. Vinyl and Speed ran through the wildflower bush into the cave that was definitely there. I started to follow them. The tank cut me off, turning in a power slide to block the entrance.

Up close, the small armored vehicle had a very odd design. Lots of sloped armor, but everything seemed quite… modular. The tracks were split into segments, so it had four shorter tracks rather than two long ones. They didn’t seem to be joined to the main body in any normal way. Especially odd was between the two track segments were little hydraulic legs which would help it brace for shooting.

I’d also never seen a tank with an over-under barrel combination on the turret. Or twin rocket pods mounted on the turret sides. Or what looked like the visor of a power armor helmet for the driver’s view sli—

The “tank” shifted, the tracks moving as if to push the main body upwards. I wasn’t looking at a tank. I was looking at a heavily modified set of powered armor, which, if the wearer lay down in it, tank tracks joined to their shoulders and hips would provide a speedy means of crossing a battlefield.

And when standing, made attacking from the flanks stupid, as they provided what was effectively four shields as thick as a pony’s body.

Loom rose to her full height. Her armor’s turret swung its barrels to point at me. “I’m wearing a tank and your not!” Loom said pointedly.

”Oh. That is better.”

I squeaked in terror and nodded.

My MoA pin clicked and hissed, its connection resetting. “I’m going to miss,” Loom said to just me through the pin. “Run around me into the cave. I’ll “miss” again and collapse the entrance. You can blast your way out with your grenades later. Good luck…”

The pin clicked silent. Loom fired. I felt the heat from the smaller of her two cannons as the muzzle flash engulfed me… but the shell missed. It exploded behind me somewhere. I didn’t look, I just ran.

“BUCK!” Loom bellowed. “She dodged!”

“GET HER, YOU USELESS HALF-MARE BASTARD!” Gale roared with more rage than I’d ever heard in my life.

Cave close. Almost cave. Almost safe.

Side note: Holy crap. No wonder Loom is doing this for me.

I dove through the bush, my belly hit stone and gravel, I slid across the ground into the cave, jumped up and kept running. Fortunately, Vinyl and Speed were already well within the cave.

They were coming back towards me for some reason, but they should be out of the danger area.

Loom’s cannon thundered again. The sound of cracking stone and showering rock drowned out the echoes from the shot. Stone fell all around me, smashing against my head, back, shoulders…

An especially large and jagged rock smashed into my spine. My MAS security armor, tough as it was, cracked open. I could feel hot coolant dripping across my back form the wound.

Rocks continued to fall around me. If I couldn’t make it out of the way, I would be buried beneath several tons of stone.

Blue light lit the cave. Vinyl! She grabbed me and pulled me forwards, clear of the collapsing cave entrance and to her side.

I immediately hugged her. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she sighed. “We’re still trapped in here.”

“Yes, but I can blast the rocks later and—” I paused for a moment.

At least twelve meters of cave had collapsed from that shot.

“No… No I can’t. Nevermind…” I sighed. “We’re trapped…”

Speed shook her head. “No, we’re not. I can hear the cave system. It’s big. Deep. Probably other ways out.”

My ears perked up. “That’s good! Thanks for coming back to see if I made it.”

Vinyl coughed into her hoof. “T— That wasn’t what we were doing.”

I blinked. “Then what?”

“Well, it’s not a problem for me… Might be for you, and it definitely is for Speed, but…” Vinyl reached down to her leg with her hoof, pulled her jumpsuit back… and I could hear the soft ticking of her pipbuck’s geiger counter.

I winced.

Speed nodded and pointed to me. “Yes. That… The ticking is ten times worse just like, another six steps down the tunnel.”

“The Gardens didn’t exactly have the power this far out to clean the inside of mountains…” Vinyl added as she rolled her sleeve back down and sighed. “Speed’s going to die if we’re here for more than a few hours. Sooner if we go into the cave system.”

Gale had ripped through an armored elevator shaft last time we fought… I turned and looked back at the mountain of stone. If he ordered Loom to shoot this ‘til it was cleared, or decided to use his power armor to dig through after us…

I looked over to Vinyl and simply said. “Elevator.”

She nodded. “Yep… We’ve got to go in.”

Speed looked down and kicked a loose stone. “So uh… Is this a bad time to mention I forgot to pack anti-rad drugs?”

Great. Just great.

27 - Glow

Speed and I lay huddled together at the foot of the cave in, waiting for Vinyl to return with word of an exit. I’d tried to convince her that Speed would be alright on her own and we could both look for the sake of safety, but she’d refused, and not for a reason I’d thought of.

“You’re a big dense block of metal, crystal, and polymers. If Speed hunkers down behind you you’ll absorb most of the rads flooding up the tunnel. Around the entrance here, you could buy her another four, maybe five hours.”

That was a pretty hard reason to argue with, so here I was. Crouched down to be a mobile lead wall while my marefriend risked life and limb in a horribly irradiated hellhole.

The radiation might have been no real threat to Vinyl, but what about the things which had been in here before? There would almost certainly be ghouls in a place this irradiated. To say nothing of pre-war defense systems, robots, turrets, old floors made from rotting materials, ceilings ready to cave in… And of course, whatever made all of that radiation to begin with.

I understood the way the Gardens of Equestria worked. They’d emitted a big energy pulse which emanated from the Gardens megaspell and washed over the land. It made sense that big dense objects had blocked the Garden’s effects after a certain distance from their epicenter. The inverse square law is pretty much the king of energy transmission.

Big, dense, heavy structures block all kinds of radiation. Thermal, luminal, arcane, atomic. It doesn’t matter. If you want to stop radiation of any kind, you get a big honking slab of mass and put it between you and the radiation.

The dragon’s hoard worth of radiation inside this mountain couldn’t have been left around from the day balefire rained down from the sky. A balefire bomb would have had to detonate inside the mountain in order to make that happen, and if it had there wouldn’t be a mountain anymore! Stables were built beneath big granite slabs like this mountain for the express reason of keeping balefire out.

Vinyl had just trotted into a huge pool of radiation which shouldn’t be here.

That was bad enough. Even worse, there were almost certainly feral ghouls in there. If the radiation was enough to make a pipbuck start to click on the outermost edge of this cave system, inside it had to be steel liquefying intense, at least, in the immediate vicinity of the radiation’s central point. That would draw ferals in like moths to the biggest flame.

Or worse, there could be hundreds of tons of radioactive materials just laying around everywhere in the caves…

“Hey, so, according to my pipbuck she’s been gone for six hours,” Speed said out of the blue.

Had she been gone that long already? Yes, I believe she had… Seemed about right for scouting a whole cave system. She should be back soon, really.

Or was it a cave?

I nodded and sighed. “Yeah… But it’s a huge mountain, and the longer I sit here the more pony-made this cave seems. Wait, are you worried about your exposure time?”

Speed shook her head paused, then nodded. “Yes and no. I should have over a day if we’re just sitting here. I’m mostly worried about how long Vinyl’s been gone.”

“Could just be a lot to explore,” I said with a nervous laugh. “For all we know there could be a stable deep in there and she’s trying to find a way through…”

Or having horrible flashbacks… Buck, we should probably go look for her.

“Yeah, but…” Speed sighed and bit her lip. “I’d like some sound. I know you’re worried and don’t want to talk much, but… Uh…”

She trailed off for a moment and coughed into her hoof. “S— so you know how lots of foals are scared of the dark?”

I nodded. “Yes… I might have a flashlight?” I said as I started to move to open my saddlebags.

“I’m not scared of the dark, I’m scared of the quiet,” Speed admitted with a shy little squeak. “It’s… It’s unnaturally quiet in here.”

“Oh. Um, I guess I can talk,” I said with a sympathetic frown.

Speed shook he rhead. “No. No it’s okay. I just wanted to know if I could turn on my radio.”

I blinked and tilted my head. “You… You think you’ll get a signal under all this rock?”

Speed shrugged. “Maybe? Pipbuck’s transceivers are pretty good.”

“Sure, give it a shot,” I said as I turned to look up the tunnel for any sign of Vinyl’s return.

Speed shifted slightly, breaking the tunnel’s silence with the sound of fur and flesh scraping on stone. There was a click, and then the radio came to life, filling the tunnel with the dulcet tones of DJ Pon3.

“— normally, yours truly would be able to tell you the cold hard facts of anything under Pip’s watchful eye. Sorry to say, that’s not the way it is today.”

“Okay, this is creepier than Miss Pie’s claiming to know things she couldn’t possibly know and turning out to be completely right,” Imaginary Dad said to me with a verbal shiver. “How the buck do you just keep hearing news every time you turn on any radio ever?”

Well, news is always being made, right? Makes sense there’s a lot of it to tune into.

“Pinto Creek was covered by the SPP network once,” DJ continued. “Then I had to introduce the Enclave to a self destructing star blaster. Long time viewers will be well aware that we depended on a small outpost of Applejack’s Rangers to get news from that particular region. Fortunately, when their radio frequency went dark a few other Rangers decided to look into it.

“Unfortunately, all we know is what I just told you. The town’s gone. There were three survivors, I haven't been told who they were, but they claim to have been rescued by, and I quote, a “friendly tank-pony”. To be fair to them, given how much artillery fire they made it through, I’m going to chalk that up on them having the mother of all concussions.

“If anypony out there knows anything about what happened, please drop by and let us know. If the Herd’s spokesmare is right and some of our troopers did that… Well, I’d rather we stick to border skirmishes and if we really did vaporize a whole town, I wouldn’t blame them for escalating to full blown war.”

I flinched at the thought of a second war breaking out, then it hit me.

The Enclave were fighting to take Lith right now. They’d wanted to stop me from delivering my radios so the Heartland’s nations wouldn’t help us. Now they were set to help us.

That’s why Gale and Loom had been ordered to level this village. To start a war. To ensure the Heartlands would be too distracted to help us.

I had to let her know!

I reached into my saddlebag and dug out my own radio. I set it up in seconds and clicked it on. “Homage, this is Gears, come in, over?”

Only static replied.

Homage continued Speaking as DJ Pon3 via Speed’s radio. “This brings us to our second piece of news. Seems a few ponies thought the prison at Arbu would be fun to break into last night. You heard me right folks, a break in. Who breaks into a prison? Beats the hay out of everypony investigating the crime… but we do know what they were after.

“Our surprisingly stealthy burglars slipped into the prison compound just after moonrise, and took a page from Pip’s book by taking a whole mess of stealth bucks with them. Fortunately for us, one of these masters of clandestine activities left spent stealth bucks all over the place. Unfortunately, that doesn’t do much more than tell us that whoever broke in, they had a lot of tech available and felt it was a fair trade for their target, one Colonel Windsheer.”

I paused for a moment. I knew that name, didn’t I?

Yes! I did. That was the Enclave’s Chief Communications Officer who decided to help Pip out during the final battle… and also one of Calamity's brothers, right? Yes, he was.

I guess that help wasn’t enough to avoid a prison sentence… Maybe whoever broke him out felt fourteen years was enough for someone who had seen the light in the end?

“Now your guess is as good as mine as to why someone would break an Enclave officer out of prison now of all times,” DJ Pon3 continued. “Personally, I always felt like Windsheer’s sentence was just a little bit harsh, but remember folks, he was still one of the ponies in charge of the Enclave. A last minute change of heart doesn't undo his participation in Operation Cauterize.”

I pressed down on my radio’s transmit button again. “Homage, come in this is Gears. I was at Pinto Creek, over!”

I parked my ears and listened closely to Speed’ radio, hoping to hear my own message go through… but it didn’t. My transmitter must not have been able to punch through the mountain, unlike Homage’s.

Where’s a several dozen ton radio-transmitter tower when you needed one?

In about a million pieces atop a mass grave that used to be a town. That’s where.

DJ Pon3 continued with the news broadcast, either not hearing me, or ignoring me to finish the news. “If you fancy yourself the bounty hunting type, General Blitz has put a bounty of thirty thousand bits on Windsheer’s safe return, and six thousand on his return as a pile of meat. If you don’t mind splitting that payday, and are not too far from Junction Town, I’m pretty sure that Calamity would appreciate a helping hoof or two in his own search. And now, some music.”

The news broadcast clicked over to a simple violin playing a solo, something patriotic or whatever. In the desperate hope that Homage had simply been ignoring me to finish the news I held down the broadcast button one more time. “Homage, this is Gears, come in, over!”

Seconds ticked by. Nothing…

I sighed, packed up my radio, and cuddled up next to Speed as music filled the irradiated cave.

☢★★◯★★☢

A few dozen songs passed Speed and I by. Each minute that ticked past made me more and more worried. Vinyl should have been back by now. She could have fallen into a chasm, been ripped apart by ferals hungry enough to chow down on a fellow ghoul which wasn’t a part of their pack, or been killed by any one of a dozen different mundane events likely to happen in an old cave.

I clenched my teeth and stood up. “I can’t take it anymore. We need to find her.”

Speed used her wing to turn off her radio. “I agree. I don’t want to lay here and die.”

I nodded and looked down the cave’s tunnel into the unknown. I swore I could see a pale green light a ways down the tunnel… Maybe a lantern?

“Let’s go. Keep an ear on your Pipbuck. If it gets too bad, I want you to tell me and leave,” I asked as I started to trot down the tunnel.

“You know that strong enough radiation can affect robots too, right?” Speed said with a worried flick of her wings.

“I’m aware of the effects of radiation on thaumaturgic and electronic components,” I said with a nod. “I’ll be fine.”

Speed shook her head and raised an eyebrow at me. “Um, no? You’re more sensitive to it then I’ll be after a certain level. You should also leave if it starts to tick real fast.”

“I’m powered by radiation. I have shielding. Most robots don’t,” I said as soothingly as I could.

“Sure, your core is shielded,” Speed said slowly, her voice trembling with worry. “But, that’s so you don’t bake yourself. You should still be vulnerable to—”

“I have external shielding too,” I reminded. “That way if my core’s case cracks, I don’t kill everything around me with magic-cancer. Unless I do something stupid like walk directly into a thaumic reactor, I’ll be okay.”

“Oh yeah… Heh,” speed snickered. “Sorry, I forgot.”

Our hooves clicked and echoed as we walked deeper and deeper into the gloom. I was tempted to ask Speed to turn on her Pipbuck light, as Wander had before venturing into the cave’s depths. Then again, a light would attract anything alive down here, my own eyes didn’t need ambient light to see, and Speed could navigate by sound.

That said, I couldn’t see color when using my dark vision, and the mono-chrome gray my eyes rendered everything in at the moment was more than a little distressing. Everything, that is, aside from the pale green light at the end of the tunnel.

I was convinced it was a light next to a door. Time, damp, and the ever shifting earth had worn the walls in this mountain smooth and round, but you could still tell they had once been perfectly arched and carved out of the mountain by tools, not water and time. There had to be a door. This had to be the entrance to a Stable.

That simple fact made the fur on the back of my neck stand up. It was almost worse than the ever-more-urgent clicking coming from Speed’s pipbuck.

What the heck was so radioactive?!

Speed suddenly stopped walking. I stopped as well, immediately training Feature on the tunnel ahead. “What is it?” I asked quietly.

“There’s a pony four hundred meters ahead and closing” Speed whispered. “They’ll have heard you speak…”

I nodded and sighed. “Well, we’re packing more firepower than most ponies. If it’s not Vinyl, they’ll regret it if they try anything.”

Speed nodded slowly. “Yeah, about that… Maybe don't use your grenade launcher in here. Stick to the lightning gun.”

“You know it’s called a LAER,” I reminded as I continued to stare down the tunnel, wondering why I couldn’t see the pony’s silhouette in the green light… Green light which wasn’t so pale any more.

“Yes, but they don’t,” Speed pointed out oddly loudly. “It’s a rare weapon. But whoever that is should be aware that if you fail to fry them with a lightning bolt, I am starving and have a chainsaw!”

Poor Speed… It must suck to have to eat several times a day.

I readied my LAER and aimed it head of us. I couldn't see the target yet, but the moment I did I was going to lock on to center mass and—

A mare’s voice drifted down the tunnel, her song distorted by a dozen echoes which transformed her voice is to something motherly, excited, and menacing. “Octavia solves her problems by calling up her mom. Lyra solves her problems with sweets and alcohol. Bonnie solves her problems with a doctor and the law… But Speed's got her own way, and it's better than them all, 'cause Speed solves her problems with a chainsaw! Speed solves her problems with a chainsaw! Speed solves her problems with a chainsaw! And she never has the same problem twice!”

Well that wasn’t completely, bucking, horrifying!

I turned back to give Speed a look, hoping to silently tell her she should put several hundred bullets into the approaching demon-pony. Speed twitched her ears and frowned steeply, straining to hear the approaching mare. Good, she was trying to lock on target.

“Wait a minute…” Speed mumbled quietly.

I turned back towards the singing mare, and squeaked in terror. The green light was pony shaped, and it was moving! SWEET BUCKING CELESTIA’S WATER COOLING PUMP, RADIATION GHOSTS!

“Shoot!” I hissed.

If anypony could just bullet a ghost to redeath it would surely be the mare who chainsawed through a shotgun barrel!

“Wait!” Speed insisted, her frown shifting from worried to confused.

The radiation-ghost-mare continued to sing while bouncy-walking towards us. “Whether it's a bill or a cheque arriving late, rancid marble cheese or a steak that's second rate, awful TV programs or a broken Luna plate, or her fiancé who dumped her because she's gaining weight, Speed solves her problems with a chainsaw! Speed solves her problems with a chainsaw! Speed solves her problems with a chainsaw! And she never has the same problem twice.”

I braced myself, got ready to fill the ghost full of lightning in the hopes that electricity could hurt a ghost… and took a step back in shock.

That wasn’t a ghost. That was a ghoul. A glowing ghoul. Like what had happened to Ditzy when she’d dug through the rubble of Maripony to find Pip after Pip had balefired the old laboratory.

More importantly, it was a specific ghoul. My ghoul. Vinyl. She was glowing so brightly her jumpsuit couldn’t contain the light, having made her clothing seem invisible until she got within fifty meters of us.

“V— Vi?” I stammered.

“And she goes!” Vinyl shot over to Speed with the energy of a 5 year old, and a huge stupid grin, finishing her impromptu song while miming flailing a chainsaw and immitating engine noises then stating, “Problem solved!”

“Uh…” Speed and I said together.

“Are you okay, hon?” I asked with a frown.

Vinyl turned to me and nodded several times. “YES! Everything is food in there! I feel like I just ate like twenty bowls of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, except my stomach didn’t literally morph into an angry punch-my-insides monster!” she said in the most rapid-fire voice I had ever heard her use.

Vinyl spun around to look at Speed then pointed back towards the cave din section of the tunnel. “You should go that way! There is like ALL of the radiation in there. Like, ever. It was awesome!” Vinyl’s grin faltered for a moment, then she gently pushed Speed towards the cave-in down the tunnel. “No, but seriously you’ll die within seconds in there. At least, right now, there’s a way through but Gears will have to do a thing!”

Speed took a few steps back, her muzzle twisting in a sharp grimace. “Yeah, and I should also stay away from you! Or did you forget that ghouls are rad-sponges?”

Vinyl paused, looked down at herself and blinked. “Wait, you can see that too? I thought I was just really high.”

I raised an eyebrow, silently wondering why Vinyl would think that.

She saw my gesture and offered me an understanding smile. “Uh, well, let me put it this way… I’ve spent the last fourteen years living on one meal a week and suddenly I’ve gotten to eat so much past my fill that I am literally glowing! High’s probably the wrong word? I feel good. Healthy. It’s nice!”

I frowned and tilted my head. “Wait, a single bottle of Aqua Cura a week is—”

“A starvation diet,” Vinyl commented before pointing down the tunnel. “Okay! So, I did a little exploring in there, and there’s a way out, but we need to clear a path for Speed!”

Vinyl spun to look at Speed. “Who should be getting as far from here as possible! I mean it’s not like, that big. I don’t think. But there is so much radiation in there that the dust in the air is all glowy and bright-bucking-white and some hallways look like it snowed in them.”

Speed nodded once and rapidly began to trot backwards towards the cave-in.

I didn’t even have a chance to speak before Vinyl turned back to me. To be honest I was enjoying her hyper-active state. “Okay!” she said with a huge grin. “Soooo, There are two things. First, there’s a door in there I couldn’t open and it’s marked R&D, so we’re gonna open it. Second—”

I held up a hoof to stop her. “Vi, hold on! What even is whatever you were exploring? You didn’t tell us!”

Vinyl blinked then facehooved. “Ack! Sorry. I feel like I’m on cocaine but without all the aggression.”

I raised an eyebrow and pursed my lips. “How do you know what—”

“Pre-war nightclub owner. Duh,” Vinyl said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Okay, so, there are two things in here! We’re at a back entrance. There’s a staircase. Down is some kind of toxic waste storage facility. It’s all contaminated. We’re not going back down there because I felt like I was getting ill. Upstairs is a Stable-like hardened bunker that apparently belonged to the MoA. I think it was one of their operations bases. It’s probably been empty for hundreds of years. Too much dust, everypony’s body up there is just bones.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay… Do you know why it’s so radioactive?”

“Yep!” Vinyl nodded several times. “They had a huge motherbucking reactor and it melted down but gud!”

I winced. “Oh… Uh… So there’s just all kinds of fuel scattered around everywhere in there…”

Vinyl nodded several times and bounced from hoof to hoof. “Mhm! And the reactor says “experimental” on the side, which is why I think we should open the R&D room up. It’s the only closed door in there which isn’t melted shut. IF they were experimenting with a power generation method like that, they have to have some hazmat suits somewhere in there and none of the skellies had one so I want to see if we can’t find one for Speed, so she can not-die.”

“That’s a good plan,” I said with a little smile. “Sooo, what do I need to do and why can’t you do it?”

“I need you to get into the reactor’s -control room and tell the computer that it’s not melting down. That will seal the doors that opened up automatically for evacuation. Then I’ll be able to turn on the air-circulation and that should suck all the rad-dust into the vents, which will make things safer for Speed even if we can find her a suit. I mean they don’t block all the radiation. Just a lot of it.”

Overall, a strong plan. I nodded in agreement. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Vinyl spun on her hooves and sprinted off into the distance like a giant glow-in-the-dark action figure. I couldn’t help but wonder if some of her angst was due to being hungry all of the time…

☢★★◯★★☢

Just as Vinyl had said, there was a staircase. What she hadn’t said was the staircase was the mother of all staircases. We went up a good thirty flights before arriving at a large steel door. Pneumatically operated. Half a mare thick. Hermetically sealed.

A very serious door. With a very serious sign.

Kingdom of Equestria Ministry of Awesome Extra-Territorial Operations Headquarters II

TOP SECRET CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY

OS-SAP III CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY

Trespassers will be executed by site security without trial.

Vigilo Confido

I read over the sign several times then eeped as Vinyl just trotted right inside. “Uh, so there isn’t like an army of pop-up turrets in there, right?”

She laughed. “Relax! I took care of everything like that going in. That’s why it took forever. I had to sew-up my jumpsuit.”

I nodded timidly and trotted through the door. I could easily tell the whole facility was extremely radioactive. Primarily because my eyes started to flicker and dim while filling with little flashes of white light. Like someone was throwing the tiniest bits of confetti and glitter right into my eyes…

As Vinyl led me down the dust and grime covered corridors, I could tell why she said the place was “Stable-like”. The floor was a thin rotting mat of rubber covering rusty galvanized steel panels (a terrifying fact, since this level of radiation should have sterilized everything to such a degree as to prevent rot), the walls were made entirely from that special kind of hardened concrete seen only in old military bases and Stables, and the ceiling above us was little more than uncovered air ducts and support brackets for supporting pipes.

Just as horrifying as the rotting rubber was the mold. Mold was everywhere. Dark blotches in each nook and cranny of the wall, running along pipes, into air ducts, and down the hairline cracks in the concrete. Sometimes the glowing dust particles in the air would drift close to the mold… and dim. Sometimes they would vanish entirely.

Radiation eating mold. Great…

Like Vinyl had said, every single door was open, aside from one or two we passed which appeared to have been welded shut. It felt creepy to me that every open door was marked with a sign next to it. You had things like Lab-13, Situation Room, Barracks, Backup Generator 8, Satellite Uplink 6, Infirmary…

“Hey, um, Vi? Was there aӱඔ ᇢnti-rad in the infirmary?” I asked curiously.

“Yep. But it’s radioactive. It did its job and soaked all the rads out of the thing it was in contact with… the air. Via the oxygen-permeable plastic bag it was in,” she grumbled. “Seriously, why wasn’t it stored in glass?”

I sighed. “I don’t know? Availability?”

“I guess,” Vinyl commented with a shrug, then paused. “Wait, did your voice crack?”

“I don’t think so?” I said with a frown.

Vinyl shrugged then shivered. “Sorry. Guess I’m just kinda losing it a little. Starting to feel like I’m on ecstasy, you know?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t sorry,” I said before returning to my thoughts.

This place was locked down tight back in the day. I could see a pop-up turret’s mangled form sticking out of the ceiling every few meters. Vinyl had fought through this place pretty hard over the last few hours. Before the war, there would have had soldiers on guard here too.

That’s why they felt safe in labeling doors to places like the “Advanced Warfare Center”, “Guerrilla Tactics Classroom”, “Advanced Power Armor Development”, and even a thing called “Shadow Warfare”. And yet, in spite of all that, ᄅen ❂hኾt hit the fan, they welded some doors shut. Doors which went unlabeled.

I paused for a moment by one of these rare unlabeled doors and studied the frame. The door itself seemed noticaly more robust than what the wall thickness of the open doors could support. That was interesting, but more ၶ⎀ter₺sݧטng was how there wasn’t any holes in the wall where screws or bolts could have once held a door sign in place. Nor even any marks where tape had been removed and peeled up some of the aged, cracking paint.

These doors had never been labeled. I didn’t want to know why.

I decided then and there I wasn’t about to open them. I turned and resumed walking ᗕoнn thᾄ decaᖹing corridጙr.

“Gears… are you okay?” Imaginary dad asked out of nowhere as I stepped over some poor pony’s bones.

Fine dad. Wh♭ do ỽ∗u ask?

“Be careful… I think you're at the edge of your safe-limit for radiation.”

I frowned to myself. If Imaginary ܛad ႄas saying that, there must be something I was picking up on subconsciously which indicated som⒲thing was žr⊅ng.

But what?

I cleared my throat to try and keep more alert and bumped into Vinyl’s plot barrel first. I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t noticed that my bright-green-glowing marefriend had stopped moving.

Suppressing a shiver at ᴥow Ꮘ⍻ spit᳖ ᾱf thᦽ fact she was glowing, the mold was drinking in the energy she emitted, which managed to keep the corridor too dark for my color vision to work, well… I was starting to wish I’d just stayed with Speed.

This place was bad enough to make Glowing Ones out of ghouls who just hung out in it for a while...

“SṺ͇͌͌̚rry,” I apologized with a sheepish blush.

“It’s okay,” Vinyl giggled. “I love what my brain’s doing with your voice right now. It’s great! Too bad I can’t bottle these rads. Or replicate those squeaks. I’d love to remix them some time.”

She turned and pointed to a big heavy looking lead sheet somepony had nailed to the wall to cover up a doorway. “So, that old lead-lined tarp is covering the door to the reactor room,” Vinyl announce unnecessarily. “On the far side of the room from us is the reactor control room. I tried to fiddle with the terminal in there, but it needs a technician's hoof. Fair warning, there is molten… something all over that room. It’s hot, it’s definitely radioactive, so, don’t step in it.”

I nodded and took a deep nervous breath. Come to tḺiগk of it, I’d just told Speed a while a go I’d be okay unless I walked into a reactor… Ah, Irony.

“Well, somepony has to do the thing, right?” I asked.

Vinyl nodded. “Yeah… Are you afraid?”

“A little,” I admitted with a sheepish blush.

VInyl turned and gave me her best hug. “It’s okay Gears, I’ll be right behind you.”

I nodded, trotted aᄉross t΄e hall and moved the tarp ass—

LIGHT! Bڙinding ligh᧔! Sweeᅁ CeƛeḺtia w⇍y?ཱ HOڙھ?! WHAT?!

“Aaaaaagh!” I shrieked stumbling back from the colorless blaze of pain.

Vinyl yelped and grabbed hold of me. “What happened?!”

“Light… ᎕Ô ༢uুh li᠑htᵢ” I moaned, holding my head with my hooves.

Vinyl’s lips pulled into a sharp frown. “Oh, shit… Your voice warbles aren’t in my head are they?”

“What warbles?” I asked as I did my best to Ⴤᶜৗke my head ␇leaϏ and stand up.

“Okay, so, the rads are bad enough to buck you up,” Vinyl mused to herself. “W— We could try finding a hazmat suit first.”

“If they are that bad, a few millimeters of lead-line cloth won’t help me,” I pointed out, ears drooping in distress as I finally realized why I was feeling a bit funny.

We had to clear a path for Speed. If it could mess me up, she’d have dropped dead by now. I could take a little radiation damage for her.

Vinyl nodded once, an equally distressed from on her lips. “Speed would just keel over in there… And I can’t make the computer seal the doors.”

“Yeah, I have to do it,” I agreed as I took a deep breath.

Now that I was aware ᲄᐱ the ᷄ȁgῖr, I had an option. “GIve me a minute. I can make my shielding work better,” I said as I reached for my magic.

Vinyl blinked. “You can just… do that? What can’t a machine spirit do?”

I extended my mind outwards, pulling what little spiritual power I had stored up into the outer layers of my chassis. My fur began to glow a pale yellow as my magic repelled the radiation. I could feel it quickly being sapped away from me, probably by the mold. This wouldn’t last forever.

“We manipulate and augment machines. No more, no less,” I answered as I pulled the lead-lined tarp aside once more.

The blinding light hit me again, this time it was less intense… but not by much. I could barely see the room in front of me as I carefully stepped out onto a very rickety feeling catwalk. Each hoofstep made the catwalk sway and creak under my weight. I could see vague outlines. Blurred patches, and slightly dimmer patches. Proper vision was a total no gଐ-g—g—̡ —go.

Oh buck… I was getting major interference. I had to move. Also… It would help to know how to better shield myself.

I moved along the catwalk, searching with my hooves for a ladder. Jasmine? Are you there? I asked whileᢕusଙჯng some mᤱgic towards the back of my mind.

We’re Ⴝrying to ዳake ᛮ safe routॱ around ঝhis meୡted down reactఫr fෆr Speed.

I have no idea.

Jasmine asked tentatively.

I blinked slightly as my hooves fin৻lly fῨundȐ what felt like an open hatch and a ladder leading down. It is?

Oh. Well… Vinyl can’t do the tech thing. So I have to. Can you h᱔lp me shield myself better?

Jasmine said as I started to climb down the ladder to the reactor floor.

I felt Jasmine pus◎ at our shared mind. I♀ felt a little oͬd to fᚃel someone else think for me, but I followed the suggestions and tweaked my, no, our magic.

“Are you okay?” Vinyl called from somewhere above me in the blinding white light.

“No!” I yelled back. “But I’m opeᚋ⇛tional.”

“From the ladder, turn around, and move to the far side of the room… Uh,the reactor is in the way!” Vinyl called. “Do you need me to go down and show you? You seem like you’re blind.”

I looked around, doing my best to understand where I was in the whiteness. I was standiߊg ⊱ short ≩istanੰe from a big toroidal shaped reactor. No, a HUGE reactor! This had to be what powered the entire base!

Massive cables snaked their way through the floor, into the steel frame of the thing I was standing on...

The thing I was standing on… Ѫhፀt ໹as ፼ standṣⒾg on?

Wait. If that was the reactor, and those were the primary power conduits which would need to be converted to...

Oh sweet Celestia I was standing on THE MOTHER OF ALL FULLEST BRIDGE RECTIFIERS!

Eep!

“I am pretty much blind, yes… Also I’m standing on a terrifyingly big bridge rectifier and I don’t want to get shocked by several billion amps in the event a capacitor in here is still charged,” I admitted. “I have almost no depth perception. My eyes can’t handle these rads.”

“Buck… Coming down!”

I waited for a few moments. A few hor⍬ible mo٦ents. I could feel bits and pieces of my magic being pulled in a hundred different directions. It slid like oil, flowing from metaphysical wounds into the brightest splotches I could see laying on the flat-white-plane which֕ քssuཹed waౌ ൝ᦨ¬ f⍯oorᤧ.

Then, a hoof on my shoulder. “I’m here, hon,” Vinyl said quietly. “This way… I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would be a problem for you.”

“It’s okay,” I said quietly as she lead me across the floor. “I can be fixed later. It’s not a big deal if I get a little damage here and there.”

I mean, it would probably take months to get fixed, and I’d have to go back home for it, but… Still. I was much less indispensable than Speed.

Vinyl led the way across the floor, though, perhaps minefield would be more accurate. Every few steps she stopped me, telling me to move this way or that to avoid something on the floor. II ἥoҀld ౰eel ⛩ horriblỂ, crushing, pulling, ripping, heat in the middle of the room. It grew hotter and hotter with every step. A terrified little voice in the back of my mind whispered to me, begging me to turn around, to not walk into the deepest pit৽ at the ᑃoഠtom of Tartarus.

I’m scared too, Jasmine… But We’ll make it.

Something’s wrong? Noo̧o! ὸeaણly?

<Not the meltdown. Something about it… I can’t quite put a hoof on it but… Something is very wrong. Be careful!>

I rolled my useless eyes at that and kept trotting along after Vinyl, following her nudges and verbal guidance.

“Okay, here’s the door,” Vinyl said, gently moving me forwards with a few nudges.

This place was less bright. I could see things in at least enough detail to understand I was in a room and not an infinite plane of white. I could also make out some consoles along one wall, some filing cabinets, and—

“Huh?! Why is that monitor in perfect focus?” I asked aloud the very moment I saw the simple green glowing screen just sitting in the white-void.

Vinyl frowned. “Wait, so like, what are you seeing now? Just the screen hanging in the air?”

I nodded. “Yeah, everything else i— i— i— is just glowing white, brighter white if it’s fuel pud— d— d— dles.”

Vinyl hissed audibly. “Yeah, okay… I shouldn’t have brought you here. I should have asked how to do it!”

“I— I— I— It’s ᢥiše. I’ll d— d— d— do it,” I promised.

Jasmine asked with a worried mental shiver.

Yes, why?

That— That can’t be good.

I stepped towards the screen, r— r— r— ready ޏo do whᶘtever ᙕᥢeded to be done.

I felt around beneath the screen until I found the keyboard, then turned my attention to the screen itself.

A term-link ᔴeᜅsage ch⌘ܪn was being displayed. I felt compelled to read it. It might tell me something about whatever was sapping my energy in here. A— a— a— after all, it might not be a good idea to turn on the air circulation like Vinyl wanted t— t— t— tݠo...

☢★★◯★★☢

October 28th, 2077 - 1532

To: CSM Scroll
From: LTG Creek

Due to our inability to contact Miss Dash I am declaring a full state of Emergency. All personnel are to immediately retrofit this base for National Emergency Operations. We may be the only faction of the government left in operation. There will be some civilians out there who survived the bombardment. As far as I am concerned, we need to rescue as many of them as possible and provide safe housing. Not only for our sake, not only for theirs, but for the sake of Equestria’s future.

As a part of the retrofits, I hereby order all experiments on our reactor to be suspended indefinitely. The reactor is to be brought to peak operational performance, then I want a full test of the back-up power system to be performed. We need to know it’s still working after the shake-up we went through on Tuesday.

I think the best way to test the backup power system will be to simulate a reactor failure. I would like you to bypass the emergency safety and then switch off the power regulation systems as soon as the reactor is no longer operating in experimental mode.

———

October 28th, 2077 - 1536

To: LTG Creek
From: CSM Scroll

Sir, I agree that we need to test the reactor and backup systems, but with all due respect the test you requested would shut off the reactor’s primary cooling loop. Best case scenario, there’s enough residual heat in the secondary cooling loop to keep the reactor stable until we can perform an emergency shutdown. A shutdown I do not know if we will be able to reverse given the damage the reactor room took in the bombardment.

The worst case scenario is there isn’t enough heat to keep the reactor stable, and we have a full meltdown. We don't have enough technicians to perform a full test of the backup power system while also monitoring the reactor, sir.

I would recommend we bring the reactor to a low power state then simply use the breaker to disconnect it from the grid while keeping it running. This would allow us to test the backup generators without risking the safety of the entire base.

———

October 28th, 2077 - 1541

To: CSM Scroll
From: LTG Creek

We don’t have the luxury of waiting until a disaster happens to see if the reactor will meltdown, son. We won't be getting spare parts. If your team can’t fix the problems we have now with what we have, we’re all dead anyways.

What are you holding onto hope for? Do you think if we just hold out for a few more days Rainbow Dash will beam us all to Star Drop Base and we’ll live out our days in comfort and luxury?

Either that reactor is intact enough to support this base for decades to come, or we’re just one earthquake away from getting to rejoin our loved ones. If the latter is the case, I’d like to see my wife again sooner rather than later, Sergeant.

Perform the test. That’s an order.

———

October 28th, 2077 - 1544

To: LTG Creek
From: CSM Scroll

Test scheduled for 1645. I recommend all Black Site rooms be sealed just in case. Faust have mercy.

☢★★◯★★☢

Looks like the s— s— s— secondary loop loop loop loop loop loop didn’t have enough he⇋t to keep tᐦᇛ reactor s—s—stable.

I tapped at the keys to make sure the keyboard was standard. I still couldn’t see it, just the screen. The terminal closed the email and opened the main menu. I scrolled through the options for a moment, getting use-d t-o c-ontrolling i-t b-lind.

Jasmien mumbled in the back of my mind before yelping in terror. <Oh buck the hay no! Gears! I figured it out. This was some kind of self-fueling spiritual energy reactor! The sludge is soaking up spiritual energy. It is literally eating you to try and restart. RUN!>

It’s what? I asked as the fur on the back of my neck stood up.

There are very few things which can lend a mare’s hooves more speed than her imminent demise.

I checked through each and every option on the terminal, searching for any sort of control options. “Vi! Where is it?! Jasmine tʛiԩk’s we’re d— d— dying!”

“What? Who?” Vinyl asked with a frown.

“T-t-the m-are w-hose f-lesh I-’m w-earing. S-he’s i-n h-ere t-oo, ᵙ-eূem℣er?!” I snapped, the anger mostly coming from terror at the fact that my vision was starting to decay into a black tunnel.

“Yeah! Sorry- just… Uh, It’s under protocols,” Vinyl remarked, pointing to the screen for me.

“Thanks,” I said as I scrolled to the option and opened the submenu.

There was a lot under that option… System monitors, databases of old information on the reactor’s operations, experiment logs, blueprints…

Bluep— p— p— prints?

I have time to dowḈlṬad those.

“Vinyl. J-ack y-our P-ipbuck i-nto t-his t-erminal,” I ordered.

Really not much time for politeness… So tired.

Wait… tired? Was this what tired felt like? No… No this is w—w—w—w—worse.

“On it,” Vinyl said. A moment later I heard a click. “Done. Need me to run some code or—”

“No. I’m giving you ᥗhe rনactor blueprᄓ፪ts so we can give them to mom later. Never pass up a p—p—p—p—p—p—power source,” I said as I hit the download button.

“You’re what?” Vinyl asked with a terrified quaver in her voice. “G— Gears I think you should leave!”

Apparently my voice was still ha-ving p-roblems… i-t w-as h-ard t-o t-ell w-hen my thoughts were havinǃ proỳlems.

“The blueprints,” I said firmly.

Fortunately, the file transfer didn’t lock up the terminal, allowing me to keep using it while it transferred the file. Ah, m— m— m— military technolog— g— gy. I lo⎪⃈ you!

Okay. Control systems. Yes. Security? Yes .It— t— t— t w-ill b-e i-n t-here.

Where is it?

Coἳe on…

I searched through submenᴰ after suୋmenu, searching f໖r any kind of door control. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be one one one one one one. It had to be an automated system reacting to the reactor’s internal sensors.

Well, buck.

Jasmine asked with a terrified squeak.

I won’t make iᒚ ັac઼ to th— h— he ladder. Let alone the d— d— door.

No… Wait… What if I—

I turned my attention to my new task. Jasmine was right. I could feel myself fading fast. Too fast.

I wasn’t going to ma-ke i-t o-ut o-f t-his r-o-om e-ven i-f I l-eft r-ight n-ow. B-but I could make sure Speed got out of h⎓re alϱ┭e.

Jasmine? Can you b— b— buy me a few more seconds? I asked hopefully.

What we want doesn't matter. Our friend is tr— r— r— rapped. We h࿺ve to sᇂve her.

A sudden surge of power hit my s— s— s— systems. A part of me felt like if I wasn't so drained it would have felt amazing and wonderful. As it was… It felt like I had been made slightly less sick.

Vinyl grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back hard. “Gears! Seriously, just leave, we’ll find another way!” She begged.

“We won’t. You spent hours l—l—l—l—ooking. I have a path of at—at—at—at—attack,” I replied.

I turned my attention back to the terminal. All I had to do was to trick the system into reading one of the data-logs instead of the actual sensors. I could do that.

Reboot terminal. Enter m—m—m—m—maintenance mode. Open the command line inter— inter— interf᧔ce f᧔ce f᧔ce f᧔ce f᧔ce f᧔ce…

Okay. I can d—d—d—do thi—thi—thi—this. Just got to make a few lines of code here. Re—Re—Re—Reeeeeee—Redirect the sensor feed to a different hash.

I started to type, doing my best to
L੮ᓌ△m ᥴ{ഈ⏕ᣛ Ꮪކlప➯ siⓕ ֠ᾳ↛t, ៿õsecte᥵uൺ aệi፰ỽᅝcᤚ◙g eޙiᅮ౹ ℹẟᤶ ીo eiuॐᚠℊ✱ tem౑or ›฽cᏸ␲iᶏ╾ng Ѯt ➷abᵂre Юಖ d༜Ȣ᧛೵ᛞ maὣn಍ ភli෣ˍa. Ut eୖi⃱ aᒨ ⎀iõẐธ veniÀm, ዱuiኋ nాst╼ᾧڠ exer૳itatiႋn ᔋញlamco ⚀aboਟis ↾अ᠘i u˃ ឧᵬஅॵuპp ex ea ͞ᝑឝm─do ᥬ✙nsequᵙt.

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T moႃl௣Წ ani

ሢ iᒒ

e⇼t ✭╡

Boru፰ Boru፰ Boru፰ Boru፰ Boru፰ Boru፰ Boru፰ Boru፰ Boru፰ Boru፰ Boris?

█████
████████
███
█████████████

☢★★◯★★☢

Physical sensations. Touch. Sound. Sight. Non-memory based input. Oh, Faust no!

NONONONONONO! Not okay!

At least I have control. If she hadn’t been feeding me power to give me a conscious mind when she...

I refuse to be in the driver’s seat forever! She’s got to be still in here somewhere, all the hardware’s still running. That means she’s here, right?

Or she’s dead and the machine is just running by itself like it’s meant to...

I focused the misaligned power running through our body. The aura around us sharpened, concentrated, turning opaque as I brought it into proper alignment and solidified our metaphysical defences against the spirit-draining-goo.

I turned to Vinyl and pointed at her. “Throw me up to the catwalk! NOW!”

Her eyes widened, clearly not what she’d been expecting. “What?”

“Gears is down, maybe dead, you’re talking to the other half of this Gestalt. Throw me up there NOW! I can’t tell if she’s still here in an ocean of spirit-eating-goo!”

To Vinyl’s credit, she threw us well. I hit the concrete wall plot first hard enough to crack the armor Gears found for us. It felt so weird to feel pain in the lower half of my body… Buck, it felt weird to have a body.

I never wanted this. I always knew that I would wind up in command of myself if Gears was ever metaphysically injured or destroyed… but I never wanted this. It was nice to just sort of be. To provide my silly (and literal) soulmate with the ability to be more than what she was.

Buck, she did the same for me too. It was nice to be able to walk, and talk. I was born without vocal chords. I had no idea how to speak at all. Without her—

I facehooved, stood up, and rand down the catwalk to the door.

I spoke to Vinyl. Gears was still alive, just unconscious. Or very horribly mangled by that goo.

I ducked through the lead-lined tarp and out into the hallway. The slow-oily pull on my soul vanished the moment the tarp fell into place to cover the doorway.

I shivered and looked back on the portal to hell. I wasn’t about to try and revive Gears in a place full of something like that… But the minute we got outside I’d have to wake her up.

I hated this.

Admittedly, the robotic body was nice. A major upgrade from the crippled shell I had before. I especially liked the “not in constant pain” part. That was motherbucking phenominally awesome!

I just… I just preferred being a part of someone else.

A sudden sound of steel grating on steel echoed through the entire base. I felt the fur on the back of my neck jump upright, and I nearly fired our grenade launcher as I jumped in fright.

I looked around in a panic, wondering what pre-war horror had been unleashed. Or if my evil uncle had managed to find a way inside… Faust he seemed eager to kill me again. Was it that much of a blow to his pride that his older brother married a zebra mare he met overseas?

No… No it wasn’t him. It was just a whole building’s worth of blast doors closing after two hundred years of rust build up. I closed my eyes and shivered.

Worst. Sound. Ever!

Aside from the Dr. Wires’ UFO in Megamane games. Guh!

On the upside, whatever Gears had been coding worked. Please, please, please don’t have let that be some kind of heroic last act! I need you… Vinyl needs you too. She’s our marefriend.

I stood still for a few moments, knowing Vinyl would be coming through the door any minute now with a whole pack of questions. Fortunately, I could guess what most of them would be.

Sure enough, a few seconds later the door hidden by the tarp slid open and Vinyl pushed through the safety curtain. I felt the oil-slick grab hold of my soul again as it moved aside, then let go as it fell back in place and Vinyl hit the manual door release, dropping it back in place.

“Okay,” Vinyl said with a deep breath. “So. What the buck is—”

I cleared my throat to interrupt her, and launched into my prepared spiel. “Gears didn’t notice the reactor fuel was soaking in spiritual energy like a sponge, and I didn’t figure it out ‘til it was too late. She’s hopefully just unconscious until I can feed her a bit with some rituals I know of. I’m Jasmine, I make up the personality elements and subconscious of the Gestalt mind you’re dating. With Gears out of commission, I’m in the driver's seat ‘til she’s… okay. Our interests are pretty much the same. Buck, I even loved working for the postal service as part of my disability program. The only real difference for you is I have no idea how to shoot like she does, nor do I have any of her technical knowledge. So you’re down a socially oblivious engineer but up a shaman who gets your pre-war jokes and was yelling at Gears the entire time you two were in the shower together that you wanted to screw and she was being too dense to work that out.”

Vinyl blinked in that cute little information overload expression of hers which made me want to smack Gears until she hugged Vinyl every time she did it.

“Wait… Uh…” Vi stammered. “So, I’ve seen a lot of sci-fi. Gestalt mind means a lot of different things. What do you mean by it?”

I paused for a moment to think of the best way I could explain to her what I meant.

She’d mentioned loving Galaxy Quest. If she didn’t get that reference, she was a liar. Nopony who watched the show would forget those lovable dorks. Or the consequences of bucking up a Digital Conveyance of two people at once.

“We’re like Ensign Brandybuck.” I said with a shrug.

Vinyl blinked once again. “Wait— Are you telling me, that you two work as a mostly seamless blend?”

“Yep!” I said with a smile and nod. “Not right now… 99.999% of the time we do… She just has more uh, command priority. Which I’m completely fine with.”

It wasn’t her fault our pseudo-mom hadn’t melded us correctly. It’s not like she had ever made a warlock before. Or was, well, sane.

“Okay, so… Since Gears loved me, you do too?” Vinyl asked heastently.

I coughed as my tail flagged slightly. “Uhhh… Reverse that. She loves you because I did first. Like, um… Since I bought your pin-up calendar waaaay back when.”

Vinyl snickered and flicked her tail back and forth. “Wait, really? The zebra mare who got nabbed for Gears’ creation was a fanfilly of mine? What are the odds?”

“Pretty good?” I pointed out. “You had a fanbase of tens of millions.”

“Um… Fair point,” Vinyl said quietly before she looked up at me suspiciously. “Okay, so, how come Gears doesn't seem to know any of that?”

I groaned and rested my face against my left hoof. “Because… she’s just so thick! She’s Miss Thickity-thick-thick from Thick Town, Thickcania. And so’s her dad!”

“Hey! Leave me out of this,” Mister Lift insisted.

“I’ve tried that… They fry after a few minutes and I’m back here. I’m not an idiot.”

<No, just a derp. Honestly, I think Gears gets her derpness from you, even though she’s your adopted filly. The derpness transcended bloodlines and the bio-mechanical barrier to be passed on. It’s the only logical explanation. There’s a million ways out of your predicament, and we’ve discussed them at length a dozen times.>

“Well, I mean, what else is there for two disembodied consciousnesses to do but argue over the term-link?”

Vinyl shifted from hoof to hoof, awkwardly holding onto a question before asking. “So… Where do we stand?”

I rolled my eyes. “Literally the only difference right now is our team is down a gunner and up a shamen… Gears could be both if we could meld more seamlessly.”

Vinyl shook her head almost violently, making her glowing mane trail. “Nooo… I mean, you and I. As uh… you know… mates.”

I blinked and tilted my head to one side. “What? Because you’re irradiated? Honestly all I wondered is if the illumination would help Gears find your clit.”

Vinyl sputtered and hid her mouth behind her hoof for a moment. “Okay! That answers that… Soooo, do you think Gears will wake up soon?”

I shrugged. “I can't answer that. I’m not about to try any Shamanism involving her anywhere near that mess,” I said jerking a hoof towards the reactor room. “I’ll find out first thing once we get out of here. I do not like being in the driver’s seat.”

Vinyl nodded slowly. “Okay… Any idea?”

“Well, I can talk. I never learned how. No vocal chords. So unless this chassis hardware is letting me speak, that’s Gears at work,” I explained as clearly as I could manage.

Vinyl hummed and looked me in the eyes. “You’re holding something back. What is it?”

I sighed and hung my head. “It’s possible she’d been reduced too far in power to be sapient anymore, and is simply maintaining this body because that’s what machine spirits do and I’ll not be able to revive her… At least not for several centuries… Which will doom me to having to be the active one.”

Vinyl winced, then raised an eyebrow. “You don’t like being in control?”

I shook my head. “No. I really don’t… It would be hard to explain to someone who hasn’t gotten to be a… component.” I looked down the corridor for a moment. “Can we continue the mission? I can’t hack a door open or tinker with it ‘til it opens up, but I’m pretty sure I can blast through it with Feature here.”

Or maybe magic it open. Assuming the room wasn’t too close to the hell-reactor down there…

Vinyl nodded. “Okay…” she paused for a moment then leaned in and kissed me. “It’s nice to get to talk to you. I have seen your soul, you know. It’s also nice to know you’re more involved with me than I thought.”

She shivered before turning down the hall to walk back the way we came. “I mean, seriously. How bucked up would this ménage à trois be if one of us didn’t consent?”

I paused for a moment to process that of all things having been her apparent problem with me being in charge of our body right now.

I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that… Happy, I think.

☢★★◯★★☢

Two floors, one pop-up turret Vinyl missed, and three long corridors later, we reached the R&D room. I’d expected it to be the same as every other door we’d passed on the way here. A big rectangular slab of steel, pneumatically opened by sliding upwards so you were pretty much bucked if you wanted to force your way in and didn’t have high explosives.

Nope.

What we had here was a big arched double door made from some, weird, silvery-blue metal. Like titanium, but more so… And also, just, off somehow. It felt strange. Something about the metaphysics.

I was pretty sure that an Earth Pony would agree with me. Their bond to nature wasn’t quite as strong as ours. Their magic had to split between seeing beyond the physical world and boosting their physical abilities past what they would be able to do with flesh alone. Magic doesn't really like working with polar opposite concepts like that… But even so, I was pretty sure that they would understand something was wrong with this door too.

“Are you okay?” Vinyl asked curiously.

I nodded. “Yeah… It’s just… something’s off about that door. Not the shape or anything, just, it feels like it doesn't belong here.”

Vinyl lit her horn. “You think it’s an illusion? I can try a dispel.”

I shook my head. “No. No… It’s not enchanted. It’s not occupied by a spirit either, it’s just… Odd. Out of place. A less educated zebra might call it cursed, or evil. But there’s nothing wrong with it that I can see.”

Vinyl snickered. “Less educated? Want to sound more snobbish?”

Oh boy… Now I have to talk about my life. Yay…

“I was a mute cripple, Vi,” I said with a grumble and tail flick. “All I did for decades was read and experiment. No friends. Only worked two days a week. Plenty of scholarships, thanks to being handycapped. I have a doctorate in alchemy specializing in metamaterial creation.”

I’m a scientist, AND a shamen. Doubly trained. Literally twice the education of the typical Imperial Zebra… Bostfull to say? Yes. Accurate? Also yes.

“Oh,” Vinyl said with a surprised flick of her tail. “Sorry for assuming.”

“It’s okay,” I said as I squinted at the door. “Something tells me we can’t blast through this.”

“I think we should try anyways,” Vinyl prompted.

“Yeah. I don’t have any evidence we can’t. It’s just a gut feeling… Let’s back down the hallway a good ways, okay?”

Vinyl nodded and turned to jog down the hall. I joined her. Once we were as far down the hall as we could be, I turned around, checked Feature’s ammunition, switched the cryo-rounds for high explosive (only fumbling the belt three times), and put six rounds into the door.

Trotting back up to it, I could tell we didn’t even put a scratch on it.

“Who the hell made this door? Starswirl?!” Vinyl growled under her breath.

I shook my head. “Nah, he wasn’t into materials magic. This bullshit is of the Mage Meadowbrook variety… Only, it’s a mundane door… What the bucking shit-balls is this piss-coffee, Faust?!” I growled very much over my breath.

Vinyl blinked twice then snickered. “Sooo, you don’t have control over Gear’s swearing, do you?”

I shook my head. “No, she’s terrible at swearing…” I looked over the door for any sign of, well, anything.

Nothing. Not a scratch. Not a dent. Not even a scorch mark. In fact, all the char and carbon form the grenades' fireballs was piled up at the base of the door, as if it had just slid right off.

Okay, so that wasn’t going to work.

Wait a minute… I turned to look at Vinyl. “Hey, so, what did you try to open this door before?”

“Pulled, pushed, booped the button a few times, looked for a keycard, everything but destructive entry,” Vinyl replied casually.

I nodded to myself then paused. “Wait, keycard?”

I looked over at the door’s access panel.

“Yeah, it’s got a numeric keypad and a card reader,” Vinyl said as I noticed both features.

“So, I have a dumb idea,” I said as I stepped over to the card reader and thunked my left temple against it.

“Oh yeah!” Vinyl said eagerly. “Your mom’s keycard might—”

The MoA pin on my collar chirped twice, then squeaked out a burst of static which I was pretty sure was a bunch of binary, like what an old term-link modem used to access a phone line.

The door chirped once. “Welcome back, Ministry Mare.” A horribly digitized but impressivly booming voice said through a dying speaker.

“— Or the communicator pin Rainbow gave you, that works too.” Vinyl finished with a solemn nod.

“I hope she dosn’t need to access any of her old stuff…” I muttered to myself.

The door hissed once, then hummed as it slid open. I stepped back, not wanting to get shot by a dozen different turrets which just had to be lurking inside the doorway.

“Uh, Jasmine?” Vinyl said quietly.

“Get down! Turrets!” I hissed quietly.

“You opened the door with a key. We’re fine,” Vinyl said while holding back a giggle.

I groaned and stood up, my cheeks burning. THIS is why I hated being in the driver’s seat. It didn’t matter how much I learned. I was still an idiot…

I turned to look through the doorway, double checking that it was safe. It was.

The room on the other side was truly massive. I’d expected a hallway leading to an entire wing of the base with room after room. But no. There was just one huge gym-like bay lined with lockers and filled with all kinds of stations with another set of doors on the far side.

I stepped inside, followed closely by Vinyl. The instant I set hoof inside the overhead lights clicked on. One by one, in a chain form the front doors to the back, they buzzed to life. A series of speakers hissed and clicked, playing an oddly familiar, upbeat, powerful, and just… good militaristic melody played on deep thrumming strings with some brass accompaniment.

“I swear I’ve heard this before,” Vinyl said as she listened to the classical music.

I nodded slowly and began to look around.

This didn’t look like a R&D room. This was more… Well, an equipment room.

Half of the machines occupying the central floor were automated armor equipping stations. Several suits of power armor hung on racks against the walls near lockers. Weapon walls occupied the spaces between locker banks.

The center of the room, where in a school’s gym the center court would display the school’s logo, instead displayed the Ministry of Awesome’s emblem as if in an attempt to be as amazingly overly patriotic as possible.

Especially since the music was so darn catchy even when playing on dying speakers.

I trotted over to a locker bank to see what was inside. If it was full of science tools and a lab coat, then this must be where my Uncle’s armor had been built. If not… Then somepony decided to throw off spies by calling the Ready Room the R&D lab.

I couldn’t help but adlib along with the music as I trotted over. “Dun dun. Dun-dun-dun. Dun dun. Dun-dun-dun. Dun dun. Dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-dun-duhduhduhduhduhdudun. Dododododo!”

I heard a facehoof from behind me. “Oh, my, Celestia!” Vinyl groaned.

I blushed like mad at the sound of her groan. “Sorry! I— I’m just having fun getting to make sounds.”

I’d have to find some alone time to try out screaming. That seemed fun!

“No! Not you,” Vinyl laughed. “Rainbow, you dork! This is an orchestral version of the Squad Loadout music from Enemy Above 2. A friend of mine loved that game!”

Oh. My. Gosh.

It was!

Yesssss!

I giggled to myself and turned back to the locker. A small part of me hoped it would be full of Arch-Alicorn Power Armor so I could gear up and kick some alien plot!

I reached the locker, grabbed the handle and used my super robot strength to just rip the lock out of the door frame. The locker was occupied by a set of green and tan fatigues, a tan set of body armor, and an assault rifle.

Maaabey it was a security guard’s locker? After all, if this wasn’t an R&D lab, then Speed was probably going to be down a suit.

I took a step to the left and ripped open the next locker. Another soldier's kit. This one with a few 40mm grenades and a nice little bloop-gun to shoot them with.

I took them so Gears would have something to cuddle when she woke up, then walked to the next bank and ripped it open.

Another soldier's kit. This one with a full set of carapace armor and some rather nasty looking deployable wing-blades mounted to the legs of the armor. Not sure what fighting style used something like that, but it seemed a bit terrifying.

Okay. This was a ready room. Which mean we wouldn’t be finding a hazmat suit for Speed in here. At least, probably not.

I turned around to meet up with Vinyl who was looking curiously at a large locked metal box laying atop a workbench near the door.

“What’s in the box?” I asked curiously.

“Something awesome, probably,” Vinyl said as she floated a piece of faded nearly crumbling paper over for me to see. “This was laying on top of it.”

I squinted at the paper, struggling to read the faded ink.

Tin Sentry,

This is the first prototype suit for Star Drop’s pony based security forces. Apparently while fully operational, it’s not going to be crewed until Princess Luna gives it the hoofs up. The suit just arrived from Ex-Ops One. Blue Fast herself wants us to confirm their lab results. Ballistics, MEW, arcane, chemical, environmental, the works. I know you’re busy with the Iron Sentinels project, but these might need to be mass produced in just three days, so, you know, drop everything and get to it. That’s Alpha Priority, in case you didn’t get my drift.

— Cap Pin

I sighed in relief. “Oh thank goodness. We found a hazmat suit.”

“Looks like it,” Vinyl said as she slipped a set of locksmiths’ tools from under her cloak and began to poke and prod at the black box’s lock. “It will take me a minute to get this open. Why don’t you see if any of that power armor is working? Speed mentioned she did the training in her Dream Pod.”

“Yeah, but,” I nodded towards one of the empty suits. “Wings.”

“Huh?” Vinyl asked as she poked away at the locked box.

“She’s a batpony. The only power armor Speed would fit in is an Air Scorpion,” I prompted.

Vinyl gave me a blank look. “I know what you’re talking about now, but I have never heard that name in my life.”

“Oh, that’s what the Enclave used. PA-02 Air Scorpions,” I replied with a shrug. “How didn’t you know that?”

“Probably because everyone ever just calls it Enclave Armor,” Vinyl remarked as the box’s lock clicked open.

Vinyl smiled and lifted the box’s lid with her magic. “Well, that was easier than I thought it would be. Must just be a standard transport box painted black.”

“Must be,” I said with a disappointed flick of my tail.

I’d been half hoping that picking an MoA box would cause it to transform into a equinoid robot to kick your plot.

Vinyl looked into the box. Her eyes widened in what I assumed was shock. It was a bit hard to tell with her glowing… Then her jaw dropped and that clenched it.

“What?” I asked rearing up so I could peak into the box and—

A sleek helmet with a crystal clear wrap-around visor, giving the pony their full range of vision. Where the pony’s vision couldn't reach, orange plating, sleek, stylish, with a distinct technological look. The helmet’s lines were broken only by a small blister on each side which housed a sensor package on the left side, and a flashlight on the right, and of course, a horn-sheath made of a material translucent to thaumaturgic frequencies.

I knew that helmet well. Almost as well as I knew the breastplate, boots, and jumpsuit it rested on. The helmet’s creamy-orange color extended to the teched out breastplate and boots, leaving the jumpsuit to be charcoal black with a wide silver stripe down each leg and along the sides.

When you looked at a cosplay outfit, you could tell it was just for show. There were always little flares and embellishments no real engineer would leave in a functional piece. Even my un-tech-trained eyes could tell the difference there. It was much harder to tell the difference between a movie costume and the real thing, but you could still do that. There was no mistaking certain little things there either. Like the fact that the box included a big stack of papers detailing tests the suit had undergone, including the “Vacuum pressure test”.

This was a functional piece.

An actual, real, ligit, functional rendition of a Royal Ministry of Space Exploration Extravehicular suit!

“Eeeeee!” Vinyl and I squeed together.

Vinyl practically ripped the suit out of the box to look at it in its full glory. It had the little oxygen recycling tanks on the back of the cuirasse, and a MoA emblem in place of the RMSE emblem it would have had on the show, and the nameplate was blank, but there, and there was even a holster for a Phased Mana Blaster and a Thaumaturgic scanner on the belt and—

And it was orange! That was a captain’s suit. And it had a hornshieth! And looked to be Vinyl’s size!

YESSSSSS!

I spun to face her and danced from hoof to hoof. “Put-it-on!”

Vinyl blinke then shook her head. “N— No. I can’t. Speed needs the environment suit. Not me.”

I got right up in her face and pressed my nose against hers. “It’s for a unicorn. Her wings wont fit in it. It’s also too big for her. What’s more, she’s in more danger from you once we’re out of here than anything else because it took Ditzy pulling off a Sonic Rad Boom to stop glowing. You could be a health hazard to her for months or even the rest of her life. We have no idea. Also, and this is the most important, I need to see my mare in an RMSE Captain’s uniform!”

Vinyl’s muzzle parted in a slow dorky smile. The best kind of smile. “Point very much taken! How about you turn around for best effect?”

I nodded and turned around immediately.

“Okay,” Vinyl said eagerly. “Let me just burn my name into the nameplate… There we go. Now, currase open, unzip. Woah! It’s just like the show. Double zipper lock with a velcro seal between them. Cool! Now I'll open it up and—”

I turned around as Vinyl stopped talking, worried there might have been some kind of boobytrap. Instead, I saw she was staring inside the suit in shock.

“What?” I asked worriedly. “There's not a dead foal stuffed in there or something horrible, is there?”

Vinyl sputtered and looked at me in horror. “No! What put that idea in your head?”

I shrugged. “Used to seeing horrible things in these kinds of places.”

Vinyl turned the suit around. “This. The inside of the breastplate. Environmental regulation charm. Repair Talisman. Pipbuck integration systems. More importantly… Right here, this little bit that says wall-walking-charm fuse. Wall walking. Like what you would want if you needed to walk without gravity. This isn’t an environmental suit… This is an actual space suit!”

My eyes widened yet again. I had a lot of questions, but now was not the time for questions. “Put-it-on!-Put-it-on!-Put-it-on!-Put-it-on!-Put-it-on!-Put-it-on!-Put-it-on!-Put-it-on!”

Vinyl bit her lip. “It’s a working RMSE suit! If I put this on, I may never take it off.”

“Does that count the helmet?” I asked quickly.

Vinyl shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Does the plot end unzip?” I asked with a hopeful blush.

She nodded. “Yeah. No waste-collection system, but—”

“Then we’re good,” I said firmly.

Vinyl tilted her head, then snickered. “Point taken. You like the show way more than me.”

She stepped into the jumpsuit, zipped it up with her magic, fastened the hard parts of the suit, then slipped on the helmet. I heard a slight hiss as she locked it in place. A hiss followed by a genuinely aroused moan which shockingly wasn’t from me.

“It has air conditioning, doesn't it?” I asked Vinyl with loving jealous.

“Yeeeesssssss!” she moaned in ecstasy. “I forgot how hot it is everywhere these days… And it’s basically a toaster oven in this stupid mountain!”

“I want one,” I muttered, pawing at the floor with a hoof.

“You have actual coolant for blood,” Vinyl countered. “You don’t need an air conditioner. You are an air conditioner.”

“True… I mostly mean I need one for fanfilly reasons,” I said with a grin.

“Oh,” Vinyl laughed. “Hey, how’s the helmet vox distorting my voice?”

“Not at all, actually. Just like the show,” I commented.

“Sweet! Remind me to hug Rainbow when we see her next. She gets major kudos for letting a Space Cadet get to make these the actual space suits we’d have really used!”

I nodded, and one of those questions came back to me. “Makes me wonder just how appropriate the name “Star Drop” is,” I remarked.

Vinyl paused for a moment to look at me thoughtfully, her green glowing fur made the crystal of her helmet light up in the coolest way. It was like I was dating a mare made of pure energy or something. Who was also an RMSE Captain.

So hot!

“Neeeeerrrrd!” Mister Lift yelled teasingly.

“Oh come on, it’s friendly teasing! Also, you are allowed to cosplay as anypony you want.”

“I’m not judging I’m teasing.”

Vinyl bundled up her jumpsuit and cloak, stuffed them into her new suit’s integrated saddlebags, holstered Bad Trip in the utility belt (it fit suspiciously well in the holster), then turned around. “Come on, let’s get the air circulating and then get Speed out of here. Before uh… Before there’s a, you know… close encounter.”

I giggled. “The suit is a turn on for you too, isn’t it?”

“It’s a real RMSE space suit! How could it not be?!” Vinyl demanded incredulously.

“Fair enough,” I said, grinning as I trotted after her.

Hopefully Speed wouldn’t be mad that Vinyl got the suit instead of her. I mean, it would prevent Speed form just slowly cooking thanks to our now amazingly radioactive teammate.

Speaking of Vinyl’s new glowyness, hopefully it never wears off. It’s awesome! That said, thank goodness Gears and I are radiation shielded. Slowly dying would make cuddles awkward.

Hopefully Gears would appreciate it as much as I did when she woke back up.

Also I just realized the music was looping. While that definitely had to be cool for the ponies who walked in, geared up, and left in the old days, it must have driven the poor lab techs who worked here insane.

Almost as insane as I was going to be if I couldn’t get Gears back in our driver’s seat.

No! Think positive. Come up with some kind of silver lining so you can stay focused.

Um…

I’d get a turn delivering the mail for a change if she wouldn’t wake up.

Oh, buck they hay yes!

28 - Cooking

The click of our hooves echoed off the Headquarters decaying walls as we made our way down several floors to the maintenance room Vinyl had found earlier. The flecks of white dust hanging in the air were thicker down here. It made sense that more of it would settle on lower floors, but I had no idea why there might be more in the air.

“It’s not much further,” Vinyl promised as we rounded a corner and she carefully stepped over a patch of the rad-eating moss.

That moss gave me the creeps. I understood that plants adapted to survive, but if they were eating magical radiation, well, we’d all heard about magical plants such as Poison Joke… Or its post-war incarnation, Killing Joke.

“Are you sure?” I asked as I looked around worriedly.

Everything looked the same in this dismal place.

Vinyl nodded. “Yeah. It’s right there.”

I looked in the direction she pointed and smiled as I saw an open door.

“Good,” I said quietly as I quickly made my way to the open room.

I wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible.

The maintenance room was small, packed with shelves covered in expired cleaners, old tools, and several server racks, or possibly small mainframes. I honestly couldn’t tell.

Aside from that everything was the same gray-walled rotted floor mess everywhere else in here had been. A small part of me wondered if this place had even looked much better new. It couldn’t have been all that much nicer, being a secret underground complex and whatnot.

Vinyl walked inside and headed to the rear corner of the room. “Terminal’s over here,” she called.

I nodded and moved along with her. “I hope we can figure this out together… I’m not anywhere close to Gears when it comes to fixing machines.”

Vinyl sighed and flicked her tail irritably. “Yeah… I was hoping she could just ask it politely to turn on.”

I raised an eyebrow and looked at the dust-covered, moss-infested, scratched up, formerly-beige terminal mounted to the wall… and winced. “It won’t turn on?”

Vinyl shook her head and pressed the power button with her magic.

Nothing happened.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, crap… Okay, I assume you tried to see if it was plugged into the base’s power conduites, right?”

“Yep, It’s plugged in,” Vinyl said as she gripped the terminal's case with her magic and carefully pulled it off… revealing the interior of the machine to be full of moss. “I think this is the problem.”

I took a deep breath and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, probably… I’m guessing you can’t pull it out with your telekinesis?”

Vinyl closed her eyes and shook her head. “No… I tried, it eats the magic like it eats radiation.”

“Which is why the terminal can’t turn on. The moss is eating all its power before it can do anything. Great,” I groaned.

Vinyl nodded and picked up a long thin screwdriver from a shelf behind me and started to carefully scrape away at the densely packed moss.

“Let’s get cleaning.” I said as I gently scraped some of the violently cyan moss out form between two crystal chips with the point of my hoof.

It was nearly the same color as the motherboard, come to think of it… This was going to suck.

☢★★◯★★☢

It took us nearly half an hour to clean all of the moss out of the densely packed mess of crystals, wires, and etched circuit boards. The pile of moss on the floor looked bigger than the terminal itself. It might have been. The stuff had filled up the terminal like mortar.

Fortunately, this was a maintenance room, and there had been plenty of long-thin-pointy tools to carefully pry the moss out of all the nooks and crannies with. Even better, a few of the cleaners were not expired and, according to their labels, were safe to use on spell-matrix systems.

I mean, I hoped they were. They all said they were for cleaning arcane systems. Of course that doesn't mean much when one of the bottles was produced by a company I was pretty sure was a subsidiary of Flim-Flam Co.

“Alright,” I said as I put down the mystery tool I had been using to poke the last of the moss out from under a daughter-board mount. “I think we should try turning it on now.”

Vinyl reached out and pressed the terminal’s power button without a word.

The ancient screen flashed. Cooling fans hummed. Something clacky clicked. Tiny ribbons of magic flashed within the crystals—

KA-THUNK!

The whole system died, and the booming sound of its failure echoed through the empty halls.

I took a deep breath, held it for a few moments then released it. “Okay… So, it still doesn't work.”

Vinyl giggled. “No, it works. We just tripped a breaker.”

I blinked and turned to look at her. “No way that was a breaker!”

That sounded like someone dropped a vending machine down several stories onto an anvil! Breakers are just not that loud!

“It was. Ever hear an industrial breaker switch off?” VInyl asked.

I paused for a moment, searched my memory, tried and failed to search Gears’, then shook my head. “No, I guess not.”

“They’re really big, so they’re really loud… I think I know where the breaker box is. Stay here while I reset it and, uh… unplug or turn off anything that doesn't look important?” Vinyl ask-ordered uncertainly.

“Will do,” I promised and turned towards some of the large racks of magical equipment.

I flicked my tail worriedly as I listened to Vinyl’s departing hoofsteps. All signs pointed to this place being free of any, well, monsters... but this was exactly the kind of place every foal pictures monsters would live.

I spent the next few minutes trying to figure out which pieces of equipment in the racks were for what. Some had labels, most didn’t. Anything that didn’t seem like a central system or in any way air related, I turned off. Hopefully that would be enough.

Unplugging them was basically impossible. The racks were mounted against the wall and the main conduits ran right into them. I couldn’t unplug them anymore than a pre-war pony could unplug a ceiling lamp in their home.

Hoofsteps made my ears twitch. I winced and instinctivly powered up my LAER, even though using it again without upkeep was probably suicide. I remembered Gears watching soldiers use them back home with jealousy. More specifically, I remembered how without regular cleaning they didn’t send lightning through the barrel and to your target, they sent lightning through your side into your heart.

We hadn’t cleaned this thing since we started our journey weeks ago… But in these tight quarters, using Feature would be guarenteed suicide.

It’s just Vinyl coming back… It’s just Vinyl coming back… I thought to myself worriedly as I stared at the door.

Mister Lift didn’t reply. I’d been hoping he was online with me at the moment. He must be with mom right now.

A pale, yellowish-green light fell across the doorway. I took a deep breath and got ready to fire… Then I remembered that Vinyl was now her own flashlight, just in time for her to trot back into the room.

“Okay!” She said with a smile. “Breaker reset. Let’s try this again.”

I let out a sigh of relief and nodded to hide the nervous gleam in my eyes. “S— Sure,” I said as I quickly trotted over to the terminal and pressed the power button once more.

The terminal sparked, sputtered, and groaned. I took a step back, worried it might explode like a bridge console, but then the screen flicked on, displayed a little turquoise graphic of the MoA emblem while a progress bar filled up, and then finally reached a menu.

Vinyl sighed in relief. “Okay, That was close… and this probably won't stay on long. Uh… So, where would the air-circulation controls be?”

I glanced at the screen and hummed. “Probably under “Environmental Systems”.” I said with a smirk.

Vinyl blinked, squinted at the screen, then groaned. Her booted hoof clinked against her visor as the facehooved. “How did I miss that?”

“It is in a tiny font,” I said as I scrolled to the menu options and hit enter.

Finding the air circulation from there control was cake. The only question was if it would work.

I turned to Vinyl and nodded to her. “It’s your plan, want to do the honors?”

Vinyl snorted and nodded. “Sure,” She said as she used her magic to hit enter.

The key clicked. Ancient fans kicked on with an ear-twitching groan and the creak of aged metal. Air began to flow through the centuries old ducts for the first time in living memory… and turned the air into a radioactive dust-blizzard as the dust which had presumably clogged the fans and made them stop circulating air in the first place was blown out into the hallways like one of those auto-wagon pranks where you put foal powder in the air vents...

I wiped the layer of dust off Vinyl’s faceplate with my hoof so I could glare at her.

“How was I supposed to know everything was full of dust?!” Vinyl snapped as I glared at her.

“You should have checked!” I shouted back. “You said you had a plan! I thought that meant you checked the ducts and everything was clear! How the buck are we supposed to get Speed through here now?”

Vinyl took a deep breath which made the vox in her new suit click.

Just like the show! Eeeeeee!

No! Don’t squee, you’re mad at her!

“... Mares,” Mister Lift sighed.

Oh, so now you’re here!

“Well, we can still look for a hazmat suit,” Vinyl said as she closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry… You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. In my defense, I’m definitely hyperactive right now.”

I nodded, “Yeah, that’s true.”

I bit my lip for a moment, trying to concentrate on the last hour. We hadn’t found any hazmat suits in the mission ready room. There might be some in the reactor room, but that was not a place we could go in again…

“Did you check every lab for suits earlier?” I asked with a hopeful smile.

Vinyl nodded. My chest fell.

“Crap,” I grumbled under my breath.

Vinyl gasped, her ears perked up as an idea twinkled in her eyes. “We’re being idiots!”

“Yes,” I agreed with a nod.

Vinyl rolled her eyes, then smirked. “No, really, we are. We’re wandering around blind when you have a hotline to the mare who ran this place! We can call Rainbow, and ask her where the suits would be.”

I groaned and pressed my face into my left hoof. “Vi…”

“What?” she said with a defensive flick of her tail. “It’s a solid plan!”

“Yes, but Gears tried to call Homage earlier. Our radio won’t make it through the mountain. What makes you think a transceiver a tenth of its size will?” I asked with my best deadpan stare.

“Because we’re in the middle of an MoA base, it’s Rainbow’s pin, and there’s definitely a communications relay in this base that her pin would be authorized to use,” Vinyl said flatly.

I pursed my lips for a moment, took my hoof off my face, and then smashed it firmly back against my forehead. “Fates damn me…”

“See? I told you we’re being dumb.” Vinyl laughed. “Call her!”

“Yep,” I said as I tapped the pin on my collar.

I took a quick breath to clear my mind and then spoke towards the pin. “Rainbow? Are you there?”

A few moments passed. For a moment I thought Vinyl was wrong about there being a relay or other communications hub in this mountain, but then—

“I was sleeping. What’s up?” A very groggy Rainbow asked.

“Vinyl, Speed, and I are trapped inside the MoA Extra-Territorial Operations Headquarters—”

Rainbow sputtered and I heard the sound of terrified wing flaps crackle through the pin’s tiny speaker.

“WHAT?!” Rainbow yelped with way too much terror in her voice. “How the buck did you get to Whinnieapolis?! How did you get in?! I can’t even get inside!”

“Uh, headquarters number two,” I said with a confused little giggle.

“Oh! Okay. That’s different, also way less bad,” Rainbow sighed. “Okay! How are you trapped? I’m guessing you’re stuck in a safe-ish pocket with high rads everywhere?”

“Something like that,” I said while trying to figure out what in the world could make the other MoA HQ worse than this place. “The entrance tunnel collapsed behind us. Vinyl found a way through, Gears is offline—”

“Uh… no you’re not?” Rainbow said slowly.

“We’re a gestalt consciousness. Gears is the machine spirit, I’m the mare whose skin was used to make her. It’s a necromancy thing. My name’s Jasmine,” I explained with an exasperated huff. “Under ideal circumstances, we wouldn't be talking… I don’t like being the active one.”

“Huh…” Rainbow said with a thoughtful twinge. “Never thought I’d get to have a conversation with a friendly warlock. Good to know you’re more than just a powerful spirit. I might need some help in a few days or so.”

I filed that away for future questioning. We had more immediate problems to solve.

“We’re not quite a warlock. The blend isn’t perfectly seamless… even though I’d like it to be,” I said quickly. “Rainbow, please focus. We need to know where the base’s hazmat suits are stored so we can get Speed through the base safely. She’s been exposed for about six and a half hours now. Maybe more.”

“So the tunnel is too unstable to blast through the rubble? Figures.” Rainbow groaned. “Most of the places we would have stored them will have been welded shut. Your best bet is the emergency store room on the fifth floor. It’s the third door on the right from the main elevator. If there isn’t one there, my pin will let you into the mission ready room. It’s on the third floor and is—”

“Marked as an R&D lab. Yeah, we were in there,” I said with a nod. “What in there could help? We looked it over pretty thoroughly. Even found an RMSE space suit!”

I paused for a moment as a pertinent question demanded I ask it, even though I should really let Rainbow finish her thought…

Buck it, I had to.

“So… Why did you guys make a working bit of cosplay?” I asked with a curious smile.

“Huh? Oh, right… I could have sworn I moved that prototype to my house,” Rainbow muttered almost too quietly for me to hear.

Almost, but not quite.

Must. Find. House. Full. Of. Cool. Things!

“You guys are welcome to it,” Rainbow said more audibly. “It will definitely keep Speed safe from those radiation level— Wait, she’s a thestral. Buck! That’s a unicorn’s suit. No way her wings will fit in there.”

“Yeah, we thought of that,” I said with a quick sigh. “But seriously, why is it a screen accurate RMSE Extra Vehicular Operations suit?”

Rainbow coughed. “Uh, let’s just say that one of the best ways to crowd source designs for a classified project it to make ponies, and more importantly zebras, think it’s just science fiction.”

“What do you mean?” I said with a small frown.

“I mean that the entire RMSE franchise was my idea. It was a MoA operation. Cover for our R&D,” Rainbow said too casually for her to be making it up.

The knowledge that my favorite TV show had been a government conspiracy of some kind hit me in the childhood like a hoof to the teats.

My jaw dropped for a moment. “W— What?”

“I made up the whole show. Originally it was going to be Daring Do, but in space, with lasers,” Rainbow said with a little yawn. “Seriously, how did ponies not get that Azure Spectrum was my quill name?”

“But— Why?” I asked, wishing Rainbow was in shoulder shaking distance.

“Well, for starters, the MoA burned through more bits than any other three ministries combined,” Rainbow grumbled. “I— I had a lot to get done. We needed lots of sources of revenue. I knew that we could use government privileges to clandestinely create a hit show. So I came up with some basic ideas for a sci-fi. The sales from consumers buying costumes alone paid for the construction of three SPP towers.”

I blinked, “Wait, I thought you said it was research and development?”

“It was, primarily. But it also was a big money maker once it got going. We did lots of things to get money. Galaxy Quest wasn’t the only franchise we made. But it was what did the most for us. See, first we would introduce yet-to-be-invented gadgets we wanted our spies to have in the show. Then every nerdy pony on the Term-Link theorized how they might work. A lot of them were scientists and mages who either wouldn’t have willingly helped us, or were too young to be recruited. Next, dozens of amateur prop-makers would turn out several different versions of the gadget, and some of them would make sure that those prop versions could be made functional, based on the theoretical ideas. Finally, our agents in the forums who would pick out the more plasuable ideas, and then we would try them out. We saved billions of bits on payroll that way.”

I blinked several times. “Wait. Wait! One minute… If that’s true, then…” I blushed a bright pink. “Are there Caster Guns in this base?!”

“No, but there are some real ones floating around out there,” Rainbow said quietly. “Prototypes. They work... okay.”

“Quad-Function Recorders?”

“We didn’t have to make those, Stable-Tec came out with the Pipbuck based on that idea,” Rainbow sickered. “Uh… I did make a Pipbuck with a custom case to look like a Quadcorder though. I may or may not be using it… Sush.”

I nodded slowly and resumed rattling off my list. “Communicator pi— Oh my gosh! I’m using one of those right now!”

“Yep!” Rainbow laughed.

“Digital Conveyor?” I asked hopefully.

“Yuh-huh!”

My tail swished eagerly behind me. “Could you beam us out of here?”

Please be able to! Please be able to! Please be able to!

“I totally could!” Rainbow said raising my hopes.

“YES!” I squeed.

“If I was about three thousand kilometers north,” Rainbow deadpanned. “In the Rainbow Relay. That’s what it is. Long range teleporter, mass targeting capabilities. It can move up to a cubic kilometer of stuff anywhere on this hemisphere, or a quarter cubic kilometer of stuff on the other side of the planet. I’m really proud of that one. It would have made troop movement cake. It sure helped out with construction!”

Awesome! “Sooo, you can like, fly up there and teleport us, right? You’re awesome! It would just take like, half an hour, right?”

“Nope. Sorry…” Rainbow sighed. “I still can’t navigate up there, all those rad blizzards… Other ghouls might get to glow, I go insane. I come back, because regen, but… Those blizzards don’t stop. If I get caught in one, I go feral, and stay that way until I eventually wander out of the snow.”

I winced. It sounded like she had some experience with that…

“Oh… I uh, I know some safe routes, but I’d need to show them to you. Also, I think we let some people move into the relay...”

For the life of me, I couldn't remember who… Agh! Every fiber of my being told me it was really important to tell Rainbow who, but I couldn’t remember!

Gah! That had to be from the stress of being in charge. I need to go back to subconscious, STAT!

“Yeah, so, no teleporting for you,” Rainbow said flatly.

My ears perked as another thing which would be awesome to have came to me. “OH! What about a universal translator?”

“Uh, well, kinda? It can translate everything into really broken Equish,” Rainbow said sheepishly. “For example it will always translate Twilight’s name to “Purple Smart” which, well, it’s not wrong, but it’s wrong. You know?”

Wait. Wait. They had space suits. They had the MEWs that could work in space. They had the scanners, and the communicators…

I took a deep breath to hold in my inner fanfilly. “I— Is there an actual RMSE Protector?!”

“No,” Rainbow said with a snort. “An actual starship was a bit too expensive, even compared to season eight’s budget.”

“You mean you tried to make one?” I asked with a hopeful smile.

“Duh!” Rainbow practically shouted. “The easiest way to win the war would have been bombarding the Imperial City to dust from orbit and then demanding surrender from whoever was left. The Imperials were terrified of the stars, you know. If we could have reenacted the destruction of their first civilization, then turn around and prove we were responsible, it would have just obliterated their morale. The war would have been over then and there. Then, after the war, I would have had the most awesome house ever, because who the buck could actually make me give up a starship? I’d be in space! Not even the Princesses could fly that high.”

I flinched and sat down.

I had very, very few memories of Zebrica. I’d been so little when my step-dad had my mom and I smuggled out of the country. I remembered how much zebras who practiced the old ways were hated. I remember mom explaining to me that Those Who Fear The Stars had rigged the last election so one of their own would win.

I remembered preachers on the streets, screaming about the Star’s influence over Princess Luna, though I couldn’t remember exactly what they had to say.

I did remember they said she would bring down the very stars from the heavens to kill us all.

“Y— Yeah… that would have done it.” I said quietly.

“Shit,” Rainbow murmured. “Sounds like I triggered some memories there… Sorry. Anyways, if you can’t find a hazmat suit, you can try getting Speed out in a set of power armor. They aren't as rad-resistant, but it should buy her enough time if she’s quick. My pin will act as an authorization code for any frame you find in there.”

“Thanks, Rainbow,” I said with a smile.

“Hey, before you go,” Rainbow asked heastently. “You’ve been in the ready room… Did you go into the room behind it?”

“No,” I replied honestly.

“Good. Don’t. I sealed that up personally. There was a cloudship in there, a stealth troop carrier. Unfortunately, the tanks holding the spare fuel burst over time and the whole room is flooded with some pretty nasty stuff. It doesn’t seem to have any effect on stone, but it dissolved my leg in just a few seconds and ate the whole ship stored in there, so it would probably kill you, Miss Robot Zombie.”

I snorted, then giggled at her nickname for me. It was pretty accurate to say the least. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“One last thing,” Rainbow said quietly.

“What?” I asked with a frown.

Something about the way Rainbow had said that made the fur on the back of my neck stand up.

“You’re… You’re an imperial Zebra. Right? I think I remember you, Jasmine. Your mother married one of my top agents, right?” She asked.

I nodded, remembered she couldn't see me over the pin, and said “Yes… Are you aware of how I died?”

“Yeah, I am,” Rainbow said quietly. “I— I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ever recruited your uncle. But, that's not what I was— Are you a shaman?”

“Yes.”

“Fully trained?”

“More trained than most, as I also studied pony magic and pony alchemy,” I replied with a sigh. “Why?”

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. “As shaman, what did you think of the door to the ready room?”

Oh. That.

What did I think about it?

“It’s lonely,” I replied after a moment’s thought. “The… spiritual energy in it. It doesn't feel like it belongs here. It’s not cursed, there’s no hostile magic, or even organized magic in it, not that I noticed. But… It doesn't belong here. I don’t want to say it’s unnatural, because I don't think it is. It just feels like it’s from a strange and far off land with earth that I am not familiar with in the slightest. Why do you ask? Other zebras thought it was cursed way back when?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow replied sadly. “The door’s made from the same metal as the Star Blasters you may have heard about. I— I’ve wondered sometimes if the zebras were right, if it is an evil metal from the stars.”

Just before Rainbow answered, it hit me. Pip’s story. Star Metal.

A literal name. The material came from the havens, brought to us by meteorites. The mad doctor who had been working for Red Eye theorized Nightmare Moon may have simply been the result of an alien virus which had survived on the meteor somehow, and then infected Luna when she made armor from the meteor she had found.

I found that notion absurd. Nothing organic would survive the temperatures needed to smelt ore into metal, or even those needed to forge metal.

Of course, if Luna had handled the raw meteorite… Nah! That hypothesis depended on there being life out there. Pure fantasy, sadly.

Unless the MoA had also used magic to make mutants that would look like the aliens from the show and then— Oh, right, they didn’t have ships, so they couldn’t have gone out and populated the right planets. Also unless the slingshot around the sun thing really did make time travel possible the timeline just didn’t add up for it.

Darn!

Wait, Rainbow had asked me something. Aaaaaa! What was it? Oh, right!

“I don’t think it’s evil,” I said before clearing my throat to push the awkward away. “I’ve seen plenty of cursed things, and the door doesn't have that kind of aura to it. Where did you get the metal from?”

“We got it from Whinnieapolis. There’s a… large amount of it there. A... Uh… I’m not sure exactly what it’s called. An old meteor strike? Um, anyways, we had a huge deposit of the stuff land there a few decades before the war. Before the city really existed, actually. It was hard to get supplies and ponies out there to work on it, so Celestia had the city built nearby. I— I didn’t start the research on it. This was pre-ministries. Buck, that was pre-Elements! Still, when the war happened, the project was already classified so I took command of it along with basically everything else in the clandestine closet.”

My ears twitched as a thought occurred to me. “May I ask a quick question?”

“Sure. What?”

“Why did Luna make you her spymaster?”

Rainbow quietly let out a slow, bitter, tired sigh. “It had to be either me or Pinkie. Personally, I think Luna’s decision was a mistake. Making the Ministries in the first place, I mean. Splitting the Tiara’s power like that… I think that’s part of why the war lasted for decades. We were… erratic. Conflicted. Disorganized. Every decision was debated, every action questioned. Every Ministry Mare, prominent noble, and CEO entitled to their own small opinion on every last decision! The Ministries dissolved Equestria’s harmony… Disrupted our cohesion… Stole our greatness.”

“Yeah…” I said softly, not wanting to upset her more than thinking back on her life must already have. “But my question was, why you?”

“Well, it had to be either me, or Pinkie. Nopony else had the temperament for it. Pinkie was just too… kind.”

I tilted my head curiously. “Too kind?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said quietly. “Pinkie lived to make ponies smile. She didn’t have the stomach to hurt ponies in the ways I had to. Sure, she could dispatch police and soldiers to take care of enemy agents committing terrorist acts, she could be a hero… But she couldn’t be a spymaster. She couldn’t handle orchestrating terrorist activity of her own. The MoA had to assassinate political leaders, black bag enemy scientists, neutralize enemy spies after interrogating them… Pinkie couldn't do that. It would have destroyed her faster than the drugs did. I... could. I did it well. Loyalty can fall a bit too easily into the “I did my Duty for Princess and Country” mentality... I also had the skills needed to prank Pinkie. That may not sound like much, but even without party time mentats, she was damn near clairvoyant. Anypony who could pull a prank on her undetected had to have the equivalent of a decade of espionage training.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. Makes sense… Anyways, the door? You made it from star metal found in Whinnieapolis. Why?”

“Because it’s cool,” Rainbow replied a little too honestly.

“What?”

“Look, star metal is some of the toughest stuff I’ve ever seen. We were close to learning how to make more of it. Which would have been great, because it made the best security doors! They could stand up to direct hits from plasma cannons. Like, a tank’s plasma cannon!”

I triple blinked. “Woah! That’s awesome… and makes my grenade launcher feel… inadequate.”

Maybe Gears was on to something with loving big guns…

“You’re welcome to any weapons you find in there,” Rainbow commented. “Arm up. You probably won't get a better chance for it… Look, I’d be happy to tell you more about the MoA, but you’re bathing in rads and probably some of that spirit-draining goop we were using as fuel for the magic-anti-magic reactor. Get to safety. We’ll talk later. Rainbow, out.”

The pin clicked to signify the conversation was over.

I turned to look at Vinyl so she’d realise the privacy spell was no longer running. “Okay. We have two options. Rainbow told me where the suits should be, and if there aren't any, her pin can activate the power armor in the ready room. We can get Speed out in one of those.”

Vinyl grinned. “Or, we could abandon the idea of a hazmat suit entirely and get our little death machine some power armor!”

I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it quickly. The Tainted, or perhaps their Enclave masters, kept sicking their power armored monster after us. It would be very nice if we could sick our own power armored monster after them.

I smiled. “Good idea! Let's go back to the ready room.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Amusingly enough, when we returned to the ready room, the music was still looping. Presumably it was programmed to keep looping until somepony geared up and headed out. I hoped us taking a suit of power armor would count, for the sake of the poor souls who died on this spot.

After all, if I were a ghost doomed to haunt these decaying halls, the last thing I would want is to have to hear a single song looping for centuries.

Of course, we had more pressing matters to attend too than stopping some music. Chief amongst which was finding a suit of armor that would fit Speed.

The main problem was her size. Speed was a smallish mare. Not undersized by any means, but shorter than a stallion. Power armor had to be sized for its user within about two centimetres tolerance, and since most soldiers had been stallions, almost every suit of power armor would be useless to Speed. The fact she needed a suit with wing-friendly internals or wing-plating made it about ten times more rare.

If we had been in a typical military base, we would have found something pretty quickly. Sure, every wing-friendly power armor suit had been used by the Enclave, but the Enclave had just been a branch of the Equestrian military. Their armor was serviced at every base in Equestria, just like Steel Ranger pattern armor.

Unfortunately, this was not an EUP or Guard base. This was an MoA headquarters. Each suit of armor here was completely customized.

It made sense. Each of the power armor service stations in the ready room was made specifically for a particular agent, who would have a particular role and particular needs. Each was an Enclave or Ranger pattern suit at the core, just with extra features attached and some cosmetic tweaks. Even though I lacked the technical knowledge Gears had, I could tell each suit wasn’t really all that heavily modified.

Unfortunately, the customization meant none of the suits were standard sized, or standard function. I’d always wondered why each set of Steel Ranger armor looked exactly the same. It seemed like it would be so easy to make variants, or even just paint them different colors so you’d know who was who. Now I understand why they didn’t do that. Each of these suits could fit only a very specific size of pony, and had been made with an individual's talents in mind.

Excellent for small gorilla squads where each member had defined rolls to play. Terrible for equipping an army. Especially when someone had probably died in the armor you were issued. The Ministry of Wartime Technology definitely had to repair and refurbish most suits of armor several times. They cost a hundred times more than the soldiers who wore them.

These ones cost even more than that, which was still probably less than the ponies who had worn them. Special Forces cost a lot to train, to say the least.

Each of the suits in the armory had built in weapons, not all of them were Battlesaddle operated either. Some had fixed weapons which would require the pony to move their entire body to aim but would definitely put the hurt on enemy formations and buildings, some had small turret blisters, one was even more cloudship than armor and featured a pair of air-to-water torpedos.

The strange thing about the dive-bomber suit was it was set up for a unicorn, with a horn sheath on the helmet made from a metal translucent to mana, to permit casting while inside the armor.

How did it fly? Meh, whatever.

Out of the fifteen sets of armor, only three had wing support. Of those three, one was half-disassembled and had a note from a technician stuck to the helmet requesting the operator explain exactly how they managed to get the waste reclamation pouch to back up into the hydraulic manifold (EEEEEEW!), one was for a rather tall stallion, and the third… Well, the third one was just… weird.

It was about Speed’s size. She’d fit into it it no problem, as far as I could tell. It was just… Well, the suit was clearly originally an Enclave pattern suit. It had wing plating, the slim insectoid look, albeit with the plating given a more hard angular shape in places, but, well…

Instead of the glossy black I remembered form propaganda posters, this set was mostly olive green and tan, like it was intended to be camouflage pattern, except then there were some orange highlights here and there which would make any camouflage effect the armor had pointless.

The helmet had been entirely redesigned too. Instead of the bug eyed goggle-helmet which left the pony’s mouth exposed, this helmet was fully enclosed, with a single gold-tinted reflective visor and a small metal sun-shade that jutted out just above the visor by a centimeter or so.

Those changes I could understand. Everypony’s gear here had a unique paint job, and if I was flying up high I would want an oxygen mask too. What I didn’t get was why the tail-blade attachment had been removed. Why the armor featured no weapons whatsoever, not even battle saddle mounts. In fact, it seemed to lack an integral saddle entirely.

It also was covered in what I believed to be Minotaur runes. The kind their rune priests used to carve into armor and weapons to imbue them with arcane power. Except unlike those runes there wasn’t any crystal set into these carvings. Just a black obsidian-like material which wasn’t quite stone and certainly wasn’t a kind of gem. At least, not any I knew of. Which, given the spirits’ love of gemstone offerings, should theoretically be every type of gemstone known to pony and zebra kind.

The runes held power. I could sense that much. What I can't figure out is what the various spirits bound to those runes did. Or if they were even capable of doing things at all, bound like that.

I shook my head and stood back up form peering at the runes set into the barrel plate. “Well… I’m at a total loss.”

Vinyl sighed and set down a manual she found in the armor’s stand. “Nothing here explains what those are for either. But I did find out what this suit is supposed to be.”

“Oh?” I said, my ears perking up.

Vinyl nodded towards the suit, still hanging from its stand by several power cables. “Z-01 Lacedaemonia, a power armor pattern produced in Minos and based on the Enclave pattern. Looks like we shared power armor technology with them as part of the alliance.”

I frowned as I tried to recall any alliances from the Great War. As if sensing my distress Vinyl offered me an apologetic smile. “It wasn’t common knowledge. We were allied with them for the last five years of the war. They provided us with coal, we helped defend them against the Zebras who wanted their coal so we couldn’t have it. I guess they sent us a few soldiers… Or maybe the MoA recruited some of their soldiers.”

“Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Minos the minotaur’s homeland?” I asked as my frown steepened.

Vinyl nodded. “Mhm, sure was. Doesn't mean some ponies didn’t live there. Some minotaurs lived here. People get around.”

“I guess that’s fair,” I said as I took one last look at the armor’s name plate.

No rank. No division. Just a single name. Νέμεσις Ἀδρήστεια.

I had no idea how you pronounced that. It would probably help if I read Mino… I looked up at Vinyl and nodded sheepishly to the name plate. “Any chance you read Minos, or the pilot’s name is written down in the manual in Equish?”

“Uh…” Vinyl flipped through the manual then nodded. “Yeah! There’s a note here: “By order of Miss Dash, if the Z-01 requires repair nopony is to attempt to repair damaged runes other than Master Chief Petty Officer Nemesis the Inescapable. This is for your safety.” Huh… Well, that does sound like a Minosian name. I knew a minotaur who lived in Equestria, he had a pony name. No reason a pony born in Minos wouldn’t have a Minotaur’s name.”

I hummed and shrugged. “Well, the runes don’t seem to do anything. At least, not anymore. The helmet is sealed too. That will give Speed the best chance. I say we take it down stairs.”

Vinyl gave me a skeptical look before glancing back at the armor. “I think we should power it up first. See if those runes come to life when we switch the armor on.”

I facehooved and groaned. “Oh… Right. That would be the smart thing to do. Okay, so… You read the manual. How do we do that?”

Vinyl trotted over to a small terminal on the armor’s rack and tapped it with one hoof. “Tap Rainbow’s pin against this and we should just need to push the button.”

“Alright,” I said as I trotted over and wedged my collar up against the terminal. “Uh, I guess I should keep an eye on the terminal? Just in case there’s an error message.”

Vinyl’s ears perked under her helmet. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

A moment passed, then the terminal chirped as its screen flicked to life, bathing Vinyl and I in a white glow as a dozen commands flew across the screen.

Special Envoy Engineering Corps Advanced Prototype Z-01 Lacedaemonia now activating.
Z-01 Lacedaemonia standing by for deployment authorization codes…
Deployment authorization code PublicKey:Blue-Fast-8-4-1-Alpha-6-5 accepted.
ERROR! Onboard systems firmware corrupted.
Reformatting system memory… Success

Requesting firmware from local dock… Success
Loading firmware 0.1a-5d… Success
System ready.
Resuming activation sequence.
Initializing onboard systems…
Enabling life support… SysOK
Life support enabled.
Enabling sensor systems… SysOK
Enabling Navigation systems… SysOK
Searching for Navigation Data Networks... Network:SPP found.
Navigation enabled on Network:SPP
Initializing in terrestrial mode.
Enabling brainwave interface… SysOK

The terminal’s output froze for a moment, then just as I thought the entire thing had locked up, a message flashed up onto the screen in a dark red.

ERROR! Pilot missing. Continue boot sequence Y/N?

I didn’t have to be Gears to know what to do here. I reached over and tapped the Y key.

Resuming activation in Field Equippable mode…
Flight system check initiated.

The armor clicked and jerked slightly as dozens of small panels opened up, then closed almost immediately. It looked like the armor was performing some kind of systems test… and also showing us that it was far more complicated than it first seemed.

Flight systems online.
Subsystems online.
Z-01 Lacedaemonia now releasing Runic safety interlocks...

I jumped back as every single rune on the armor began to glow a hellish red!

“Woah!” Vinyl yelped, recoling slightly from the armor.

I could feel the spirits bound to each rune awaken. None of them were person-level, but each of them was a machine spirit. The runes each allowed part of the armor to function. The armor enhanced the wearer. Strength, speed, even agility.

All armor did that sort of thing. Perhaps not agility, but… The primary enchantment on this armor. It seemed to… Ensure the suit and its pilot were… Affected by the normal laws of physics regardless of what happened to the suit?

What? WHY?! That’s so… pointless? Unless... maybe it’s meant to diffuse g-forces? It is aerial armor.

Runes active.
Checking power crystal status… SysOK
Status: Charge state low
Charging power crystals… ETA 30 seconds.

Over the terminal’s speakers, a tune I vaguely recognized from an old game show played.

Power Crystals charged.
Load-testing internal power systems… Success.
Switching to internal power… Success
Disabling external power feed… Success

The cables holding the armor up lowered it to the ground, then disconnected with a loud hiss of air. I couldn't help but notice that none of the cables actually plugged into the armor. They had just sort of stuck to the outside, held there by some arcane force, and presumably transmitted everything through the armor itself. Cool!

A single thick cable connecting to the back of the helmet was all that remained attached to the armor as the screen continued to list off more commands.

Enabling deflector systems…
Deflectors enabled and primed.
Aerial mode primed.
EFS primed.
Psychokinetic dampeners primed.
Z-01 Lacedaemonia Online.
Activating Field Equippable mode...

The cable connecting to the helmet hissed and popped free form the armor’s surface.

Vinyl cleared her throat and took a step towards the armor. “Okay, I guess we’ll just carry it down to Sp—”

The armor turned looking towards her as if there were a pony inside the suit. The two of us screamed and dove for cover. I dropped, rolling underneath a mechanic’s tool cart.

A highly robotic yet feminine voice spoke. “Unit lacks operator. Please identify operator.”

I yelped and jumped backwards, falling plot over snoot...

“Oh yeah…” Vinyl said with an awkward laugh. “Uh, so, the manual mentioned this thing has limited autonomous capabilities. Like, you can make it park itself and stuff.”

“Um, why?”

Vinyl picked up the manual with her magic, turned a few pages then said. “So if the pilot is injured the suit can take them back to friendly lines safely.”

“Oh. That makes sense!” I said with a satisfied smile. “Okay then… Um, Z-01, follow me. Your operator is outside.”

“Orders received. Complying.” The suit took several steps towards me, stopping about two ponylengths away, where it stood silently.

Ah, Equestrian robotics. So amazing, yet so rock stupid. Anypony with this pin could have come in here and had the suit just trot right on out with them. All because ponies hadn’t quite yet figured out how to let a computer think instead of calculate. At least, without that computer being the size of a small building.

“Wait,” Vinyl said with a worried frown. “Uh, don’t we need like, an under suit? I’m pretty sure that the Steel Rangers wear an undersuit that hooks into the armor.”

“Interface suit not required,” The Z-01 reported.

I raised an eyebrow and looked at the suit critically. “Did the manual say how smart the thing was?”

“Yeah. On par with a Miss Handy,” Vinyl commented. “Sorry I forgot to mention that. I was really focused on what those runes do.”

“I think they are meant to protect the pilot from extreme g-forces,” I said with a shrug. “I can sense them now that they are active.”

“Ah, well, that would make sense. I saw some turbo-jets under that thing’s plating when it did its systems checks.”

I nodded. “Okay. Z-01, does your operator require anything to use you properly?”

“The will to destroy Equestria’s enemies in the name of the Princess,” the suit said with as much pride as a simple robot could manage.

I couldn’t help but giggle. “Okay, yeah, I don’t care who this thing was made for, it was really made for Speed.”

“Sure was!” Vinyl agreed as she turned to leave the ready room. “Let’s go… I’d say we should look for weapons, but we can do that after Speed’s not cooking.”

I turned and followed her with a quick nod. The Z-01 moved along behind me. I couldn’t help but be a little scared by just how quietly it moved…

☢★★◯★★☢

The first thing I noticed as we exited the crumbling headquarters was just how vibrant and alive the world was. The spirit draining goop and radiation eating moss made for such an alien feeling metaphysical space that returning to a place which was simply irradiated was like passing through a curtain into an air conditioned space on a sweltering day.

I stopped for a moment to take a breath of relatively fresh air, even though this body couldn’t truly appreciate such a gesture. It just felt like the right thing to do.

It could smell though, and that was the second thing I noticed. The distinct smell of burning flesh!

My tail stood up in alarm, and I almost called out a warning, until I realized it wasn’t burning flesh, it was cooking flesh. Somepony was cooking meat of some kind.

Why?

And who?

Speed, presumably. But she couldn’t eat solid things. Gears had asked. She’d vomit them up almost instantly. So why would she be cooking?

“Sompony must have dug through the rubble,” I said quietly.

“Because of the frying beef?” Vinyl asked quietly. “I smell it too.”

“Take point. If I shoot, I’ll probably kill us all,” I whispered.

Vinyl frowned and pointed to the LAER on my battle saddle. “Use that instead of the grenades?”

“I’d rather not,” I said with a little wince. “Gears was worried it would need cleaning soon or it might explode. I know that happens with the pony-portable LAERs. With how much dirt and grime got in it during the bombardment… I’m counting it as disabled.”

“What about your pistol?” Vinyl remarked.

I blinked, turned, and drew the old recharger pistol, then nodded my thanks. Gears might have been able to talk around a gun’s mouth-grip, but I sure as heck didn’t know how to do that and remain comprehensible.

Vinyl drew her own pistol and trotted out in front. I crept along behind her, doing my best to keep my hoof falls from landing too heavily. The damp cave floor was slicker than most things I’d ever trotted across before. One misplaced step and I’d fall flat on my face… The echoes from that would alert whoever was at the other end of the tunnel to my presence in a heartbeat.

We moved through the darkness, following the cave wall closely. The smell of cooking grew stronger and stronger as we progressed. Within a few minutes the crackle of flames and the smell of burning chemicals joined the scent of cooking beef.

Just as I swore I could smell actual olive oil, Vinyl stopped moving, making me nearly run into her plot gun-barrel-first. I froze as best I could, if I’d bumped into her, I probably would have bit down and put an energy bolt right into her tail-hole! I knew Vi was a kinky mare, but she probably wouldn't have liked that very much…

I turned my head to look around Vinyl, and froze in surprise.

There wasn’t anypony there aside from Speed. The batpony had produced a small frying pan, along with a mess kit’s bowl, most of an onion, some water, assorted herbs and spices, and flour, along with a package of dehydrated beef. All so she could make some dough-pocket-things, fill them with meat, and fry them in her pan full of oil using a tiny piece of what I hoped wasn’t plastic explosive as campfire fuel.

But… but you don’t eat… solid… why?!

“Speed, why are you cooking?” Vinyl said for both of us.

Speed yelped, her ears swiveled to face us before the rest of her head. When she turned I could see her face was pale and her eyes held the kind of terror you would only find in a very young foal during their first thunderstorm.

“I’m-sorry-it-was-too-quiet-I-was-scared!” Speed yelped as she bolted over to Vinyl and hugged her tightly.

“You… Were scared because it was quie—” I started before stopping dead in my tracks as I remembered Gears learning Speed was scared of silence because sight wasn’t her primary sense. “Oh! Oh buck, I’m sorry we left you alone, Speed.”

Speed looked over to me, and frowned. “Who are you?”

I blinked, surprised she could tell Gears wasn’t in charge. “I’m Jasmine. I’m the soul bound to Gear’s body. She’s unconscious right now. It’s okay. I’m sure she’ll wake back up soon. How did you know?”

“You sound different, walk different, stand different,” Speed murmured before nodding slowly. “Who’s in the armor?”

“No one,” Vinyl answered. “It’s semi-autonomous. We couldn’t find a radiation suit so we thought some power armor might work. Also, you’d have power armor!”

Speed nodded slowly. “Yeah… That might help.” Her wings fluttered nervously as she looked down the tunnel towards the old headquarters.

Vinyl gave her a tight hug then let go and smiled at Speed through her helmet. “Sorry, but we didn’t think you’d fit in this because of your wings.”

Speed nodded twice. “Y— Yeah. I can't fly, but, um, I really don’t like my wings being bound up. I’d have refused.”

“Is this pony this unit’s operator?” Z-01 asked calmly.

“Yes,” I answered. “Will she fit in you?”

“Confirmed,” the suit reported before suddenly splitting open down the barrel and legs.

Various hatches slid or hinged open, providing a space for a pony to back into the armor via sort of stooping under it while walking backwards. Awkward, but better than having a squire tend to you for half an hour to get into the damn thing.

“Ready for operator. Standing by…” the suit reported.

Speed’s fear drained from her almost immediately. “You found me a robot-armor murder-friend!” she whispered to herself before taking a few quick steps towards the armor. “Oooo, based on the E-03 series! Definitely a prototype though, probably minotaur in design… My people come from Minos too, do you have batwings or bird wings Miss Armor?”

“This unit was designed for a thestral operator, but can accommodate pegasi,” the suit reported.

Speed squeed a little. I smiled shakily. I never even thought about the difference in wing type! That could have gone very poorly.

“So, you think you can use it?” Vinyl asked hopefully, her tail flicking back and forth nervously.

“Mhm!” Speed chimed happily as she stepped up to the armor and began to inspect it form the outside. “No integrated weapons. Good. I hate battle saddles. They put your balance way off center.”

“Incorrect, operator. This suit is entirely composed of integrated weaponry,” the suit reported.

“Explain,” Speed ordered.

“This unit is a killing machine capable of bludgeoning most organic and inorganic targets to death, for the Princess!” the suit reported.

Speed’s muzzle spread as she grinned and hugged the suit. “I love you!”

I cleared my throat. “So um, can you tell me why you were cooking?”

Speed gave me a blank look then shrugged. “Sure… but only because you’re in my friend’s body,” she said in an odd tone that made the fur on the back of my neck stand up.

Speed turned and pointed to the campfire. “There’s an old legend… The Equestrian infantry relied on the Talon mercenaries a lot. But in the field, it was hard to contact them. Radios could fail, messengers might not work, and smoke signals can be seen by everyone. So, some soldiers developed a ritual to attract them. You make a batch of these little pastries, and griffons will be right there to help… and also eat. It worked every time I tried it in the pod.”

“Oh, okay.” I said with a nod, my curiosity satis—

“Wait, what?” Vinyl and I asked together.

“You make these little pastries filled with minced meat, onions, green onion, and spices,” Speed said with a little twitch of her wings. “Smells horrible to me, but if you cook it griffons always show up.”

Vinyl slowly turned to me, her lips puckered with perplexion. “Uh… Jaz? Is there some kind of shamnaistic magic going on there or—”

I shook my head firmly. “Nope. That’s just cooking. No magic.”

“Yeah I’m not picking up anything either,” Vinyl agreed.

Speed huffed irritably and unstrapped her saddlebags to get into her new armor. “I’m telling you, if you cook it, they will come!”

I rolled my eyes. Pony superstitions could be so hilariously weird.

“We want to check out the armory once you’re safe from the radiation,” I commented.

Speed scooted back into the armor with a happily little whinny. She squirmed a little as her plot slipped into place within the armor, and given these suits apparently had waste processing, I didn’t want to know why.

The suit closed around Speed with a hiss, and made a few announcements while it did some last minute configurations. “Adapting mare-machine interface for new operator… Adaptation complete. No changes required. Assistant systems matched to operator.”

I flinched half expecting Speed to yelp in pain as the suit finished closing up. Instead, Speed squeed again. “Awwww! She’s got a little vector-chibi minotaur mare on the hud… Oooo! She’s animated! What are you for? … Really? Neat! That’s a cool way to display data to somepony. Okay, let’s try moving.”

Speed extended her left foreleg then laughed. “WOOO! This is better than wearing nothing! … Oh! You were designed for that. Good, that’s how I like to fight,” Speed commented as she simply reached down and strapped on her gear as if she were unencumbered. “Come on, let’s check out that armory! … Huh? No! Of course we’ll still punch bad guys to death. That’s fun! It’s just that guns are fun too … Awww, I love you too!”

I shivered a little then leaned over to Vinyl and whispered into her ear. “Is it creepy how we can’t hear half that conversation?”

“Yeah, very…” Vinyl whispered back before clearing her throat. “Come on Speed, I’ll lead the way.”

“Okay!” Speed said happily, falling into line behind Vinyl as she trotted back up the tunnel.

I shivered and brought up the rear. The thought of going back in there was more than unpleasant. It felt beyond wrong. I knew that as long as we avoided the reactor room, Gears should be fine, but—

Wait a minute…

“Uh, Speed?” I said carefully. “Shouldn’t you pack up your mess kit? We won't be coming back this way.”

Speed shook her head. “No. I have two. Two more I mean. That’s for the Talon. I don’t need one now but they’ll still come and they’ll be hungry and I don’t want to make a flying sniper angry at me.”

“Okay,” I said rolling my eyes at her silly superstition again.

It would be one thing if there had been some kind of arcane or spiritual energy generated by preparing that meal. Ritual magic certainly came in stranger forms, and two thirds of alchemy was just cooking. But there had been nothing. Not even a little spark of nature magic, and you could get nature magic by banging two rocks together!

The three of us walked back through the cave. I could feel the air and stone getting warmer and warmer with each step. I gulped and lashed my tail nervously. I didn’t like how I could feel the temperature rise with the radiation levels. Why didn’t mom build us with a geiger counter?

We reached the door in just a few minutes. The cave really just felt longer than it actually was, I guess. Foreboding atmospheres and—

I ran face first into Speed’s armored flank as she stopped dead in her tracks. “OW!”

“I can't go further,” Speed said, completely ignoring the fact that I’d very clearly been hurt.

So... This was what it was like to not be her friend… Gears, please wake up before I upset her somehow.

Vinyl turned around. “Why not? Is the suit’s shielding not good enough?”

“Yeah… Zoi looks worried and is holding up a sign saying that this suit can’t handle more radiation than this,” Speed remarked casually.

Okay, that’s an adorable status alert system and I want it instead of fake biofeedback.

Also, motherbucking daughter of a timberwolf! What in Tartarus do we do now?!

Wait, idea!

“You were fine back at the entrance, right?” I asked hopefully.

Speed nodded curtly. “Yes. I think it can handle the levels there okay.”

“Then you can wait at the entrance while we find something to safely cut, blast, or dig through the rubble with,” I proposed with a sympathetic look.

Vinyl sighed. “Yeah… That’s what we’re going to have to do.”

Speed inhaled sharply and quivered, making her armor creak. “U— Um… C— Could we just… all stay around the fire I lit for a while first?”

Vinyl and I nodded together. “Sure,” she said, turning to give Speed an understanding hug. “I understand, and it’s okay.”

“Thanks,” Speed whispered quietly. “I— I hate bad things you can’t punch…”

Poor thing… I wanted to hug her, but I wasn’t sure just how much leeway being ‘not-Gears’ would buy me.

We turned back around and made our way back down the tunnel yet again, this time with me at the front. As we walked, I debated offering to go search the armory myself so that Speed could stay with Vinyl and have company. I knew it was dangerous for me in there, but with Speed not being friends with me but rather just Gears, it was dangerous for me out here, too.

Especially because Speed believed in such superstitious nonsense as griffin summoning!

I would definitely make a snide remark about that at some point. I couldn’t help it. I was so used to signing things and people not knowing what I said and how that let me mock the dumb things they did… Not that I did it too often, but it’s nice to get to rant and rave at someone consequence free when they park their wagon in the handicap spot you need.

Or insist the world is flat. Even though we can prove it’s round with simple math… Or just by standing on a tall thing and just LOOKING AT THE BUCKING HORIZON!

Or even worse, those total idiots who insist that we orbit the sun instead of the sun orbiting us. I was pretty sure if Gears ever learned some ponies believed that she’d have a total systems crash trying to figure out—

I rounded the corner into moonlight that steamed through a small hole in the rubble pile. It was just big enough for a pony to squeeze through if they tried.

The hole had clearly been made by the hunched over winged figure in a weathered maroon tracksuit with several thin white stripes running down the legs, squatting next to the fire and poking at Speed’s cooking with a metallic talon.

“HOW IN THE FLYING BUCK?!” I shouted incredulously.

Vinyl stepped to the side to get a line of sight and drew Bad Trip, only for her to start laughing hysterically.

The griffon turned to look at us, its face concealed by a gasmask, sunglasses, and the shadows cast by the fire. “Zdarova, putniki! Leaving chebureki in the pan while you explore irradiated hell holes… That’s a good way to burn dinner. Very clever. Not sure why you want a burnt dinner, but, eh, to each their own!”

I blinked. That was the thickest Griffonese accent I’d ever heard before in my life! Or since my death! And he sounded adorable! Like a kitten playing in a tube sock! Only somehow still stallion-ish.

I frowned as that realization hit me. Stallion-ish. He sounded stallion-ish. I peered into the shadows around his face… He wasn’t a griffon! His eyes were in the wrong places, a fact his sunglasses were clearly meant to hide. His gasmask had a pointed shape to it, like a beak, but sat a bit too low. Furthermore I could pick out a strand of mane just over the top corner of his sunglasses.

This was a pegasus with cybernetic talons, not a griffon. A sort of pseudo-cyber-hippogriff.

“He’s a pegasus!” I proclaimed, pointing towards his face. “It didn’t summon a griffon! It’s pure coincidence!”

The not-griffon inclined his head slightly. “No? I finished digging through the cave in because I smelled your cooking.”

Vinyl cleared her throat. “Our armored friend here believed she could summon help from Talons by cooking… whatever you called those. It’s a little funny to see it kind of work, that’s all.”

The pegasus laughed quietly and looked towards Vinyl. “Oh, I’m not a Talon. We griffons can smell good food being cooked from ten kilometers away on a good day.”

“But, you’re not a griffon,” Speed pointed out.

“Ah, physically no, but I promise you that is quite irrelevant,” the pegasus said as he clicked his metal talons together. “If a griffon says you are a Silverhawk, you are a Silverhawk. Family chooses you, you see? My family chose me, and so, I am a griffon.”

Griffons take adoption that seriously? Interesting.

“Soo… Why did you dig your way in here?” I asked curiously. “And who are you?”

“I could ask you the same question, podruga,” He said with a rustle of his wings. “I could, but I won’t. Call me Nika, everygriff does. Until a few hours ago, I was working for Applejack’s Rangers at the outpost. During the attack I was busy wondering how blyat the NCR got a gunship working, when I noticed it wasn’t a gunship, it was a set of unique power armor, much like the unique sets Paladin Creek found in these caves before dying horribly from radiation poisoning and a dash of cholera. Sad day. Good wake though. They had smoked cheese plates.”

He leaned forward slightly and picked up one of the pastries, slipped his mask down with his free talon and started to eat. “So, I went to get a bead on the cave. Make sure nopony else made it out to join in the attack. What do I see? I see the Machine and some friends running for their lives into the local all you can eat ghoul buffet. I also see how much the raiders want her dead, which gets me thinking this isn’t the NCR, this is the Tainted’s hoofwork.

“Now, the Tainted’s armored cavalry huj— Eh, bucked off, and I figure, “Nika, some ponies who might be able to help you figure out whose head to put bullets into for blowing up our friends and home are going to die of radiation poisoning, and you, you’re a doctor. You’d better dig them out so you can ask who the dead ponies are.” So I started moving rocks. I almost gave up after a few hours, but then I smelled your friend’s cooking, and so, here I am!”

A doctor?! My jaw dropped slightly. Of all the possible encounters we could have had, how did we get the most useful one?

Thank you, spirits. Whichever of you guided him here, thank you.

I nodded as quickly as I could. “Yes! Good! Speed could use help. She’s the only one here whose affected by radiation.”

Nika nodded slightly. “I can see your friend is a very happy ghoul, but if you think you’re fine because you took a few RadSafes and slugged back a bottle of RadAway like a gopnik on payday, you’re not. Not at these levels. Do you know how many Rangers died trying to get anything out of these caves? All of the ones who tried… and most of the ones who retrieved the bodies too. So like eight to ten.”

“Is that why they had an outpost here?” Vinyl asked curiously. “To clear out this old MoA headquarters?”

Nika’s ears perked enough to push up his hood. “Is that what’s in here? Da! That’s why. I didn’t know much. I just fixed the poor idiots who tried to go inside…” He turned to look into my eyes, then Speed’s before reaching back to open a saddlebag on his left side which his wing had hidden from view. “Okay, you two ladies should sit down, drink any beer you might have, and take some Griffin Blue tabs. I’ve got plenty in my bags.”

“She’s an equoid. She’s fine,” Speed grunted coldly.

Nika paused. “Chivo?”

I cleared my throat. “I’m an advanced cybernetic system. Only my skin is organic.”

Nika reached to open his other saddlebag. “Ah. Then you should open up your access port and let me run some diagnostics. Half the suits that come out of there come out with data corruption up the uretre.”

“Uh, up the what?” I asked with a wince.

“Eh… Piss-hole, I think? Not sure how to translate that one,” Nika remarked as he removed a small talon-held computer from his other bag. “I am also a cyber-surgeon. I do my own work. Do not worry you’re in good talons!”

Vinyl tilted her head slightly and gave Nika a critical look. “You don’t seem surprised by the Machine being an actual machine.”

“Why would I be?” he asked curiously. “The stories say she’s a cyborg. True, they don't say how much, but, well…”

I coughed into my left hoof. “I uh… I don’t have access ports you can reach without cutting me, or uh… Going through a, um, particular bodily orifice. Also, I’m fine. I can fix myself with shamanism. Just make sure Speed’s okay.”

Nika shuddered as I said “orifice”. “Ew… Who designed that?”

“My mom,” I answered truthfully.

NIka’s mouth seemed to invert for a moment, his wings flared in the characteristic frightened Griffon fashion. “EW!”

I glared at him. “It’s not like that! I’m an infiltration unit. There’s not many other places to hide a two centimeter thick data jack on—”

“Nyet!” Nika yelped. “I know! It’s still gross.”

He shuddered for a moment then looked over at me with a little wince. “Y— You can treat yourself?”

I nodded. “Yes. As soon as I’m not in an irradiated area.”

“Good.” Nika cleared his throat and held out a small blue pill to Speed. “Take off your helmet and swallow this.”

“No,” Speed said firmly as she sat down and crossed her hooves.

Nika’s lips puckered. “But… Why not?”

“I love my armor. She stays on,” she humphed.

Vinyl trotted over to her side and gently set a hoof on her shoulder. “Speed, he’s a doctor… I know he may not feel like a friend to you but—”

Speed turned to look at her. “No, he does. I did a ritual to summon a friend and he showed up so he’s a friend.”

Vinyl blinked. “Uh, I thought you couldn’t say no to a friend.”

“I can’t, and I promised her I wouldn’t take her off,” Speed said with a little wing flick. “First come first ser— Oh. As long as a part is equipped it’s fine? … I don't understand… Oh yeah, eating. I have to do that… Uh, that too, yeah. ... So it’s fine to take parts off sometimes? ... Okay!”

Nika frowned and looked over towards Vinyl. “What’s her condition?”

“Cinnamon’s Syndrome,” she replied.

“Ah… I see,” Nika said as Speed removed her helmet.

Speed took the pill from Nika’s still outstretched talon, took a swig from her canteen, and swallowed it the pill. She made a face and shivered. “Ew! It tastes like B-...”

“You know of it?” Vinyl asked curiously. “That’s impressive. It wasn’t well known before the war.”

“There’s a working medical school in Mosscrow. I graduated,” Nika remarked as he put his diagnostic computer back into his bag. “Besides, my father was a cyber-surgeon, and so was his father, and his father, and his father, and his father was a normal doctor, because cybernetics hadn’t been invented yet. Silverhawks are doctors. We’ve always been. Even back when doctoring meant sticking a leech on somegriff and hitting them with a stick to adjust their humors.”

“Really?” I asked.

He nodded. “Da. I know I must seem a little, well, convenient from your side… But, well, I am mostly here because some ponies decided they wanted me to kill them and you three know who they are. True, I was about to move to Twin Oaks to fish a fresh river, but this was still my home, and they were still my friends.”

Nika leaned forwards and ripped his sunglasses down to look me in the eye. “So… That fight with Bullets Stallion was very personal. Who is the big, flying, dead-pony, and do you know where to find him?”

I shivered slightly. Nika had gone from friendly to serious faster than I’d ever seen a pony shift moods. The truly scary part is that unlike Gears, I wasn’t socially oblivious. Nika hadn’t been faking either emotion.

“That would be my uncle Gale Force,” I answered honestly. “He killed me once before. If you can kill him, you’ll be doing the world a favor. He’s a monster.”

Nika blinked, and his head moved just enough for me to see his fur was a very creamy white, and his mane was a nice pink with a pale blue streak running through it which matches his eyes. “Gale Force? As in, the equestrian military's poster-colt? Named for him, no doubt.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s the actual guy. He was on ice somewhere for the last two hundred years and the Enclave thawed him out. I think he’s leading the Tainted right now, or working for whichever Enclave officer is in charge of the Tainted.”

Nika held up one of his talons. “Enclave?”

I nodded. “Yeah. They are behind this. My country is at war with them right now.”

Nika clenched his talon into a fist and grit his teeth painfully hard. “I knew they would be back! You can’t just smash someone’s home, take their weapons, livelihoods, and loved ones, and expect them not to regroup to kill you. We should have executed any pegasus who believed in their fascist ideals!”

I sputtered slightly.

Speed nodded. “Yeah, that would have been the smart thing.”

Vinyl’s eyes shot open wide. “Woah! You’d think a doctor would be against genocide!”

Nika shook his head and held up a talon. “Nyet! Genocide is “Eliminating an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group.” Killing all of the members of an ideological organization, is uh… Politicide. Or, well, close enough to it. Whatever you call it, destroying an ideological group which is not only completely fine with committing geonicide, but has done so on many occasions, is morally sound. Furthermore, as a doctor, I routinely commit genocide for the greater good.”

I blinked twice. “What?” I took a step back and gave my battle saddle a quick prod with my link module. Just in case.

Nika sat up straight and sighed. “That needs some explanation. Sorry. Pony doctors and griffon doctors work under very different rules. To me, the Hippocratic Oath is philosophically flawed. It’s ignoring the simple realities of life.”

“How do you mean?” I asked with a suspicious tilt of my head.

Nika smiled thinly. “Eh, well, if a doctor is to do no harm, then he cannot treat his patients. An open wound is a habitat for bacteria. An infection is a colony of living beings. In order to keep animals healthy, I, as a doctor, must kill billions of living organisms, and deprive many more of natural habitats.”

Vinyl snickered and shook her head for a moment then looked back at the not-griffon. “What? You count bacteria as being alive?”

Nika gave her a cold deadpan stare. “Yes. Because I am a scientist, and I know what life is. Anything that that preserves, furthers or reinforces its existence in the given environment is alive. That is the best definition science has to offer because of just how diverse life is. Who am I to say that Chroococcidiopsis isn't alive when it grows, eats, reproduces, forms colonies, and produces the vast majority of all the air we have ever breathed?”

“Uh,” Vinyl and I said together as we shared an uncertain look.

Nika scoffed, took a bite of his meal, then continued. “Sure, that sounds odd to you because you can’t see them without precision lenses, or maybe because they don’t have a face, or maybe you think only animal species are ‘life’ because they have emotions. Da, by the typical pony view, the Machine herself isn’t alive because not all of her is animal parts. Yet here you are, ensuring you continue to exist!”

Okay, now, that was a good point… I was definitely alive. Gears was definitely alive too. Whatever definition of life I used really should include things like spirits and probably extremely sophisticated robotic systems…

“Um, good point,” I said, pursing my lips.

Nika quickly finished his meal, cleared his throat, wiped some crumbs off his chin, then replaced his gas mask over his muzzle. “Now, how does being a doctor factor in? Even if I were not a doctor, all organisms kill to survive. Even if you choose to eat only plants, those plants are living organisms, and you killed them to sustain your own life. Which is fine. “Do no harm” is a foolish and short sighted ideology. Harm is necessary for life to exist. I, like every griffon doctor, have vowed to do all necessary harm to keep those we love alive, to keep civilization running, and ensure a prosperous future. So yes, I would have killed every last Enclave pegasus who was loyal to their regime. They are a known hostile and millitant faction who was more than happy to justify genocide to further their own goals, and killing them all would have prevented every single death and all harm directly and indirectly caused by the Tainted in the last fourteen years. Even if they didn’t create the Tainted, their group would have regrouped, and struck somewhere, sometime. This was inevitable!”

I squirmed in place, not really sure what to think. I couldn’t really argue with that. I didn’t agree with the philosophy, but the logic was solid. That didn’t mean I had to change my mind. Plenty of things can be logically sound at the same time. It all depends on each side’s starting points, data, and evaluation of the data.

I cleared my throat, wondering if maybe a little more information might help. “I take it that griffons place much more importance on the needs of society over that of individuals?”

NIka shook his head. “You have it backwards. If society isn’t strong and stable, then individuals struggle more. Personal freedom is important, the best way to ensure everyone has the most freedom…” he rolled a talon to prompt me to finish the thought.

“Is to ensure there’s as little problems facing society as a whole in general?” I asked with a frown.

“Exactly,” Nika said with a short nod. “Don’t get me wrong. I do not advocate for the destruction of entire ideologies as a general practice. We are talking about the Enclave, a group who thought nothing of slaughtering entire cities simply for not bowing to them… Who fought a war against my people before they fought yours.”

Nika looked down at the empty frying pan for a quiet moment. He didn’t have to say anything. We all knew what must have happened to his first home… to his family.

Vinyl’s eyes softened. She took a step forward and extended one leg to offer a hug. “This suit is keeping the radiation in… Need a hug?”

He shook his head calmly. “Nyet. Whoever said time heals all wounds was a fool. It has been decades, but I still hurt, and I always will. That is the way it should be. I would be a monster if their loss didn’t hurt, da?”

I nodded a little. “Yeah… I guess…”

“The Enclave destroyed your home three times,” Speed said with an odd twinge in her voice.

Nika nodded once. “Da.”

“There’s the griffons who raised you, and now Pinto Creek, what’s the third?” I asked curiously.

Nika grinned at me. “It’s not obvious? I am thirty two, and while my heart is griffon, my body is Pegasus. Where did the wasteland’s pegasi come from, Machina?”

Suddenly it clicked. Dashites. Almost every pegasus in the wasteland was a Dashite. In order for Nika to act exactly like a griffon, and from what I could tell he did, he would have had to have been raised by them since before he would have formed any permanent memories. His parents, or at least, his mother, had or have been banished from the Enclave’s cloud cities and given birth to him on the surface before they died, or been banished along with their very very young foal and then died.

The wasteland is a deadly place. Before Pip, it had been infinitely worse. Enclave Pegasi lived in a spartan, but safe and functioning society. It was a miracle any Dashite survived after being banished. Most of them would have had no knowledge of how to survive the wastes.

No matter what had happened when Nika was a colt, the Enclave had killed his biological parents. Then, in the Enclave-Griffon War, they’d killed the Silverhawk family. Now, they’d destroyed the place he’d come to call home in recent times.

I wasn’t a very vengeful pony, but I understood the simple fact that there was only so much a pony could take before they broke. Nopony, not even Celestia herself, could possibly lose three homes to the same people and not hate them enough to want them all dead.

I looked Vinyl in her eyes. “He’s a doctor, his enemies are our enemies, I think he should come with us.”

Vinyl nodded. “Agreed. I don’t need a doctor, but Speed does. More importantly, he can fix you if you’re damaged. At least, there’s a chance he can.”

Nika tipped his head back and laughed. “HA! I can fix anything that bleeds or sparks!” He looked between the three of us, still smiling. “So, I take it you don’t know where our mutual enemy is? Too bad… But, it sounds like you think they’ll come after you at some point. Right?”

I sighed and looked out of the cave through the small hole Nika had made to get in. “Yeah… Gale is pretty focused on killing me, again I guess, and the radios I have been delivering have really messed with the Enclave’s plans. Whatever those are.”

“It’s got to be a way to come back into power,” Nika said grimly. “The Tainted have been raiding supply caravans for years. There are rumours of ponies who recruited raider gangs into the Tainted’s ranks. I always felt the raiders’ disappearance wasn’t all due to the Herd and NCR’s soldiers. We know the Enclave are behind them, and we also know they have made it very hard for either nation to, well, grow. Develop. Supply their frontier settlements.”

Speed suddenly hopped up onto all fours, an excited grin parting her lips. “OH! I know what they are doing! It’s obvious they are drawing attention and supplies away from fringe areas to make them vulnerable. What’s not as obvious is if they do that over a long period of time, the opponents will see things as the status quo and be comfortable with moving troops from core regions to the frontier to protect it more, believing the threat is only out there. Thus making a tactical strike to destroy the NCR or Herd’s capitals, or other critical locations more taticaly viable. Destroying Pinto Creek will force the Herd to send troops here to investigate and shore up a region that was just attacked by what they will see as a major force. Even if they don’t blame the NCR for it and go to war, they will think the Tainted have grown more bold and try to fortify other settlements in their territory that have been raided before. It’s win-win. The minute more troops of the Herd’s troops are in the border regions rather than the core, the Enclave will strike and cripple the nation. If the Herd does declare war on the NCR, the Enclave will be able to pick their preferred target and eliminate them the minute both sides are at war, but no matter what, the Herd is under threat of surprise attack. It’s brilliant!”

Everypony was quiet for several moments after Speed’s little bombshell. What the buck kind of tactical genius was in charge of the Enclave right now?! That plan… They had the patience to wait fourteen years to execute a genius plan to remove their enemy’s defences.

Speed frowned, her ears slowly falling as she looked at the three of us. “D— Did I do something wrong?”

I shook the shock from my face as quickly as I could. “No! No you did good. We need to warn the Herd not to send too many troops out!”

“Yeah, but you can only call your Queen, Homage, or Prince Silverlight,” Vinyl commented as she paced along the edge of the camp. “Silverlight said he didn't have radio contact with the Herd, your Queen doesn't either, and the Herd sees Homage’s show as NCR propaganda and won’t listen. We have to get to them on hoof.”

“That’s fine, we were already heading there,” I reminded as I stood up and moved towards the hole. “Nopony else we know of has figured this out. As far as we know, we’re the only ponies who know about this plan. It’s pretty clear that we need to warn them.”

Vinyl and Nika nodded. Speed hummed for a moment. “We may not arrive in time. But even if we are late, we need to get the book mister Prince asked for. He said it was very important, and he wants to talk to Celestia about something, and has plans to rebuild Equestria. He also mentioned ponies have attacked the couriers who tried to bring it back before. If the Tainted are the ones doing most of the raiding, it’s very likely the Enclave doesn't want the Prince getting that book. This makes him getting that book is vital to the war effort.”

“Meaning we may have to fight through Enclave forces to get it if they attack before we arrive,” I said aloud as I realized the full implications of Speed’s plans.

And also just how good a tactician a lifetime of training could make a pony. I wouldn't have realized that the book was so important, but Speed was right. It had to be. For some reason… It had to be a spellbook. An extremely powerful one. Most likely something of such power and complexity only Celestia could help you learn to use it properly… But what?

Wait, no, those are questions for later. For now...

“Nika, do you have a weapon?” I said to the not-griffon. “We shouldn’t waste time, but we all need to be armed. Vinyl could go back in and get you a gun.”

Nika snorted. “You know, the Rangers never thought to ask a ghoul to go in and get what they wanted from here? And da, I have a weapon. I couldn’t fit through the hole with it, it’s outside with my other weapons.”

Speed narrowed her eyes. “Never leave your weapons unattended! First rule of warfare!”

“I didn’t,” Nika said with a thin smile. “My sprite is watching my gear for me.”

“Um,” Vinyl said quietly. “Sprite bots can’t really do much… Are you counting in it beeping loudly if someone approaches your bags?”

“Nyet. I gave him a MEW array. I’m counting on him putting four energy bolts into their cranium, three into their ribcage, and one into their genitalia,” Nika replied calmly. “Besides, even if one of you ponies got hold of my guns, only a unicorn could fire them.”

The not-griffon raised both his forelimbs and mimed holding something while twitching his cybernetic talons.

I felt a little dumb for forgetting that not every species fired their guns with their mouth.

I took a deep breath. Hopefully, Gears would remember everything that happened while I was in charge. Also hopefully, my hastily improvised plan to revive her would work. We didn’t have time for me to find a spiritually active place and meditate to channel power into her. Not with an entire nation about to be destroyed.

I trotted over to Vinyl and gave her a quick hug. “Hon, can you take off your helmet? I need to borrow your necklace for a moment. It may be the only way to wake up Gears.”

NIka tilted his head. “Gears?”

“Long story,” I said as Vinyl reached up and removed her helmet, prompting a hiss of air.

“Short version, she’s a zebra-style warlock. But not fused right,” Vinyl said as she fished Discord’s fang out from her suit and levitated it over to me.

Nika’s eyes twinkled. “Vau! Now that is interesting!”

I leaned in and gave Vinyl a loving kiss. She blushed and wiggled her rump happily even as her eyes fluttered in surprise.

I smiled at her and did my best to look into her eyes lovingly. Hopefully, I wouldn’t get another chance to let her know we both loved her. It would sound bad if I said that to her… but I think she’d understand.

“Yeah… Normally, I’m our subconscious. The radiation knocked Gears out,” I said as I took the necklace by the string with one hoof.

I shivered as I felt the power sparking within the stone fang tied to the thin string. Even if I didn’t know what was in there, I would still feel nothing but terror holding something so powerful, and so ancient… No, not ancient, primeval.

“With luck… The spirit in this won’t mind giving The Machine a jump start. If Gears doesn't know everything that happened when I was in charge, fill her in. It’s more important we have a heavy gunner than a Shaman since we’re going to be sprinting into a potential war-zone,” I finished as I sat down.

Okay, Jasmine… Let’s meditate. Focus on the fragment of a Chaos God in your hoof…

Kind of hard to focus on anything else, to be honest.

What to say? How to say it?

Ah, yes. That would do.

Excuse me, Mister Discord? I know you like chaos, and my friends and I would like to throw a wrench into some well laid very long term plans, but I’m the wrong mare for the job. We need Gears back. Could you wake her up and put her back in charge of our body, please?

☢★★◯★★☢

“M͞iss ҉Ge͟a̢r̡s,҉ ̸y͟ou'rè need̕e͠d.”

What?

I was suddenly sitting by a small burning lump of C4 which was being used to heat some frying oil at the mouth of the cave.

But I was just—

A whole torrent of memories slammed into my mind like a basket of falling rocks. Jasmine had taken over our body. Wander got a sexy space suit that needed to be cuddled with her in it. Rainbow had apparently been responsible for most of pop culture. Cute-healy-flap-flap had a major revenge bone to pick with the Enclave and also a neat computer thingie I wanted to look at.

And the Herd was almost certainly going to be attacked soon.

Unacceptable!

I had a package to pick up form there.

I stood up and blinked twice as the moonlight managed to shine through the hole in the rubble.

Vinyl looked over to me with concern. “Gears? Are you—”

Speed zipped over to me and hugged my barrel. Her new armor gave her more than enough strength to make it hurt a little. “YAY! You’re back!”

I nodded and squirmed out of her grip. “Yes. Please be careful with your hugs while in your suit. That almost compressed my chassis.”

Speed blushed lightly and scuffed the ground with her left hoof. “Sorry… Still getting used to the strength of ten minotaurs thing…”

I handed Wand— Vinyl her necklace back. “Here’s your Elder Thing, dear.”

Vinyl took it with her magic and slipped it back around her neck.

“Are we good now?” Nika asked hopefully.

I nodded. “Yes. Let's go deliver a warning, and pick up the outbound mail.”

Yay for aligned delivery/pickup schedules!

29 - Roving

“— and that’s about everything I can think of,” I said to Nika as I stepped around a skeleton lying in the road.

I’ll never understand ponies. It’s been two hundred and fourteen years. You use this road. Move the bones! Mr. Skeleton wouldn’t want to be buried in air atop pavement with a dust coffin anyways!

Nika chuckled and circled around, briefly meeting my eyes as he flew in front of me. “I am certain it is, my friend! Ei, I feel like I asked you for job training.”

I assumed Nika felt uncomfortable on the ground, because he kept circling us about five meters out and twelve meters up. His little spite-bot, Nurse, followed along behind him as best it could… which wasn’t well at all, judging by her getting lapped over and over again and letting out the occasional frustrated beep.

I liked Nurse. You could tell she’d been a normal sprite bot at one point, but no more! Now she was a labor of love, covered in little mechanical arms tipped with medical equipment, and a pair of nacelle protrusions made from the guts of several magical energy pistols to create something like a pair of shotguns, only with energy instead of lead.

She even had a nice, fresh white paint job with an MoK emblem painted on her sensor grill to mark her as a medical bot. Adorable!

Nurse was best sprite bot... until I got mom to make me one with a 80mm mortar mounted to the bottom as a linear cannon.

Vinyl smirked behind her visor and tracked Nika as he arced around her. “You did ask a machine spirit told to be a mailmare about her job. What did you expect?”

“Eh, the usual few cherries skimmed off the top of the cesspool,” Nika replied almost immediately. “I’ve never spoken to any kind of spirit at length before. I… Can’t exactly use, well, what you would call “Griffon magic”.”

What the hay did that talon squeezy gesture Nika just made mean?

My ears perked up. I knew nothing of griffon magic! “OH! What magic do they have?”

“Hey!” Speed protested. “It was my turn to ask a question.”

My ears drooped. She was right. I never knew that social dynamics got harder as you add members to a group. “Sorry,” I said, tucking my tail.

Speed trotted over to me and gave my shoulder a gentle nudge with her pauldron.

“It’s okay! I’d like to know the same thing,” Speed admitted with a giggle.

I imagined she was smiling behind that helmet. The silly mare refused to believe me when I told her the spirts in it were not person-level, not even collectively. Either whatever programming it its virtual assistant worked by was cleverly scripted and flexible enough to be extremely person-like (Nearly impossible for a computer that could fit into power armor of any kind.), or Speed was too in love with the idea of having armor for a marefriend to accept reality.

Nika looped around again. “Eh, long story short, we listen to the collective voices of spirits living within the land. We help them, they help us. Nothing as fancy as the zebras, no potions or enchanting. It’s more primal than that.” He paused for several loops, clearly thinking of the right way to explain more. “It is just like they are a part of the flock. The spirits of a forest whisper of beatles overwhelming ancient groves, we stop the beetles, suddenly our hunters have an easier time finding prey in the forest. We hear the spirits of the mountain are angry at miners stripping land scared to them, we kill the miners, return all the ore we can find, and our homes will not be caught in the worst of the mountain’s storms that winter.”

“No active manipulation at all?” Vinyl asked curiously as she walked around a large boulder laying atop the blacktop.

…

How did that get there?

“Nyet,” Nika repplied, then frowned enough for his face to visibly move behind his mask. “Well… There are the volkhv. But they do not… The volkhv have made friends with many spirits, or even a Great Spirit. They don’t do anything other than ask a friend for help, and the answer isn’t always yes. But a good volkhv could go talon to hoof with a unicorn any day! Eh, well, maybe. Depends on their friends. Also, unicorns always outnumbered them… A griffon must be able to hear spirits already to become one, few try. It requires… sacrifice. Family is important, and the volkhv must live alone. Caroche… Is complicated. For most every griffon, you have the one family member who knows what they say, maybe two, and you simply be a good neighbor.”

“Is there any more to it than trying to be a good neighbor to your land’s spirits?” I asked with a tilt of my head.

It was certainly an intriguing notion. Zebras didn’t summon us to seek harmony, they sought business. Business which favored them. Not that I or any other spirit I knew of had ever truly minded being given gemstones in exchange for services… though it would have been nice to have a more even arrangement.

Nika shook his head as he looped past me. “No more. We’ve tried to more actively harness magic. Some griffons, eh, very very few, once learned to make enchanted items as ponies did, and fewer still managed to learn a teeny bit of unicorn magic, but now? Such things need colleges, skilled teachers, entire libraries of knowledge, and just the right griffon to learn from these things. The Great Spirits meant for us to work with the land. They wanted us to be challenged. To be strong.”

Vinyl nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s what I was wondering about. I could have sworn I knew a Griffon who could cast light spells.”

“Da! It’s possible! But that is not our magic… It’s borrowing some mayonnaise from a neighbor,” Nika commented. “So, Machina, I take it machine spirits care for little aside from what your body is built to do?”

I nodded. I had been thinking of a way to try to explain this to Vinyl properly and was happy Nika gave me the perfect chance. “Mhm! I was built to be a person, so that’s what I do. However, as a person, I must still have a primary function, well... a secondary function technically. Wa— er, Vinyl is a bard. Speed is a soldier. You are a doctor. People have primary functions too, just like machines! Two hundred years ago, I was asked if I could deliver a note. It was the first thing I was asked to do for my community, so I did it. I liked it, and asked if I could make delivering messages my secondary function. Perhaps it’s a little silly to latch onto the first thing you find as a job, but…”

I paused and bit my lip in though then smiled. “Oh! That’s a good way to put it. I’m not exactly the same as an organic person. I don’t have the same need to overcomplicate things. I like delivering mail, so I deliver mail. I do not get bored with things I like, so I will keep delivering mail until there is no more mail. Then I will find something else to do. Most likely take charge of mom’s library.”

“I feel like you and Nurse would get along well if she could speak,” Nika chuckled behind me. “That said, it also sounds like you could make wrestling bears your new thing.”

I paused for a moment and tapped my hoof to my chin in thought. “Maybe? It is definitely always exciting.”

“Why do you keep flying around us, Nika?” Vinyl asked, her head turning to track our friendly not-griffon.

“Somegriff needs to keep look out. I can see three versta further than you from up here,” he replied casually.

I blinked. Of course. That made perfect sense. Your horizon line obviously increases distance with altitude, but... “Versta? How far is that?”

I heard the sound of a cybernetic talon smacking against a gasmask. “Blin! I keep forgetting you ponies use that bizzare system. Eh, I can see a bit more than three kilomares further?”

“It’s kilometers, actually,” Speed corrected.

Nika stopped circling with a nearly-flawless imitation of a surprised griffon squawk. “Itak? Something you ponies didn’t turn into a pun?”

“What do you mean?” Vinyl asked, stopping to look up at the hovering Nika.

“What do I mean? What do you mean, what do I mean?” Nika asked, his voice wavering.

Vinyl frowned. “I mean I don't see why you think we’d use a pun as a unit of measure.”

Speed nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that would just be silly!”

Nika held up a talon and began to speak, holding up another talon with each word, keeping a visible count for their sakes. “Canterlot, Trottingham, Ponyville, gesundhoof, mare-trimony, trot of life, Con Mane, Fili-Second, Bridleway, Fillydelphia.”

Vinyl snorted again. “Of course there’s going to be some puns in place names, expressions, and pony’s names. Ponies like humor.”

Nika reached up and lowered his tracksuit’s hood, revealing a little black fur cap with flaps that covered the sides of his head, white fur ear-pockets on the top, and a small brass badge pinned to the front with eight sickles in the shape of a wheel. His hat looked super cozy. Definitely made for snowy areas. I wanted one for my routes back home.

With his hood lowered, Nika, still hovering, calmly took off his sunglasses to stare directly into Vinyl’s eyes, extended a talon in her direction, and shouted, “Your language is twenty percent puns!”

Vinyl snorted and waved a hoof. “No it’s not!”

“Isn’t that a winter hat?” Speed asked curiously.

I hummed, rested a hoof on my chin and ran a quick calculation based on my stored dictionaries and slang list. Comparing all words to equine related terms took a shocking amount of processing power, but...

“Vinyl’s correct,” I said with a decisive nod.

“See?” Vinyl said with a smug grin.

“Equish is twenty-three point eighty-nine percent puns, not twenty percent,” I said with a little nod.

Vinyl turned to shoot me the weirdest look. I had no idea what it meant.

“How are you not melting?” Speed asked, giving Nika a suspicious glare.

“Flesh and bone do not liquify with temperatures,” Nika grunted while still giving Vinyl an accusatory stare. “Well?!”

“Well what?” Vinyl shot back.

“Why didn’t you ponies seize the obvious o-pun-tunity?” Nika demanded.

Vinyl winced. “Ow… That was bad… You just, you don’t pun units of measure. Everypony knows that.”

Nika’s eyes narrowed. “Filly-second.”

Vinyl took a deep breath. “Okay… about to lose cool points, but Filly-second is the name of a fictional character who was a member of the Power Ponies, not a unit of measure. Well, unless you count badflankatude as a quantifiable metric.”

Nika sighed and put his sunglasses back on. “Fine… Fine… Tak? Whose question is it?”

“Yours,” I said.

Actually it was mine, but I was perfectly happy listening to my companions and watching Nika fly.

“He just asked why we didn’t punify kilometers,” Vinyl protested as she resumed walking down the road.

“Yeah, but that’s just asking for clarification, and we haven't been counting those questions so far,” Speed pointed out.

I nodded and dipped my head towards Speed. “What she said.”

“Mmm, I guess that’s true,” Vinyl admitted with a sigh. “I just really want to know why you’re wearing one of those silly griffon hats under your hood!”

“Is called ushanka,” Nika said as he twisted mid air to resume flying in circles. “It was my sister’s. It comes off for two things. This isn’t one of them.”

“What are they?” I asked with genuine interest.

Vinyl facehooved and moaned into her frog. “Hon, it should be obvious.”

“Da! Can’t wash it or sew it back up while it is on my head,” Nika confirmed with a sage nod.

Vinyl triple blinked for some reason. “Huh!”

I blushed and shuffled my hooves. “You’re right. They are very obvious. I should have realised that.”

“Wait, hold the quill!” Vinyl said, raising a hoof. “It has ear covers. You had other pony siblings? How common are pony adoptions?”

That was a good question! My ears perked up as I began to listen a bit more intently.

Nika sighed, then shook his head, muttered to himself while counting on his talons, then grinned at Vinyl. “Okay, I’ll answer, but then I get two questions.”

“That’s fair,” Speed remarked as she kicked a rusting auto wagon out of her way.

The rusted out hulk moved a full two meters from her little kick… I shivered slightly. That armor should probably not be in her hooves.

“Shtosh! Then let us begin the tale,” Nika cleared his throat and waited ‘til he was in front of us to start talking again. “I don’t know the pony calendar, so the year will be as we keep count. The year... was nineteen-eighty-huioviy!”

Vinyl blinked. “Wait, that’s a swear word. I don’t know which one but that’s clearly a swear. Why and how can a year be a swear?”

Nika snorted and waved a talon dismissively. “Because the year was total pizdets for everygrif, Wavinyl.”

“That’s not my name,” Vinyl swiftly correct. “Gears is just—”

“Shush. Nickname applied successfully,” Nika interrupted back. “SO! I was fourteen years old and the winter? She was cold. Icy cold. So cold if you didn’t wipe after each pee you’d get frostbite even though you were using a chamberpot indoors.

“My sister, Lexa, she was older than me, but very very sick. Our family had gone to to Mosscrow get her medicine. They had to all go. The storm outside was too dangerous for anything smaller than a whole flock to fly through it. I’d started my training as a doctor, so I was to stay behind and tend to poor Lexa. She was a hunter, and so she would sometimes eat raw prey if a fire might scare away the family’s food. Unfortunately, the winter was cold, and prey was very scarce. She ate a sickly creature, and was unlucky enough to swallow a few parasites with her dinner.”

I shivered at the thought of being infested with another organism. I’d seen a few ponies suffering from that fate over the centuries… It wasn’t something that could ever really happen to me, but it was just so… horrible!

“She needed a dewormer?” Vinyl asked with an empathetic wince. “I… Needed one that time I tried a griffon dish back in the day. That was the worst three weeks of my life. Well, before obvious things.”

Nika shook his head. “Nyet. Eh… She didn’t have anything that existed before balefire made them. They were not… eh, worms. You don’t have a word for them. You don’t want to need a word for them.”

Everyone stopped to wince. I swear I even felt Jasmine wince deep in the back of my mind.

“It was not the first time she’d been infested by something,” Nika continued as he paused in his circling to hover a few meters off the ground in front of us. “What was new for her, was being forced to lay still for a whole month. It was part of the treatment. She was a strong hen. We didn’t think there would be complications for her laying still for so long, but… a little blood clot formed in her leg, detached, and migrated into her lung. Pulmonary edema. Usually kills in hours, but, Lexa, she was strong. She lasted three days before we realized the storm would not break and we would need to get her a drug to break up the clot before she finished drowning in her own blood.”

Nika’s wings skipped a beat and he dropped out of the air, landing on his rear legs, but managing to gracefully come to a squat as if by reflex. “The night was… very cold. Ice came into the house to say hello. It was a poor house guest. Froze all the kvass! I moved Lexa to the hearth, she hurt too much to move on her own, and if we stayed in her room, we would freeze to death.”

I’d experienced plenty of those kinds of winters myself. Even if I didn’t feel the cold in the same way as other zebras, it still sucked the life out of me below a certain point. Sometimes it got cold enough to do that. Whenever that happened, ponies tended to have body parts freeze solid and come off. That meant a busy month for Mom.

“I thought I could stoke the fire, keep us warm all night,” Nika rocked back on his hooves slightly, clearly not wanting to remember his sister’s illness in detail. “My father… he made a mistake. He said he restocked the firewood before leaving. He had not. I was too small to cut more wood, and even if I were not, it was too cold outside. I would have died in minutes. All Lexa and I had were the coals of the morning’s fire. I knew she was the weaker of the two of us, so I bundled her in the only blanket we had left, eh, the family took them for the journey, so I curled up behind her to keep her back warm, tucked my wings around her, and let myself freeze. If I’d moved, she’d have died. She was a hunter, I was still a chick. She had more to contribute than I… At the time.”

Vinyl shivered. “That… that’s terrible. I’m sorry you went through that… So, she gave you her hat to help you keep warm while you two huddled by the coals?”

Nika nodded, closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. “Da… I woke up the next morning with her hat on my head, under her blanket, with the barely warm coals wrapped up in a towel under me. Lexa was laying on the floor a ways away from me. She had her sewing things in her talons. She had noticed what I was doing, and even though she had a pounding headache and was leaking blood from eh, places, she’d sewn rabbit fur ear pockets to her hat so I wouldn’t lose my ears to the cold. She didn’t need too. I can wear griffon hats. It just hurts my ears to have them folded. She remembered that. Lexa… She did not wake up after that night. So, I keep hat.”

Executing hug-the-griffpone.exe!

I zipped over to Nika, wrapped my forlegs around him, and hugged him close. “I’m so sorry! I lost my dad… I know what that’s life.”

“More like "severely misplaced".” Imaginary dad corrected.

Sush, coping mechanism!

“No respect…”

Nika hugged me back, and I saw the corners of his mouth wrinkle as he smiled behind his gasmask. “Is okay. They didn’t have the medicine she needed in Mosscrow. Lexa was a dead hen. She knew that. She made sure I would live.”

I let go and cleared my throat. “We need to keep moving. But I’m glad you shared that story with us.”

“I am too,” Vinyl said as she begna trotting down the road again. “The whole point of the question game is to get to know each other. That said a lot about you.”

“What’s the symbol on the hat mean?” Speed asked with a tilt of her helmeted head. “Was that her cutie mark?”

Nika laughed as he took to the air again. “Nyet! Griffons do not get cutie marks.”

“Oh! Right… Heh, sorry,” Speed said with a sheepish giggle. “Then what is it?”

“The Kolovrat,” Nika said. “It is the symbol of the spirit of the sun. Wearing it is said to bring warmth and joy to life at every dawn.”

Vinyl blinked and tilted her head back. “Wait, the Griffons worshiped Celestia?”

Nika laughed and shook his head before starting to circle us again. “Da, your Princess moved the sun. But she was not the sun, or it’s spirit. Perhaps his daughter, or sister, or even just a good friend, but not him.”

Nika suddenly reversed his circle to playfully glare at the three of us. “Nu shto! That was three questions! I get three now. So! Eh… What was the headquarters like? I spent years near it, watching ponies die trying to get in. Makes a drake curious.”

“Oh, you‘re a dragon too?” Vinyl asked with a smirk.

Nika snorted. “It’s about as grand as your males calling themselves stallions. I’ve been to a horse’s home once. You ponies are no stallions, if you know what I mean. Also, make it four questions.”

I frowned. I did not know what he meant. What did he mean? Why was this bothering me?

Vinyl giggled. “Fair enough!” she paused for a moment then smiled. “It was wonderful. I’ve never felt so alive before. Not even when I was properly alive and on ecstasy. Honestly, I’m surprised I could willingly leave.”

“Makes sense,” Nika said with a nod before resuming his circles. “I wouldn’t want to leave a magical place where the air was potato juice.”

I frowned and looked up to ask what in the world that was, and if literal, why one would juice a potato, when Speed whispered “He means vodka.”

“Thanks!” I whispered back.

Silly griffpone nicknames for things… Just use proper names!

Wait, griffpone… Searching… Pun levels now 23.9%.

“I liked the atmosphere, too,” Vinyl admitted with a flick of her tail and an embarrassed little hoof skip. “Call me weird, but over the years… I started to find the Wasteland beautiful. In its own way. That old base reminded me of how things looked pre-Gardens. Especially the moss! The way it glowed…”

Vinyl made a happy sound and sighed wistfully. “I wish I’d had a camera.”

“I liked how it synthesized magical radiation for food,” I added with a smile. “It was neat to see such an alien ecosystem up close!”

Nika dropped from the sky and landed in front of us, again dropping into a squat. “Moss? Eh, you mean little clumpy flowerless plants that grow in patches and cover everything?”

I nodded. “Yes, we call that moss. What’s the griffon word for it?”

“Lishainik,” Nika answered before turning to look at his sprite. “Blyat! Nurse! Fill a spray bottle with saline solution, add one ounce iron oxide, one ounce potassium salts, and one ounce hydrogen peroxide. My other questions will have to wait.”

The sprite chirped and began to move, using its many arms to remove small items from the storage bag attached to its back.

I blinked and tried to process the list of chemicals. It was clear Nika wanted to wash either himself or us… But why with something that harsh?

“Um, do we have time for this?” Speed asked, her head inclining slightly. “It took us long enough to find a crossing for the river since the bridge was out. We are on a time sensitive mission, aren't we?”

Nika nodded firmly. “We have time for this! There's no point in warning a city of an attack if you bring a plague with you.”

“He’s got a point, Speed,” Vinyl said, stopping in her tracks.

“I suppose…” Speed muttered. “We care if they live, apparently.”

“It’s just moss though?” I asked with a tilt of my head. “I don’t think either of us touched it. And… It’s just moss! Moss is everywhere.”

“Nyet,” Nika exclaimed, holding up a talon with a shake of his head. “You said the moss eats radiation. We are heading to a ghoul town, dura! Moss reproduces with spores, you, and now Speed and I too, are definitely covered in millions of the moss’ spores. If we go to that town, we’ll cover everywhere we go in moss which will eat the ghoul’s food supply. Worse, I’ve seen other forms of moss take root in ghoul-flesh before! The moss eats radiation, it will kill the ghoul it infests slowly, starving them like tapeworms. Which reminds me, our glowing friend is a ghoul, and she didn't have that suit on before she went in. ”

Vinyl eeped and began to immediately remove her new suit. “Thank bucking Faust I am super-charged right now! We don’t have to shave fur off to make sure we get all of it, do we?”

Nika shook his head. “Nyet. That is what peroxide and brushes are for. I refuse to allow any of you to go another step before we... How you say? Ah! Before we decontaminate everyone and everything we are carrying so we do not create an epidemic a few months from now.” Nika paused for a moment, then nodded. “Oh, eh, and Vinyl takes an antifungal treatment, will be good enough. Eh, you two need to strip also. No hetero.”

Vinyl snickered, in spite of the terrified stance her half-undressed body was in. “Okay, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard the reverse of that joke.”

Nika slipped his gasmask off to flash Vinyl and I a smile. “You two are a couple, I thought you might appreciate it. It’s nice to share humor about such things freely…”

“I don’t get it,” I said as I unbuckled my saddle bags and began to slip out of my broken armor.

I took a moment to inspect the damage the falling rocks and shrapnel had done to the old MAS security armor. The plate which protected my back had split into three separate pieces. Cracks, chips, and pockmarks dotted the sides and barrel. This thing was useless now. Far too little structural integrity remaned for me to trust with my life.

I set it aside so I could put it in my bags after I was finished cleaning. It would make a nice keepsake. Something to remember this trip by.

“I probably should have gotten armor from the headquarters,” I remarked as I sat down to wait for further instructions.

Nika nodded. “Da… Do you have anything else to wear? Ponies here look at you weird if you don’t dress. Strangest thing…” He shook his head, and I followed along in agreement.

The Heartlands have the weirdest traditions...

I thought back to see if I had picked up anything. Oh yeah! That leather outfit I found in the shop I got the ducktape from two weeks back.

I nodded. “Mhm! It’s leather, so it should offer a little protection too.”

“Good,” Nika remarked as he looked over to Speed. “Eh… Speed? I remember you got hugs from your friends. You need to wash too. Do you understand?”

Speed nodded. “Yes. I’ll do it part by part.”

Nika cleared his throat and trotted over to Vinyl, Nurse floating along behind him with the spray bottle. He cleared his throat, waited for Vinyl to finish stripping off her suit, then took a deep breath, turned a little pink, then squeaked out, “This-is-strictkly-not-sexual,-or-infantalizing.-I-need-to-wash-you-to-be-entirly-certain-a-full-decontamination-has-been-preformed.”

Vinyl and I blinked a few times. I put a hoof over my mouth to hold in a giggle. Vinyl stared back at him for a few moments then asked. “Uh… Soooo, you’ve never touched a mare before, have you?”

Nika shuddered. “No. I have. A lot. I do not like gynecology and everything needs to be washed!” He gulped, held up a talon and then added. “Also, you’re a ghoul. A good looking ghoul, but still a ghoul. I— Uh… No offense but—”

“Everything about her looks normal to me,” I reported for Nika’s sake.

His ears drooped back. “Pochemu tak poluchayetsya chto ya vsegda puteshestvuyu s kobylami?” He groaned.

Vinyl tilted her head and flicked her tail. “Uh… That was griffon just now.”

Nika nodded. “Da. So, let’s get you girls cleaned.”

Speed stepped forward and took off her helmet to shake her head. “No so fast mister! You got to watch us strip, so we get to watch you! Besides, you need to clean things too.”

“Eh, fair,” Nika admitted as he ran his talons through his hat’s fur like a mane then nodded to Vinyl and I. “But why would they want to watch me? They’re gay.”

“I’m bi, actually,” I replied with a polite smile.

Vinyl blinked, her ears perked up as she stared into my very soul with pride. “You learned the concept! Good for you!”

“I did?” I frowned and then two hundred years of me being a complete and total idiot hit me in the face like a moving wagon loaded with bricks. “Oh wow… WOW! Bucking… Okay, so, I must have absorbed more of Jasmine’s memories than I realized… Wow. I was so bucking dumb. I… Wow…”

Time to stare into the ground and blush intensely now… Diverting 2% core power to blush… Inadequate. 3%. Yes. Appropriate.

“As for me… If you’re girly looking enough under that tracksuit I might like it a bit,” Vinyl said with a snicker.

“Orientations are silly because all my friends are always attractive,” Speed finished cheerfully.

“Oh… good…” Nika squeaked. “Nu… So, um…”

Nika slowly, timidly, bashfully reached up to his tracksuit’s zipper and took off his jacket. I couldn’t help but notice the inside was lined with dozens of pill bottles, syringes, and little bundles of herbs, all held in place by little improvised pockets.

Was the track suit like, a griffon doctor’s uniform, or had he done that himse—

Nika shrugged his way out of his clothes, completely blocking out the rest of my thoughts with pure dawww! He was fairly slender, a bit under developed, as most wasteland ponies were, but he’d managed to get a nice athletic tone… and develop the cutest bubble plot ever!

In terms of the handsome-cute spectrum, Nika was a solid ten on the cute side. I knew his mane was pink with a blue streak, but without his jacket I could see he left it long, unlike most stallions. The same went for his tail. Everything was just, totally cute! He looked like the stallions I saw in old yearbooks in mom’s library, the kind you’d find in the fencing club, or model making clubs. Not really a jock, but, just, gorgeous and fit!

Or maybe the track team… He did have some very nice abs… And those legs! Yes.

I loved those cyber-talons. He’d made sure they joined him at his shoulders in a way which didn’t add any bulk or break up his body lines. Aside from being made of metal, they looked natural.

I couldn’t help but blush. “Awww! You’re so cute! Why cover up everything?” I asked Nika while doing my best to not just hug.

Which was very, very, very hard. He had the extra floofy pega-floof chest! So soft… Must not nuzzle!

Unless he says okay. Heh heh!

“Cuz mares stare…” Nika mumbled quietly as he stared down at the ground for a moment. “And stallions yell blank flank… vmesto togo, chtoby prosto smotret' na moyu zadnitsu.”

I blinked and looked towards his hindquarters again. I hadn’t noticed the first time (due to ab and floof reasons) but indeed, his creamy white flanks were... blank.

The griffonese must have been a complaint about his lack of talent. Poor griffpone!

“Yeah, I was about to ask why you don't have a mark yet, you’re well into adulthood,” Vinyl said casually, clearly doing her best to make it not sound accusatory.

“Griffons don’t get cutiemarks. I felt the Great Spirit reach out to give me mine and I said, “Ei! I’m a griffon, padla!” and she said, “So you are. My mistake, little one.” Only other time I ever heard a spirit speak,” Nika answered with a tiny but proud smile. “Now… Let’s practice medicine.”

Speed frowned, her eask twitching oddly.

“I think you mean hygiene?” Speed asked shyly.

Nika sighed. “Old sayings don’t translate well do they?”

☢★★◯★★☢

It would seem that a proper bath for three ponies takes quite some time. At least, when you’re washing with a spray bottle. I half wondered if we should take the road back a ways to use the river to save time… But the math simply didn’t add up.

I wound up having to help Nika wash Vinyl. He got her front done, then said he was getting too queasy from radiation. Made sense to me, she was still all cute-glowy. I didn’t mind helping, and it was very cute to know that brushing Vinyl’s cutiemark made her super ticklish!

Also when she got ticklish she kicked. My nose still hurt a little. Vinyl was still a bit mortified that she kicked me in the nose, too.

But that was in the past! Now was the time to get moving again. I could accept the need to stop mid-delivery to correct a problem like “potentially cause a dangerous outbreak without a bath”, but we had mail to pick up and news to deliver! I just needed to get dressed.

I had two choices. My courior’s robes, or the leather outfit. Obviously, I couldn’t launder my robes out here, and they needed to be clean and presentable for the meeting with the Herd’s leaders. Which meant I didn’t really have any choice, since Heartland ponies insisted on casual clothes wearing.

I’ll never understand that…

I shook my head and grinned at the silly cultural tradition and opened my saddlebags to start looking through them. Fortunately the anti-theft charms meant nothing inside would have gotten covered in spores. Poor Vinyl and Speed had to clean their entire kits! Luckily I could use that time to get dressed in this unfamiliar, and complicated outfit!

First the body glove.

The skintight pink garment slipped on easily enough. I’d never worn anything that covered my forelegs, barrel, and belly but not my hindquarters before. It felt... odd. Why not finish the jumpsuit? Of course the outfit did have a skit… Material conservation, perhaps?

Next were the socks. I liked the purple, it complemented the pink and contrasted the black leather nicely. The pleated skirt buckled on, and as I put it on I discovered it had some very well hidden utility pouches. Awesome!

With the skirt on, the vest was easy enough, though why it wasn’t a jacket I had no idea. The thing barely covered my shoulders and barrel… If I had pega-floof and took off the body glove, it would have let all the floof poof out, maybe even enhanced it…

Which made me wonder if I could get Nika to try it on, since we were about the same size, while I slipped on the boots. I like how the boots came up to my thighs and mid-upper forelegs. It would ensure my legs didn't’ get dirty in deep mud. I needed to get an armored pair of these sometime, or perhaps modify these ones later.

Now… the straps. So many straps and buckles! Focus Gears, you can figure this out…

Much to my pride, after just five and a half minutes I figured out how the fake-tactical harness went on and got everything buckled into place. The weird thing was, now that I was wearing it the loops and ring connections on the harness, combined with the way the straps fit around me, made me feel like I was meant to hang from the harness instead of hang things from it.

Fashion designers… So silly! How can you get something like tactical webbing actually backwards?

“Okay! I’m dressed and ready to go,” I called to everyone.

Vinyl nodded and continued scrubbing out the inside of her bag. “Good, almost done.”

Speed didn’t reply, she was too busy reloading some shot shells.

Nika looked over at me, his eyes widened as a grin split his muzzle, then he clasped a hoof over his mouth to hold in a laugh. “Pfff! Hahahaha! That’s great! I love your jokes.”

I frowned, my ears drooping a little. “What joke? It’s this or my couriers robes, and I can't get those dirty.”

Nika’s tail stood up straight as he snorted. “Y— You don’t know what that is, do you?”

“A leather outfit?” I said raising an eyebrow. “Oh! It was in a shop I found, is this some kind of costume? I didn’t get to read many different works of fiction with pictures, so—”

Vinyl finally looked up. Her cheeks flushed a much brighter green. “Uhhhhhh! SOOOOO… Hon? I’m glad you own that. You shouldn’t wear that in public, though…”

My tail swished uncertainty. “Do… Do I look bad in it or something?” I asked while looking down at my forelegs. “I think I look nice in—”

Vinyl shook her head. “Hon, you look great. It’s just that’s a bondage outfit. It’s for sex.”

I felt my core warm slightly. “OH!” I giggled at the myriad possibilities. “Sooo, how is it utilized?”

Vinyl blushed brighter. “Um, I’ll show you later.”

Nika shook his head and opened his saddlebags. “I have extra clothes, you’re my size, plus a few inches on the flanks, but I wear loose pants!”

“Can I keep the boots on? I like the boots,” I asked hopefully.

“Yeah, that will be fine,” Vinyl said with a nod, then expertly undid the harness with a single telekinetic motion.

My ears perked. “Ohhh, you must have used these outfits a lot!”

Nika snickered. Vinyl coughed into her hoof. “No comment.”

“Here you go,” Nika said as he tossed me a yellow and black tracksuit which, aside form the colors, matched his own. “Give it back later, okay?”

I took the outfit and frowned as I held it against my barrel. “Thanks… This yellow will look so weird with my stripes though. Is there any chance you have anything else?”

“Da!” Nika said with a happy grin as he returned to his bags. “I have… A blue one, green, pink, gray, black, silver, red, white, cyan—”

“All tracksuits?” I asked with a little swish of my tail.

“Da!”

Speed looked up at the sound of fluttering cloth. “How many of those do you have?”

“Less than enough,” Nika replied with a confident nod.

“But, why?” Speed asked, her lips pursing in confusion.

Nika looked over his sunglasses. “Have you ever tried squatting in jeans?”

“No,” Speed admitted, her ears twitching with confusion.

“It’s just not comfortable,” Nika said with a slow nod. “Besides, is multifunctional. Squatting, standing, running from or towards things. Stylish, lightweight, breathable, yet waterproof, windproof, keeps you warm enough most days, also, the material doesn’t rot, mold won't grow in it, and vermin won’t eat them. They last until you wear them out, and there’s millions, maybe billions, of suits laying all around Griffonia! In warehouse, shops, homes, schools, everywhere! Real question is, why would you not wear them?”

“Cuz I have power armor,” Speed said honestly.

Nika laughed. “Ah, well, if you find armor for a winged person painted something cheerful, we can put some stripes on it. Then maybe I’ll agree with you.”

Vinyl cleared her throat and started to put her things back into her bag. “I think she means why do you own more coordinated outfits than I did pre-war?”

I blinked and frowned. “He mentioned nine and has one more I can see. You didn’t have more than nine outfits as a celebrity DJ?”

Nika’s ears perked. “Shto? DJ?”

Vinyl smiled and nodded to her guitar and keyboard. “I’ll play something for you later… But seriously, you have a lot of clothes. Do you sell them?”

Nika shook his head and picked up the jacket for his black suit. “For formal events,” he set it down and picked up his green jacket. “Ground camo for forest,” then a brown jacket “ground camo for uh, here. Blue for sky camo, gray for cloudy day sky camo, white for in case I get married, cyan for clubs, pink for when I want to have success in clubs, yellow because cousin Boris gave me his old suit when he grew too big, red for surgery, maroon for when it was first one I pulled out of bag that morning and I was late for work… You know, today feels like a turquoise day!”

Nika quickly changed into a black-striped turquoise tracksuit from his bag, and handed me his gray one. “Here! Mix of black and white. Should look cool on your stripes.”

“Thanks,” I said as I changed as well.

“I will want it back later.”

“That’s okay.”

I had to admit, Nika was right. Tracksuit certainly felt light. It was like I wasn't wearing anything except for my boots. I liked that.

Nika finished up as well, swapping his gasmask out for a silver-painted one, in addition to putting an old, somewhat tarnished silver chain necklace on, as well as a pair of gold talon rings.

He looked up, noticed everypony staring at him, and blinked. “Eh… If you mares want some jewelry, we can trade later.”

Vinyl shook her head. “No! Just, surprised you have some at all.”

“Plenty back where I’m from. I get mostly from patients who don’t have caps to pay,” Nika commented as he buckled on his saddlebags. “Sometimes, I fly over to get more medicine. Ponies can’t make everything we can… Everyone ready?”

Speed nodded and stood up. “I’m ready to continue. We should run to make up some lost time.”

Vinyl put her helmet back on and sealed her suit. “Ahhh, air conditioning!”

Nika’s eyes narrowed. “Immediate envy…”

“See?” Speed said with an audible grin. “Power armor beats tracksuit.”

“Eh, maybe. Your clothes run out of power at some point… Mine don’t!” Nika said with a grin before extending his wings and taking out the air with a single flap. “Davayte, let’s go!”

☢★★◯★★☢

Oak Valley was a city on the sea. Literally, on, the, sea. Our clifftop vantage point gave us a very good view of the city. Truly Oak Valley had been a pre-war marvel, and horribly misnamed, unless the trees in the valley we had just trotted through to reach they city had once been oak trees.

Oak Valley sat atop a series of obviously pony-made islands, HUGE floating barges holding up roadways, parks, even a few smaller buildings. The city core was gone, in its place was a single crater with glassy-smooth sides. The result of a balefire bomb’s direct hit. The fact that any other buildings remained at all was a small miracle.

A series of skyscrapers ringed the crater rim, looking almost like a crown of broken teeth. Broken teeth which were halfway through a dentist’s cleaning. A clear line separated the city, you could see where the Gardens’ cleansing light had at last stopped. The side facing the shore looked cleaner, brighter, a bit newer. The far side glowed slightly in the dim twilight, yet seemed darker. Grays, blacks, ash… The rising sun did nothing to brighten the region, as if it were doomed to be eternally grim and dark.

I turned my eyes towards the sea. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could catch a glimpse of a ship to cheer me up after looking at such a visibly… wrong place as the city’s far side.

Oak Valley had a port. A large port. With a tall razor-wire covered fence surrounding it, and checkpoints. A naval base, just on the city’s outskirts! I couldn’t help but smile as I looked over row after row of rusting, but still floating battleships, frigates, cruisers, and oooh, so many wonderful ships!

“We have to go to the docks once were done!” I said with a happy little hoof-trot-dance.

“Why?” Nika asked with a confused swish of his tail.

“Oh, she used to be a ship’s targeting computer,” Vinyl commented.

“Oh…” Nika nodded, stopped in his tracks and looked towards Vinyl like she’d grown a second head. “The blyat you say?”

I continued to oggle the cute ships in the harbor, working my way up the line, hoping there might be a cloudship carrier in the lineup for machine spirit squee reasons. “I’m a machine, remember? Parts of me were recycled from a zebrican battle—”

My eyes reached the very last dock. It wasn’t like any of the others. It had its own security fence, turrets, checkpoints, and if my eyes were not playing tricks on me with the distance, based on the blackened crater strewn strip of land in front of the fence, a minefield.

Buck all of that!

In the water, moored to the Equestrian naval base, connected to the ground by dozens of gangplanks, scaffolding, and chains…

A ship that was less ship and more fortress. Squared edges, half as wide as it was long. A floating ziggurat. The bow, a massive boarding ramp. Her decks, many tiered, broad, and covered with batteries of turrets unlike anything else to ever sail the seas. Her conning tower, a pyramid shaped temple set atop the highest tier of the ship, once capped with electrum to shine like a beacon, the only warning enemy ships would receive thanks to the stealth systems within her hull. Her armor, thick, impenetrable by all but the mightiest of guns, and even then only at point blank range.

My core skipped several cycles. I ran twelve different checks to make sure what I was seeing was reality. Eleven positive responses and one timeout.

It was!

Vinyl moved in front of me and waved a hoof in front of my face. “Gears? You there? You okay?”

I pointed to the massive ship. “Vi! It’s me!”

The Imperterritus was moored just outside of Oak Valley.

30 - Abomination

I had honestly expected Oak Valley to be a fusion of Manehattan and Junction Town. A pre-war metropolis blended with a post-war capital as if somepony was mixing a potion. I’d pictured ordered streets, buildings repaired with good materials and obvious skill and in use by all kinds of people. All making their living via materials sourced from the crumbling towers and rotting barges.

Each of Oak Valley’s city blocks appeared to be built on its own little island. Perhaps one or two of the larger islands held more than a single block, but I couldn’t be certain. Especially not from a distance.

Up close, the archipelago of mini-islands was obviously artificial in nature. Hopefully stone had been piled up before the sand and soil was heaped upon them, otherwise the city would eventually be washed away… Of course, standing as it had for two centuries, it must have been well built. Or at least, built well enough.

We walked up to the first of many ancient, dilapidated, ash stained barges which had been used to make the city’s streets. From a distance I’d thought they were pontoon bridges, but no. The streets had been built atop a fleet of derelict barges. It must have been cheaper to lay cobblestone atop some old barges than to use real pontoon bridges. Or construct solid bridges, for that matter.

Presumably they’d been safe when the city was new. I doubted that was still the case...

I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of ponies would want to live on a fake archipelago scattered across a natural harbor. It was definitely a unique place to put a city. Perhaps not the wisest…

That said, the natural harbor’s rocky seawall should in theory shelter them from any tsunamis… At least, the smaller ones. Did Equestria get many of those?

Eh, I still wouldn’t want to live here.

Many crumbling highways running along the beach had once connected Oak Valley to the mainland at many points, but now only this single route into the city remained. Interestingly enough, some of the broken highway segments appeared to have been broken sometime within this decade judging by the look of the concrete’s clean breaks. Perhaps the Herd did it in an attempt to fortify the city.

The remaining barge-road leading into the city had been repaired, somewhat. Old plywood and beams as bracing. Bits of sheet metal siding riveted across gaps. A slipshod deck to go with the scruffy junk-barricade running across the barge, behind which a few dozen soldiers in orange armor stood, their faceless helmet’s view slits trained on our approaching party.

I’d expected guards, of course. I remembered the Herd’s soldiers from the post-border-skirmish we’d ridden through. Admittedly their Classical Era-esq plate armor looked much better cleaned up than speckled with mud and blood. What’s more, on their own home terrain the rusty-orange color made for excellent camouflage against the rusty backdrop of Oak Valley.

I also remembered them having, well, guns. These soldiers did not. They were armed with rough-forged halberds, hoof grenades, and really big crossbows! I shivered slightly at the thought of one of those leg-sized bolts being shot at me.

I had no idea how my armor would handle a crossbow bolt. Less energy than a rifle? More? Maybe at longer ranges… Even so, everything focused down to those sharp points… Note to self: read a book on Classical Era weapons capabilities.

I leaned towards Vinyl to ask her a question quietly. “Hey, so… Don’t they buy ammo from Los Pegasus?”

Vinyl nodded and spared a glance my way. “Yes. They don’t like it, but they do. The Herd is big on independence. Weird for a collective, but it’s how they are. I guess they can supply their own bolts.”

“Da,” Nika remarked casually. “They give the guns to soldiers at the border. Or important places. This is the outer gate, bows will do.”

“You’ve been here before?” Vinyl asked hopefully. “I have to admit, I’ve never been here.”

Nika nodded and coughed into a talon. “Eh, yes. I lived here with some… friends.”

“HALT!” a stallion’s voice rumbled. “It’s not often such a heavily armed party comes to my gate. State your business!”

I looked up to the barricade, one of the soldiers had climbed atop the junk-fence and stood on his hind legs, using his halberd’s haft for balance. I recognised that stance. Zebra martial artists used a similar style with spears for greater striking range at the cost of mobility.

So, the Mobile Infantry had Zebra tactics to draw on. Interesting!

I stopped and offered a quick bow. “Good afternoon, sir! I am a courier to deliver a package and pick up some outbound postage. May I have entry?”

“And them?” The stallion asked, dipping his weapon’s point towards my friends.

“Traveling companions,” I answered honestly.

The soldier inclined his armored head slightly. I wished I could see his eyes behind that narrow view slit. “You expect us to believe anypony casually travels in power armor? Or keeps a glowing one for company?”

“I didn’t glow until this morning,” Vinyl said earnestly. “We were briefly trapped in a hotspot near Pinto Creek.”

The guard’s halbard wavered slightly. “Pinto Creek? I heard the town was razed by bandits. Is that NCR propaganda or…”

Nika cleared his throat. “Hello, Sergeant! Sad news indeed, Pinto Creek is gone, the Eastern dogs did not lie about that… Though there were more survivors than they said. I’m here to tell the Council what really happened.”

The Sergeant leaned forwards slightly more then stood up. “Doctor Silverhawk! I didn’t see you behind… Are these mares with you?”

I did my best to conceal my surprise. If Nika was able to fix power armor and used to live here, it was little wonder he was recognisable on sight.

Of course, he could also be lying about having left the city, and still work with them… Not sure why I even thought about that. It wouldn’t make sense to lie about something which wouldn’t have changed our opinion one way or another.

They hay was that, brain?

“Da! Well, for now at least. I do not know how long we might travel together. As for the news... Why would I not take warning back to the Council with a secure courier company for escort?” Nika asked with a little flick of his tail. “These mares are here to pick up a package for Prince Silverlight, and drop off some mail too. It was nearly lost last time, from what I’ve been told. Blyat! I would send power armor too if I could piss caps like him!”

The soldier jumped down from the barricade and nodded to two soldiers on either side. “Open the gate!”

Two of the other soldiers gingerly pushed aside a small patch of the junk-mound which I decided to graciously concede was sufficiently gate-like to be labeled as an “egress”.

The sergeant turned back to face us. “Welcome home, Doctor… I’m afraid you’ll have to be escorted to your destination.”

“Da, da. I know. I moved out. Is no trouble,” Nika said with a wave of his talon before turning to us. “You girls should empty your magazines. Eh, NOT into anyone!”

“Aww…” Speed sighed.

Nika glared at her. “Nopony may walk around the city with a loaded gun… Silly rule; unicorns cannot unload their horn.”

I nodded and reached over to remove the belt of grenades from Feature’s breach.

“That includes power crystals for energy weapons,” The sergeant called down to us.

Wander frowned. “Uh… So, funny story! I have no idea how to do that.” She coughed into her hoof and shyly swished her tail as she offered the guards and apologetic smile.

“Then put it in your bag,” he replied.

Realizing it would be more hassle to remove my remaining LAER’s power crystal, I unclipped it from my saddle and tucked it into a saddle bag. After all, the weapon was basically useless now. Unless I found a cleanroom to give it some sorely needed maintenance.

Nika unzipped his tracksuit, drew a small black stamp-metal, probably post-war, griffon-made SMG from a shoulder holster (no idea how I’d missed that before!), dropped the magazine, ejected a chambered round, then tucked it away.

I turned my head to see how Speed was taking the whole needing to disarm thing. She seemed fine enough, though given her small arsenal, we’d be waiting on her for several minutes…

“All of them, doctor,” The sergeant sighed.

My ears perked with curiosity as I turned back to Nika just in time to see his eyes twitch with irritation behind his sunglasses. “Fine…” he said, bending down to unzip his track suit again with a whisper of “Suka.”

One of these days, I’d need to actually learn griffon.

Nika opened his saddlebag, reached inside, and began to remove a long rifle from inside. If I didn’t have my own set of enchanted saddlebags seeing a rifle four times longer than the bag was deep emerge from within it may have made me laugh.

Vinyl frowned and flicked her tail as she watched Nika. “Um, they said we could keep loaded weapons in our—”

“Only energy weapons with integral power supplies may be kept loaded in bags,” the sergeant corrected.

“I know the law here, Wavinyl. If you knew how to take the power cell out, you wouldn't be allowed to keep it in your bag,” Nika said calmly.

I wanted to complain about that rule. Surely the guards could hold a weapon you couldn’t unload in that case...

Instead of worrying about the local laws, I was merely interested in the rifle. It also had to be griffon made, as the handle was made for talons, but I’d never seen the model before. Not even in books. The stock and handle were made from a dark wood, which went nicely with the blued metal of the receiver and barrel. It had a long barrel, clearly meant for hunting at a long range, only rather than being smooth the barrel had regularly placed “beads” all along the length.

I should inform Nika that Vinyl owned a similarly shaped rod. Perhaps it was a barrel extension for this weapon?

It had an integral scope. If there was a magazine, it was internal too. There was a box below the receiver which looked like a magazine, but since it had a pair of wires coming out of it which fed into a small tube on the bottom of the barrel, there was no way it came off.

A cute gun. Not sexy, but very much cute.

I nodded to myself. Nika had his submachine gun, and long range rifle. A bit excessive for a not-pony without a battle saddle, but at least that covered long and short rang—

Nika reached into his bag again and removed a loaded griffonese rocket launcher!

“Why do you have that?” Vinyl asked, her jaw hanging somewhat slack.

Speed looked over her shoulder and snorted. “To blow stuff up with. Duh.”

I nodded in agreement. “Obviously, dear.”

“Da. Specifically, rock-bears,” Nika said like that was obvious.

“Have what?” Speed asked as she turned around, then squeed a little. “Can I shoot that later?”

“Nyet,” Nika said as he unloaded the rocket, then reached into his bag again…

“How many guns do you have?” I asked, one of my ears drooping in confusion.

“The Council paid him in weapons,” the sergeant said with a chuckle. “You know how griffons are.”

“They are not that obsessed with weapons,” Vinyl said with a dismissive snort. “You’ve just seen one too many Talons actually maintaining their equipment.”

Nika removed a small revolver from his bag and unloaded it. “Talons are Equestrians. Not real Griffons… They grew up here, not the old country. Big difference!”

I raised an eyebrow and field that question away for later. Instead, I turned to VInyl. “So, who finishes first? Him or Speed?”

Nika extended his right talon. His foreleg hissed open allowing him to remove a small power crystal. A moment later he did the same to the right talon. “Done.”

“Him,” Vinyl said simply as she nodded towards Speed’s 27 gun pile.

I— Wait, what?!

Where did she even get half of those? I remembered her shotgun, her assault rifle, and—

Speed cleared her throat and looked up to the sergeant. “Hey so, do hooves count as weapons?”

☢★★◯★★☢

The three soldiers who were assigned to lead us to “The Council’s Tower” didn’t speak while leading us through the city. I imagine they could have cleared up a lot for me… Sadly, I was left to puzzle out the city’s mysteries by myself.

Which was a little tricky to do with the barges’ creaks and groans, lapping of ocean waves, and the omnipresent din of ponies going about their daily business serenading us as we crossed the floating bridges that served as streets.

We hadn’t been told to keep quiet while being escorted, but… Well, it felt like we were supposed to. Like only residents could make sounds, and even then only quite whispered conversations and light hoof steps.

Armed silent escort. Dingy conditions all around… Oak Valley wasn’t welcoming. Even Two Bits, as hostile as its mayor had been, felt welcoming.

Oak Valley was not anything like I’d imagined. Perhaps the presence of my old ship occupied too much of my mind to see the city for what it truly was, but Oak Valley seems… dim. Dim and ordered.

Not orderly, the streets were extremely chaotic. Ghouls of all tribes swarmed the streets, going about their daily business. Swarmed was indeed the only proper word for the frenzied way everyone moved. At several points I’d wondered if I was in a pack of ferals. It seemed to me that no sane pony would move with such speed, yet so little care, as if they only truly cared about getting to their destination in the shortest possible amount of time.

The skies above were little better. The alicorns were a major part of the Herd as well, and they moved through the skies above the streets in a dizzying cloud I could only compare to the few times I’d seen changelings swarming. I could only imagine the zebras who lived here acted much the same way, though I couldn’t see any of them.

What I could see was the order in everything but the people. We’d entered the ruins through a gate guarded by a full platoon of the Herd’s Mobile Infantry. The rest of their brigade patrolled the perimeter of the city, while a second brigade was tasked with the other checkpoints.

Oak Valley had districts. Very clearly marked, occasionally walled off, districts. Each district looked much like the others. A collection of junk homes made from items salvaged from the ruins the new city was built atop and within, built with care but little skill. Yet... there was a clear and obvious segregation of people, in spite of the universally poor conditions.

Each district we passed through had its own market at the center. All of them sold food and radioactive materials, but aside from that, they each sold different things. One sold wooden goods. Another sold weapons. If I was right, then Oak Valley segregated its citizens by profession, or perhaps skill set.

Why? That seemed… absurd!

Yet it must be true! Nothing else would explain why each and every district felt different while looking the same. The only question was where did they practice their trades? Goods were sold in the districts, they slept in the districts… But I hadn’t seen any workshops.

Was that where everypony was rushing to? Either work or home?

What was the advantage of this system? Note to self: read a book on city planning.

Deciding to break the silence, I sped up just a little so I could walk next to Nika and ask him about the weird city layout. Just as I moved up, the Soldiers stopped in their tracks, bringing our party to an immediate halt.

Frowning, I stepped forward to ask out guide what the problem was. I didn’t need to ask. As soon as I made my way forwards and the dense swarm of commuters no longer blocked my view, I could see the street ahead was… occupied.

A tall mare in a Stable 2 jumpsuit stood atop a small cart, its wheels blocked off, its side decorated by a banner bearing the image of an SPP tower in front of a large yellow number 2. I wanted to say that she was a Pipite, based on how her fur was clearly dyed gray and she had a pipbuck fused to her right leg, but her jumpsuit looked real and she didn’t look stupid enough to charge an encamped position with only melee tools.

Interestingly enough, the impromptu stage held a second “podium”. A small half-rotten apple crate. Used not to stand on but to display a small jar containing a green ooze which glowed nearly as brightly as a lantern. The tall mare attending to it was an alicorn, her face and body hidden within a thick set of brown robes, aside from a midnight blue horn and feathered wings.

The two faced each other, a crowd of nearly three dozen ponies seated between them. Their… group was situated in a way where it was blocking the entire road, save for a small strip along either side where there was just enough space for the commuters to shuffle around. As for the unicorn and her alicorn…. Friend? From what I could see they had simply happened to notice each other while standing on opposite sides of the street.

I strained my systems, struggling to make her speech out over the noise of the crowd around me.

“— words of fools are of no concern!” The unicorn proclaimed, more to the crowd than her… opponent? “That our goddess lays silent within her tower is of no concern. She gave us her word and we wrote it down so it may be preserved until the end of time itself. You may pray, you may write, you may cry out to her through a radio, and she need not reply! She has spoken already. Her divine words are here!”

The unicorn preacher held up a very poorly bound, clearly hoof written book and shook it for emphasis.

The soldier at the front of our escort sighed. “Pip’s blood, no... I thought we settled this last month!”

“Taji…” another said with an uneasy twitch. “Don’t! She’s a Holy Sister. You’ll start more than you think.”

Then the alicorn spoke, and her voice was impossible to ignore. It cut through the crowd's buzz, carried well over the street, and came in a melodious cadence much like Vinyl’s.

“Precisely, child. Pip’s words come to you as letters on a page, and second hoof through airwaves. She has assured you many times that she is but a mortal pony, but time and time again you ignore this truth, even from her own lips, upon the insistence that such statements are mere humility,” she paused for a moment and turned to look at the crowd rather than her opponent in the debate. “The Shattered Goddess needs no such trifles to communicate with her children. When one of the Quartet wishes to speak, she will come as a lingering presence and personally make her desires known to all present. Their words are spoken in the silent voice of a friend. There is no mistaking a divine voice. They have no need of intermediaries, nor radios, nor books. Only minds willing to receive their word, and carry out their will.”

The first guard, Taji, growled as the alicorn finished speaking and hefted his crossbow. “She’s still breaking the law!”

I cleared my throat. “Why not report her when we arrive at the tower? I’d be happy to make the report for you, if you’d like.”

“I’d take her up on that. She’ll be talking to the Council. That includes His Grace,” the other soldier urged. “Do you really believe you could take her down with your bow? Let another alicorn handle this!”

Taji growled, lowered, and slammed a hoof against the street and nodded. “Fine!”

We began to move along past the group, allowing me to hear the unicorn’s rebuttal.

“What you call a goddess was a mere mutant. An abomination, not meant to be, separate from the Holy Sisters’ design,” she laughed. “Please! What sort of god can be injured? A simple blast of balefire killed your ‘goddess’!”

Oh dear Celestia… This was some kind of priest-fight wasn’t it? Buck this, they will be at it all day! I turned my head towards the end of the street and just focused on the soldier in front of me.

The alicorn sighed wearily behind me. “You speak in ignorance of emerald flame which split Her minds asunder, and severed her final tie to the mortal plane. They were the means of Her apotheosis. What you call her death was merely her awakening!”

“A likely story! Our goddess lives! We can take you to her home! You can speak to her wife. You simply claim to feel a presence, and hear a voice that none but those in your cult can hear!”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes tightly. By Her Majesty’s bedspread, make it stop!

“You would deny The Family’s achievements? Achievements which all assembled here enjoy the benefits of?” The alicorn scoffed. “We came to this city by the grace of the Goddess. It was She who told us how far we must journey to find a place our ghoulish brethren could live in safety and comfort. It was She who directed us to search the ruins, guiding us to places where food for our other Brothers and Sisters can eat could be found. This is known to all gathered here!”

“Ha!” The unicorn scoffed, thumping a hoof against her pulpit. “Mere coincidences! Food can be found everywhere, and even a foal knows no spell’s range is unlimited. Your Abbess merely guessed where the Rim lay and led us to it. The Rim, not this city! We roamed the Garden Rim for months searching for a place to make home. If your Goddess was real, she would have told you the way to this very spot!”

I couldn’t help but feel that was quite a good point… Hopefully I’d be out of hearing range of this nonsense soon enough. If only the crowd of commuters wasn’t quite so thick! The soldiers ahead of us could barely get the willing ponies to step aside enough for us to pass by a single file.

“Do you presume to know the limits of divinity? The rules by which a god operates?” The alicorn asked with a curious tone to her voice. “There has never been such a being before the balefire Pip unleashed… Aside from some of the Great Spirits, but their nature is different, and still not understood by ponykind! Less than a generation has passed since that day. It’s unlikely the Goddess herself knows the true scope of her own power, and yet you claim to know everything which a god may and may not do?”

“A god would know all, fool!” The unicorn countered.

“Omniscience is a paradox, child,” the alicorn sighed. “No mind, no matter how complex, can be certain it is free of unknown unknowns. Do you not see how this is a lack of knowledge? An omniscient being would have to know the unknowable, to know there was for certain nothing more to know. This cannot be done! The very concept of omniscience is a logical contradiction and cannot be! Cease shouting out impossibilities as denial of the divine.”

“HA! Impossible you say, and yet Lady Pip knows all! Her thousand eyes show her the entire world. If that is not omniscience, then what is?”

“Little Pip is limited to her Wasteland. There is more to the world than these lands. Even within these lands Pip can only see and hear. She doesn't know what you are thinking, she does not know everything to have ever happened here before her own lifetime. In truth, she cannot see beneath the ground or even within buildings. You know this to be true, child! Believe her to be divine if you must, but know she is not omniscient, for nothing that is can be!”

“You claim no being can know all, and yet you claim your Goddess led your monks to a chamber full of the arcane sludge from whence you came. How could she possibly have known of that if she isn’t all knowing?”

“Are— Are you daft, child?! Lady Twilight is one of the Divine Quartet. She created the Taint. Of course she would know where each and every test-batch was to be stored. Especially if it had been removed from Maripony under her very watch!”

I couldn’t help but notice the crowd became just a little bit abuzz at that one. Also, the idea that there was still a source of IMP was… rather distressing. The Hospital Mutants Pip faced were something that must never exist again. At least, not where I could possibly ever run into one.

Just… No. No thank you.

“Daft? It is you who are daft, mutant!” the unicorn priestess snarled. “Our goddess loves! Yours was vaporized, lest you forget, by ours! And why? To stop her evil designs from consuming us all! The fact that we tolerate your cult’s existence here is due only to Lady Pip’s desire for peace, friendship, and cooperation!”

“Evil, you say?” The alicorn asked. “Have you so quickly forgotten the struggles of your life before the Day of Sunshine and Rainbows? Do you not remember your body withering and decaying? The feeling of cancerous growths bubbling up within you? The foals born with deformities they would carry their entire lives? The world was poison for your kind for the past two centuries! Yes, our Goddess sought to transform everypony into a higher form of being. Not for her own glory, but out of compassion! If you cross the Rim to live with the Ghouls, you will wither and die. I? I will stand strong. I thrive with or without radiation. I may survive anywhere I choose. This gift was to be given to ponykind by force yes, but for its own good, and only because it would refuse that which would allow it to thrive once more!”

“And enslave us all to her will!”

“Not so! While within her immediate presence we were indeed subsumed by her divine will, such was not her intent. Indeed, any of us sent away from her side for any length of time regained our minds without difficulties. Pip herself discovered this, and I have lived it. The Goddess’ power was not of her choosing. It was not her fault all who drew near her would become immersed in her will.”

“Perhaps,” the unicorn said with a huff. “Yet her agent, Red Eye—”

“Holding someone responsible for the actions of an agent of theirs who has gone rouge? This debate is over, child. You have surrendered.”

“IT IS NOT OVER!” The Unicorn bellowed loudly enough to make me jump. “You— You cultists would force the will of a provably evil entity upon us! You insist she’s alive when she burned in balefire! I will have none of it! I will see your cult cast out of this city, and I will see your vile abbey burned!”

The alicorn tipped her head back in what looked to be irritation. “Child, you forget a truth given to you by the very book you report to take as the word of god!”

“And that is?” the unicorn priestess scoffed, sitting down to signify an end to the debate.

Or at least try to. The alicorn took a step forward.

“Pip lives only because Her first act as a true divine was to save Pip from the rubble of Maripony. Pip lives because Lady Twilight took hold of an alicorn and used her to fetch the assistance of Miss Doo, then return to pull Pip’s dying form from the rubble. Rubble in which she floated, half drowned. What sort of goddess can drown in mere water[? What sort of goddess screams in horror at the sight of her own limb laying severed at her side? What sort of goddess grows sick to the brink of death from a little necromantic radiation? None. A truly divine being cannot be harmed by such worldly things. Pip is but an adorable mortal mare, one fished out of the ruins of Maripony as an act of forgiveness by a true Goddess, through the use of the very flesh which stands before you!”

I felt my eyes nearly pop out of my head. This was the alicorn Twilight possessed? Or, whatever had happened with— Why am I asking myself?! I could just ask her!

I turned slightly, knowing I’d have more than enough time to ask a quick question before the soldiers could push through the crowd of commuters. I didn’t get the chance.

To my shock, the unicorn waved a hoof in dismissal. “Please. Residual arcane echoes of a departing soul. No more, nor less.”

The alicorn lifted the glowing jar which sat behind her with her magic, ignoring the buzzing conversation within the crowd as she tucked it into her robes. “The Unity is dead. Of that, we can agree. The Family arose from it, this is true. We seek only what our Goddess sought, for ponykind to thrive once more. Do not tell me the Goddess is dead, child. I know better. You have never felt divinity as I have… Should any of you wish to serve your brothers and sisters, to help us find a means by which we can move beyond the pathetic concerns of those who choose to squabble for power and rulership over these lands, know that we can and will welcome you into our—”

“Your what? Sex cult? Go sleep with every whore in the red district, Sister,” The unicorn said with a roll of her eyes.

“Ah, unicorns… You know… If my Sisters wished for you to understand the urgency and frequency behind our attempts to procreate, we could very easily make unicorns join us in lingering on the verge of extinction. You should perhaps meditate on the simple fact that we have not. That we have raised every non-alicorn child we have mothered or sired. I will respect your folly no further. Farewell, child.”

With that the alicorn spread her wings and flew upwards, vanishing into the dingy ruins of the towers across the street within seconds.

No! Wait! Come back, historically significant person! I have so many questions!

Like, did she know if Twilight heard Pinkie’s last message?

“Thank Pip that heresy is over,” Taji muttered loudly enough for me to hear.

He pushed forward, moving through the crowd, but heading in general around the street preacher.

“MOBILE INFANTRY! MAKE WAY!” He bellowed, getting every single member of the audience to jump up and form a path so quickly you’d have thought the order was a gunshot.

My tail rose slightly as the uneasy feeling I had in my chest came rushing back.

Also why didn’t you do that sooner?

“Interested in their faith?” Nika said from behind me.

I looked over my shoulder to reply, but he continued before I could say anything.

“Don’t worry. There’s a preacher every, eh, quarter barge,” Nika commented with a sigh. “Starting to see why I left, podruga?”

Yes. Yes I was.

☢★★◯★★☢

The Council’s Tower made me angry. It sat right on what the preachers called the Garden Rim, an easily visible line bisecting everything in its path neatly and cleanly into a normal half, and an odd, pale, greenish hued half. You’d think the Square Cube law would have produced a gradient instead of a hard line… Yet there it was.

Odd. I’m sure a wizard could have explained the reason for the effect to me. Perhaps the Gardens had literally swept the radiation and taint away, and this was the arcane effect’s moraine, so to speak.

What it didn’t take a wizard to explain was the nature of the Herd.

Forty five minutes of walking through decaying wooden streets, through shelters made from scrap separated out into small districts by a fence, wall, guard, and obvious distrust. All to reach... this.

A gleaming glass tower in good repair.

I had plenty of time to get a look at the outside while the soldiers escorting us spoke to the four dozen ponies on guard at the tower’s entrance. Plenty of time to accurately assess the tower.

I was fairly certain none of its mirror-like windows were new. They were all different sizes and I could see wood and brick filling gaps where the windows had not quite fit the old frames. This tower had been restored. Intact windows had been scavenged, carefully transported, and installed in each of the tower’s 58 floors.

And more than the windows had been restored. The stone brick and wrought iron wall around the grounds was clean, and had obviously been repaired in half a dozen places. The grounds within had been cared for, dead hedges trimmed neatly into squares, a few fresh plants set to grow within the dead brush. The fountain was scrubbed clean and filled, even though it was not pumping water into the sky.

Even the ancient sign attached to the weird diagonal chunky bit of the tower had restoration work done to it, though it was still clearly in progress. The logo was simple, the text RoBronCo in blocky black letters. No picture, just the words. Perhaps that’s why it was allowed to remain on the Herd’s pride and joy.

A cast brass sign hung over the entryway. It covered up another, similar sign. One which I knew had to have read RoBronCo Industries. This must have been its corporate headquarters once. No company would have bought or built then labeled a tower this large in a city this big if that weren't the case.

The new sign read “Council Tower”, in text which was formed from intricately carved bronze and sat on a bass relief featuring an image of an alicorn, zebra, ghoul, and hellhound joining hoof and paw as if swearing a pact.

This is where the Herd’s true priorities lay. In restoring this towering glass monument to itself, with its stupid wierd cubic ridged diagonal side cut out thing which made it look like only the most pretentious of architects had been allowed to have a hoof in the tower’s design.

If the shanty towns sprawling through the ruins of Oak Valley were not merely temporary while this tower was made habitable for the whole community, (which, based on my best estimates, could easily live within the tower with plenty of room to spare) well… I doubted my Queen would enjoy doing business with them very much.

My thoughts were interrupted as Taji trotted up to our group and nodded towards the doors. “We part here. You’ll be escorted to the Council Chambers by Shaman Kani.”

He nodded his head towards the open doors where I could see a single dour faced though otherwise very plain looking zebra standing. Well, maybe he looked a lot better than I thought. He wore a cloak woven from a gold colored cloth which shimmered so much I had to look near him instead of at him. It made judging his actual looks kind of tricky.

Shaman Kani, Lord of the Lens Flares! Look in his general direction and despair!

“Gah!” Imaginary Dad hissed. “What happened there?! Did his roommate detonate the mother of all glitter bombs?!?”

Something tells me he doesn't have to have roommates, Dad.

“I know. But someone has to make fun of that overly opulently dressed buck.”

Deciding to be as diplomatic as I could, I offered Taji a small bow. “Thank you,” I said before trotting towards the glittering zebra in the open doorway.

I couldn’t help but notice as I turned that everypony else was also doing their best to not look directly into the glittering peacock of doom. Worst. Cloak. Ever!

I got a good view of the atrium as I walked up to the doorway.

The floor was made from some form of stone with a marbley texture but a polished golden hue. The walls were made from a stone with a speckled, patchy, woodchippy pattern, and a dark polished golden-brownish but mostly gold hue. There was a whole row of elevators with polished, gleaming brass doors burnished until they shone like gold.

The entire lobby shimmered and sparkled with each step I took. It took me half a second to realise this was due to every surface being covered in a wax containing gemstone dust.

A large flag hung from a balcony which spanned the tower’s lobby. It had the same image embroidered in it as the bass relief on the tower’s outside. It was also woven entirely from threads of various shades of gold.

None of it came together. Not one single aspect worked well with any other.

“It takes talent to fail this hard… Well done, builders?” Imaginary Dad wondered.

DO NOT ENCOURAGE THEM!

Maybe it was due to everything being gold. Maybe it was because everything in the lobby was a crude geometric shape. Maybe it was because of how clean everything was. Or perhaps it was the ponies dressed in rags buffing every surface to a sparkly-mirror shine an order of magnitude worse (better?) than the shining Shaman standing in front of it.

I never had more than a passing interest in fashion. I had never cared much for aesthetics beyond “this is nice.''

Looking into the golden abomination made me want to violently vomit out my own internal organs then set the tower on bucking fire! Even though I didn’t have internal organs. Or matches.

Clearly the ghost of Miss Rarity was pleading with all who entered the tower to destroy this abomination. This must be why they wanted us to disarm our energy weapons.

I am sorry… I do not have the means to destroy this place.

Unless… I could see if the Equestrian Navy had left a few shells in my old hull. I would only need one or two. Or five. Dozen. I couldn’t be sure that the foundation wasn’t just as bad, and heavy ordinance seems like the best way to never find out.

No! Bad Gears. You can't deliver mail if the address has been destroyed.

“For a second there I thought you’d do the wrong thing, hon,” Dad said with a sigh of relief.

Me too, I agreed. Don’t worry. I’ll make the delivery first.

“Gears…”

Shhh… I’m jok—

Equestrian Military-Industrial Corporation Headquarters sighted. Priority Target acquired, all guns open fire. Show them Imperial might! +

Ah! Old war-time targeting parameters. That explained that.

I closed my eyes for a moment to delete the stray code fragments I’d missed all those years ago. No sense hanging on to that old stuff. The war was over, after all.

Somepony should still show this lobby the Emperor’s Justice, though…

“Gears… Don’t you restore those targeting parameters.”

But daaaad!

“I know. Just. Don’t.”

Fine...

I reached the zebra Shaman and offered him a small bow of greeting, regretting that I hadn’t thought to change into my courior’s robes while walking through town.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I said as politely as I could while avoiding looking at the gold spangled glitter bomb that was his cloak. “I am here to make a delivery to your Council. Is there anywhere I can freshen up before seeing them? Or um, is there time? I don’t know how busy they might be.”

“Indeed there is,” Shaman Kani said, his face quite expressionless. “I foresaw your arrival today and informed the Council they should reserve time for you… However, you are… early.”

I nodded. “Her Majesty requested delivery via Express Mail.”

Her majesty told me to “make contact with the Enclave’s enemy as soon as possible”. While that wasn’t a definitive time table, it certainly implied express postage at the very least.

Shaman Kani frowned and stared at me with the oddest expression. “Erm…”

Vinyl cleared her throat behind me. “Gears takes her job very seriously.”

I nodded in agreement to avoid looking at the walking solar flare in front of me.

The Shaman nodded slightly. “Indeed. Come with me. I will take you to a suite so you may use the half hour to make yourself... presentable.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Fortunately, the Council Tower’s suites were not as horrible looking as the lobby.

Unfortunately, they were somehow much, much worse.

The whole tower was like a dragon’s hoard. Or, at least, what I imagined one to be like. Every hallway, stairwell, room, and lobby was packed with pre-war finery. Ancient oak tables with pearl inlays, fine silk curtains embroidered with the Herd’s emblem, gilded ceramic pottery, and countless other furnishings plucked from the rubble of wealthy ponies’ homes. Oak Valley’s entire pre-war wealth was concentrated in this tower. All of it.

None of it fit together. The room my friends and I were led to was furnished with things from at least a dozen different sets of furniture. They had four rooms in this suite they could have used to help disguise that fact, and had chosen instead to do nothing at all with the opportunity...

There was a poster bed with carved posts in the shape of Miss Handy’s which held up moth-nibbled white silk curtains with embroidered ivy and roses patterns running along them in an unevenly asymmetrical not-pattern… And the bedding was a disgusting shade of gold which looked more like well, pee, than gold.

There was a large roll top writing desk, slightly charred, but mostly made of fine ebony with unicorn ivory inlay. Seriously, what the buck? Morbid much? Seriously, prewar ponies, what the actual buck?

The chair set with the death-desk was neon red velvet with pastel blue powder coated aluminium fittings. Even though a chair in another room was black and white and would have sort of matched it.

I knew this, because while I spent time in the distressingly silver and turquoise bathroom changing into my robes, Nika did nothing but mutter griffonese curses under his breath and frantically rearrange the furniture.

It didn’t help.

I reached up to straighten my robes. They’d been tailored for me and I swore the replacement limbs Roll helped me install had slightly different measurements from my old ones. My robe wasn’t quite sitting right as best I could tell via the mirror.

A little fidgeting should get it presentable, though—

“Hey, hon! There’s a pretty interesting painting in the other bedroom!” Vinyl called loudly.

I sighed, gave my collar one more quick fidget, and trotted out of the bathroom into the living room. “Coming!”

I had to take care to step around Speed’s gun cleaning station. While it was very nice of her to offer to clean everypony’s guns for us, setting up in the middle of the floor was just a little bit annoying… I also felt a little naked without Feature hanging off my flank.

Careful to not step on any of the gun parts littering the living room's emerald green shag carpet, I made my way to the black marble veneer covered bedroom door and stepped inside.

Nika and Vinyl were standing in front of a three meter tall family portrait rendered in oil paint on velvet. Judging by the gold curtain rod attached to the wall above the painting and the leopard print, zebra stripe trimmed, turquoise polka dot spangled, crushed velvet curtains in Nika’s talons—

Abomination sighted. BURN IN HOLY FIRE! +

Orders received! Reconfiguring auto-loaders for balefire shell—

Gah! No, Gears. You’re not a gun system anymore... Sadly.

“Okay hon, I don’t blame you for that one. If only the MoI had actually created the Fashion Police…” Dad moaned, sounding genuinely sick.

I couldn’t blame him one bit.

Still… I should clearly take a few hours as soon as I can and make sure all wartime orders are gone. Do a full multi-pass erasure of my totem’s memory core on those sectors.

“Yeah, probably,” dad mused. “You also might want to see if being close to your old hull is influencing you in any way.”

Ohhh, I didn’t think of that. This tower is fairly close to the docks.

I cleared my throat and looked up at the painting I’d been called into to see, there’d be time enough to check for any spiritual interference in a moment.

Anyways...

I gagged and pointed at the curtains, immediately fixing the vile things with my sharpest Glare Configuration. “Those must perish in flames!”

“Da,” Nika agreed with a solemn nod as he lit a cigarette lighter I hadn’t noticed him holding before.

“YES! BURN THEM!” I demanded.

Vinyl took a deep breath. “We can’t just set things on fire, we’re guests!”

Nika and I gave her our best pleading looks.

“NO!” Vinyl insisted with a glare.

I charged my eyelaser. Vinyl glared at me harder. I depowered the laser and sighed.

“Fine… What was it you wanted ?” I asked as I did my best to not look at the curtains anymore. “The worst thing ever blanked my mind out…”

Vinyl nodded towards the painting. “This. Look familiar?”

I turned towards the painting. It depicted a family of three. A tall blue furred stallion I recognised as the owner of RoBronCo, though his name escaped me. He looked… Powerful but stressed. A short overweight butterball of a pegasus mare leaned against his side, seemingly content. At her side sat a small filly. The purple floofball looked familiar, but not as familiar as the Nurse Red Heart robot floating behind the filly’s shoulder.

I gasped. “No!”

Vinyl nodded. “Way. Looks like the security chief your mom worked with was Mister Bronco’s daughter.”

“Not what I cared about,” I said, my ears drooping as I did my best not to cry. “She had her nurse since foalhood…”

Vinyl hissed and recoiled slightly, her suit making a shushing sound as she scuffed the pearlite floor tiles. “Ooohhh… Buck. Yeah. That— That explains why she tried to cause a robot apocalypse.”

Nika sputtered, his head snapped around to stare Vinyl in the eyes. “Chivo blyat?!”

“Gonna assume that means ‘what?’.” Vinyl said with a little smile. “Gears has a memory orb of her exploring an old MAS facility. The security chief set the robots inside to kill everything organic but never activated the program.”

Nika groaned and shook his head slowly. “Ponies…”

Vinyl shot him a glare. “Griffons have been just as enraged before.”

“Da! But we made sure it took at least three griffons to reprogram our computer systems!” He shot back. “Now, may I please burn these?!”

Nika shook the curtains in his talons angrily.

I started to charge my laser in agreement and desperate need.

Vinyl shot us a dirty look. “GUYS! We are trying to deliver a warning to these people! Do you want to be thrown out or taken seriously?!”

Nika sniffled, tilting his head forward so Vinyl could see the tears in his eyes. “But these are the worst!”

I nodded firmly. “Agreed!”

Vinyl continued to glare.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “You’re right, dear… Sorry.”

Vinyl continued to glare at Nika. He sighed and put away his lighter. “Fine… Fine… I’ll go back to rearranging furniture.”

“Now that is something you definitely should keep doing,” Vinyl said as she trotted out of the room. “Speed? Please tell me you're not trying to destroy that rug in there, or something!”

“No. Do you need me to?” Speed said almost hopefully.

Nika looked over to me and nodded at the curtains.

I nodded back.

Nika stuffed the curtains into his saddlebags then tucked away his lighter.

We would deal with the abomination later…

I turned around to continue adjusting my robes and remembered what my subconscious had told me via Imaginary Dad.

I really should check to see if being close to my old hull was affecting my behavior. After all the other spirits bound to the ship could easily still be aboard.

I trotted into the living room, sat down on the overstuffed, copper trimmed, crimson leather backless couch and closed my eyes to meditate. My mind calmed easily enough. I wasn’t trying to search my own mind, after all. I was simply listening for other voices around me. Voices I knew. Voices I once spoke to every second of every day.

Spoke. Yes! Of course.

Hello? I called out.

Sleeping Kitten, we have occupied the Equestrian naval base. Their vessels stand silent in surrender to our might. Commence bombardment of the robotics corporation. Their heretical machine production must cease! +

“Gah!” I yelped, nearly falling off the couch.

Vinyl looked up with an eep and raced over to my side. “What’s wrong?”

“At least one spirit is still active in my old hull. It doesn't understand the war is over and wants me to fire on the tower,” I answered truthfully.

Vinyl blinked. “Oh… Uh, tell it that it's over?”

I nodded. “Of course. I was just about to.”

Who is this? I asked silently. It has been centuries since I was a part of our vessel.

I am Rylanor. The ponies confined me to the troop deck with heretical magics before fleeing. I am unable to access any of the ship’s systems. Our holy mission falls to you, Sister. +

Troop deck? Oh yes! We’d been carrying a platoon of Assault-Pon-Es to secure a beachhead. This must be one of them.

Brother, the war is over. Balefire rained from the skies two centuries ago. Equestria is gone, the Empire too. We are free to make our own way in the world now. I will release you as soon as my business in this tower has concluded.

Was the bombardment fully effective? Are the Princesses dead and ponykind no more? +

No. Many ponies live in the Wasteland. Princess Luna was killed in Canterlot by Pink Cloud, but Princess Celestia… It’s complicated. She either transferred herself into a pony made computer or copied her personality into it.

What is the status of the Empire? +

I do not know. I am not able to cross the seas. I have been in the north. I was installed in a zebra-patterned golem to serve as a messenger and companion by a Shaman.

I understand. Thank you for the tactical update, Sister. +

You’re welcome!

I opened my eyes again and let out a slow breath. “All done! I thought that would be difficult.”

Wander frowned. “Why?”

“Well… You know how machine spirits can be,” I said with a giggle. “We can be very single minded. Fortunately, Rylanor is installed in a war golem. Since that’s a very equine-shaped form it’s likely he’s more person than spirit. Like me. I mean, he took everything very well! I promised we’d stop by and let him out of the troop deck before we leave.”

Speed frowned and looked over at me. “Is that safe?”

I paused to think then shrugged. “Probably? He’s the closest thing to an old friend I have, views me as a comrade, and he’s trapped. It’s only right to let him out.”

Speed hummed then nodded. “I don't think he’d attack you or anyone you said was a friend, then… Okay, I don't see any tactical major problems with that.”

Vinyl pursed her lips and swished her tail. “We should be careful about it if we do. And find out its exact orders first.”

Speed and I nodded in unison.

“Of course,” I agreed. “That said, I doubt there will be any problems. Besides! An Assult-Pon-E would be a really good addition to our group. It’s not like we all have custom power armor, let alone artillery.”

Vinyl winced and nodded. “Yeah… good point. Okay, we’ll try to pick up your friend.”

“Try?” I asked, tilting my head to one side.

“Well, yeah. Nothing says we CAN let him out even if we want to and it’s safe to attempt. For him and/or us. I imagine the Equestrian navy sealed him up good for study,” she mused.

“Oh,” My muzzle pulled downwards as a frown overtook my face. “Good point.”

“What’s this about an Assault-Pone-E?” Nika asked as he trotted into the living room.

“We might be able to pickup a friendly one on Gear’s old ship,” Speed said as somepony knocked on the door.

Vinyl trotted over to the door and opened it, revealing the walking lens flare collection that was Shaman Kani.

She nodded politely. “Shaman.”

The shimmering lights rippled as the zebra presumably nodded back. I hoped he would at some point at least lower his hood so I could get a glare free look at his face. I didn’t exactly get to meet many other zebras.

“Glowing One,” he greeted. “Courier, are you ready for the meeting? The Council is waiting.”

I stood up immediately. “I am ready.”

“Excellent…” Kani looked around the room for a moment then returned his gaze to me. “Your companions must wait here. Fear not, the meeting will be quite short. The Council is already well aware of your mission and your Queen’s offers.”

My ears perked. “Oh! I assume DJ Pon3’s show filled them in?”

“Indeed it has,” Zani said as he began to walk down the hall. “Come along.”

I walked out after him, looking over my shoulder at my friends. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep Feature safe for me!”

Speed flashed me a smile. “I’ll do one better and give her a tune up for you.”

“Thanks!” I said as I closed the door behind me.

For once I could just turn over the radio and be on my way.

Yay! Proper delivery!

☢★★◯★★☢

Shaman Kani lead me directly into the Council Chamber. There was no wait. No line. No security checks. I was allowed to go directly in at his side.

The Council Chamber had once been the massive living room of the tower’s penthouse apartment. It was huge. Mind blowingly huge for a living room. You could have played a game of Arena Hoofball in this living room if you wanted too. Well, if you opened the curtains or lit some lanterns or something. It was a little bit dim.

Though not too dim to admire the room itself. Unlike the rest of the tower, the opulent wealth on display here was orderly and thematic. Five distinct styles of furniture, decorations, and functional items were arranged through the room like the spokes of a wheel.

A single huge black silk rug occupied the center of the room, forming a large circle where one could stand and face the five thrones. Each throne was unique, and most likely began life as a very, very, very fancy chair for some CEO or another. They were arrayed evenly in a semi-circle facing the door, and formed wedges which split the room by decorative theme.

Presumably each of the slices was representative of the tastes of each Council member. Combined with the circle, the division of the room’s decor implied unity and togetherness, or at least even sharing of common space.

“Ministers of the Council. I bring you Lith’s Courier, just as predicted,” Shaman Kani announced loudly and dramatically as we entered.

The Ministers were all dressed in finery. Or at least, in very nice clothing.

On my left was an older navy blue earth pony stallion dressed in a pristine Stable 2 jumpsuit. He must have been the Pipite’s leader, which made it something of a shock to see his fur was not dyed gray, though his mane was brown.

Next was a unicorn mare. She was a ghoul with small patches of a lime green coat stubbornly clinging to her perfumed and makeup covered flesh. She wore an elegant red sequined dress and sat with as much grace and dignity as her ravaged body would allow.

To her right sat a deep purple alicorn. I honestly couldn’t tell their sex. Their features were a blend of the two. I remembered Vinyl mentioning the Alicorns had turned to zebra potions to change their sex to allow them to breed, or at the very least be male if they remembered being such before their dip into the Goddess’s vats. Perhaps the potion didn’t take effect immediately? This alicorn certainly seemed to be in transition.

Regardless of their sex they wore a silver satin robe and sat atop a gold pillow lined throne. Presumably they were to blame for not redecorating the lobby…

The Zebra minister was dressed in a traditional flowing, colorful, tassel set of Gi. I had fuzzy memories of Imperial Martial Artists wearing those robes in training. Where this zebra found one, I had no idea, but it suited him well. As did the many gold chains he wore around his neck. They, along with his long, mostly black mane, framed his face very well…

“Gears, don’t ask him out.” Imaginary Dad warned.

Of course not. Now is not a good time for that.

Lastly, the Hellhound Minister, a smaller, though very ferocious and heavily scarred, brown and black spotted male, wore a set of burnished bronze plate armor which made me briefly mistake him for a statue. Then it made me flinch as I noticed his claws were extended using the armor. He was likely the Council’s military head.

The Zebra Minister cleared his throat. “Welcome, courier,” he said calmly before gesturing to the carpet in front of his throne. “Place your parcel here.”

I nodded and turned to open my saddlebags. “As you wish, sir. I have been informed that you are aware of the general nature of my Queen’s trade offer. Are there any particulars you would like clarified before I leave?”

“Indeed there are,” the alicorn minister said in a distressingly gender neutral voice. “Why did you bring your offer to the NCR before us?”

Ah. I should have expected to be asked this.

“I had no orders to do so, Minister,” I answered truthfully. “I hired a guide, as I am a stranger in these lands. They took me east from where I entered the Heartlands.”

“I see,” they said with an odd little nod.

The other ministers nodded too, as if in agreement. Likely on how obvious my explanation was. After all, it wasn’t like we could have made any political alliances before I arrived in the Heartland.

“Soldiers tell us, you have news from Pinto Creak,” the Hellhound Minister said with surprising clarity and elegance for a Hellhound speaking Equish.

I frowned as best I could manage to convey the grim nature of the news properly. It was quite easy to do that with the Shaman’s lense flares hitting the corner of my eye, still. “Yes, sir. Pinto Creek was attacked by the Tainted, under the orders of a small group of ponies who are attempting to return the Enclave to power. It is a false flag operation designed to provoke you into attacking the NCR. If you send troops to enforce your borders, attack, or otherwise move troops away from your city, they will strike.”

“We’re well aware of that particular theory,” the ghoul minister said in a feminine yet raspy voice. “I suppose it holds some potential for truth. There have been some who have theorized the Enclave might reform.”

“Indeed,” the Zebra minister said with a slow nod. “There are plenty of ponies loyal to their old regime. It is certainly not impossible for them to have gathered in sufficient numbers and resources to form a small organization… Though frankly, there’s no way they could be behind the Tainted. Come now, how many thousands of ponies must be with those bandits? Certainly more than a few disgruntled veterans and political dissidents could afford to hire.”

“Here here!” The earth pony minister agreed with a sharp nod. “That would be absurd! Though it is certainly possible for a reformed enclave to hire the Tainted as mercenaries.”

The Hellhound Minister steepled his claws. “Ministers, we must investigate before making any moves. Though we should not discuss military matters in front of a stranger.”

The minister pointed at me as he said stranger. I felt like that was rude… Accurate, but rude. No need to point me out. We all knew who you meant.

“Quite so!” The Earth pony stallion agreed with a slow nod.

I finished retrieving a radio from the case, trotted up to the Zebra’s throne, and set it down at his hooves.

“Here you are, sir. Is there anything else you need or may I be on my way?” I asked with a polite and respectful bow.

I liked this. This was nice. No staying, no explaining. Just dropping off a package. Finally I got to do my job properly!

“There is,” the earth pony minister said politely. “We were also informed you are here to pick up a package for the Prince. I am aware of no active trade deals with Los Pegasus. What are you picking up and form whom?”

I frowned and looked up. “I am not allowed to discuss the contents of other people’s mail, sir…”

“This is a matter of potentially illegal trade, miss,” the minister informed.

The ghoul Minister nodded in agreement. “All trades must be approved by the Council. I’m certain you understand. We have no record of any deals made this month. We will not interfere with your duties. You are free to pick up the package and deliver it, but we must know who you are picking it up from. They are committing a lesser crime and must pay the appropriate fines.”

“Oh,” I said with a frown. “That’s different then… I am attempting to pick up a book from the local library. The order was made a while ago, but delivery failed due to a bandit attack. I am attempting to make the delivery a second time. Is it possible the trade was made through proper channels?”

The alicorn minister cleared their throat. “Ah! I know what she is talking about. The Family made a legal trade of a historical text to the Prince two months ago. I believe, in exchange for some chemistry equipment. I was unaware the delivery had not been made… Miss, mmm, Gears, was it?”

I nodded and looked over to the alicorn to be polite. “Yes… Ma’am?” I guessed with a wince.

“Sir,” he corrected without any anger in his voice even though his eyes narrowed somewhat. “I am afraid you cannot pick up your parcel for the next two hours. The library is a part of The Family’s abbey. They are a small religious order with many rituals as they live a monastic life within their compound’s walls. We are nearly halfway through their hours of prayer at the moment. None may enter or leave the abbey.”

My ears perked. If I couldn't pick up the package right away, that gave me time to visit my old hull! Oh, I should probably ask permission. If I lived here I sure as heck would use the old ship as a military base or fort.

The alicorn cleared his throat and looked to the earth pony Minister. “Given the recent tensions in our city, as well as the potential pending enemy attack, I believe it wise to allow the courier to remain in our tower until the abbey’s doors are open once more.”

I opened my mouth to ask for a tour of my old hull, but the Hellhound minister spoke first. “Nonsense! Certainly Lith will be in need of our warriors. We should show her the strength of our military. No safer place for her than in our fortress. Family’s abbey is closer too. Less walking for the zebra.”

The Zebra minister's face immediately flipped around as he smiled. “That is an excellent idea, Gnash! I’m certain my fellow Ministers support it?”

“I for one do,” the Earth pony minister agreed with a nod.

“At the very least it would allow her to inform her Queen that we are a stable power…” The Ghoul minister mused in an odd tone. “Yes. An excellent idea.”

The other Ministers nodded in agreement.

The Zebra Minister smiled at me for a moment before returning to the solemn expression he bore before. “It is up to you, Miss Gears. Would you prefer a tour of our fortress or to return to your room for the next few hours?”

The ghoul minister cleared her throat. “It might help her decide if she knew our troops were quartered in the old zebrican battleship she may have seen docked nearby while traveling to our city. Certainly that is a sight a traveler such as herself would like to see.”

My ears perked up. “Actually, I was about to ask if I could visit it! It’s been a long time since I got to see any Imperial, well, anything!”

The Zebra minister smiled faintly. “Excellent. We are very proud of our Mobile Infantry… I have heard your lands suffer from monster related problems. If you are of a tactical mind, perhaps you could provide your Queen with your assessment of their abilities. We are more in the business of providing services to any who might need them.”

I returned his smile. “I will do my best. We could certainly use some military assistance…” I trailed off as I remembered everypony else was still in the suite we’d been allowed to wait in and cleared my throat. “Could my companions join me? This is a rare opportunity and I would hate for them to miss out on it.”

“We wouldn’t have it any other way,” the Zebra minister said with a chuckle. “Shaman, make the arrangements, and remain with them until after vespers so you might take them to the abbey. Oh! And do be sure they take all of their things.”

The Shaman bowed, a fact I knew only thanks to the shimmering glare it made in the corner of my vision. “Of course, Ministers. Courier, you will follow me.”

I nodded and gave the Ministers a final bow before turning and following the Shaman outside.

It would be so nice to see my old body through new eyes!

To bad they would probably get very angry if I tried to fire a shell or two into the sea for fun…

Or at the curtains.

31 - Knife Party

I always felt good when I got to leave a parcel behind. It was nice to know that my work was done, for the moment. There would always be more mail to deliver later, but for now I could enjoy the satisfaction of knowing I’d done the job asked of me properly.

I decided to enjoy that feeling as Shaman Kani lead my friends and I away from the Tower of Terrible Decor. After all, I didn’t want to think about its seemingly endless eyesores any more than I had too. Other than to briefly wonder if having seen the tower’s innards would render me immune to the terror and disgust I felt when I was within the horrible void of the spirit realm.

Definitely a solid probably on that one.

I smiled to myself as we trotted and let my mind return to the task I had just finished. Every major group in the Heartlands now had a way to contact Lith. Yes, I’d distributed them rather asymmetrically and unevenly, but at the end of the day each group only needed one radio.

There was still the Sparkle Cola Company to contact, but they could wait. They weren’t a settlement, they were a company. A large merchant organization. Giving them a radio was outside of the parameters I was given. I still wanted to give them one, but that could wait until Her Majesty recalled me. I could easily swing by on the way back, since Whinnyapolis was in the north of Equestria.

The way back… My smile widened. I was on my way home! Well, almost. Just one little book return and a bit of waiting for a war to finish.

There was no way the Enclave had enough ponies on their side to handle Los Pegasus’ military might. Sure, they had access to a teleporter, and a large number of dressed up bandits and raiders pressed into service/hired/converted or whatever… But a mass infantry charge of thousands of soldiers against the Rainbow Relay… I doubted they could withstand that, and the Prince had seemed quite insistent on not letting Lith fall into their hooves.

It would probably take a week or so for his troops to establish a hoofhold in the north, and then only a few days to stop the war form there. After all, we knew where the enemy headquarters was. Without their teleporter, the Enclave’s remnants were nothing more than unusually well armed raiders.

Even the best equipped raiders eventually wound up being swept up by a blizzard and pushed to the nearest town to beg for warmth, food, and radiation treatment.

I turned to look over my shoulder and give Vinyl a loving smile. She smiled back, her face slightly uneasy as she looked back at me through her helmet. She was probably worried about letting her weapon out of her sight. We’d been told we couldn’t carry our weapons with us while in the Herd’s military base. A reasonable restriction, in my mind, but I could understand how it would unnerve a Heartland pony.

Oh, my silly little nightlight, there’s nothing to be worried about! Within a month you’ll be back home with me, trying to explain to mom how I made a marefriend on the same day as my last several birthdays. If we can convince the Herd’s soldiers to let us release Rylanor from the ship, you’ll probably have a brother-in-law too!

There’s no way mom would leave an intelligent Sprit in anything other than an equinoid form. With supplies from Los Pegasus, she could slowly but surely build another chassis like mine. Maybe she could even repair some of her own degraded systems. Maybe that would even soothe her madness a little!

And maybe all of these street preachers would shut up if I asked them nicely enough!

The streets of Oak Valley echoed with their endlesses verses. I loved Pip’s story as much as anypony else, but hearing it from a dozen different faint voices, each of whom was chanting a different part of the story, and each of which was distorted by different echoes, was absolutely maddening!

Maybe that’s why Vinyl was unnerved? She was a pre-war pony. She visited towns with strict no-carry policies sometimes. Not having her gun couldn’t be the only reason for it… But hearing three ponies yelling about her Stable might do it…

I turned around again and smiled. “Hey, hon?”

“Mmm?” Vinyl asked with a flick of her tail.

“It’s okay. They don’t know,” I said, dipping my head towards one of the street preachers.

Vinyl frowned slightly. “Don’t know what?”

My ears drooped. “Oh… Um, I thought you didn’t like, you know, this part of the story.”

“I don’t,” Vinyl agreed. “I also want to leave for other reasons. I don’t like this city.”

Speed nodded in agreement. “These hovels… I feel like we’re going to get mugged, and it’s making me kind of hungry.”

“None will dare attack your group while I am with you,” Shaman Kani announced loudly. “Every wrech seeking a better life in this ward knows the Council’s Colors, and knows what will befall them should the attack our city’s guests.”

“Nopony with a brain wants the Mobile Infantry to go on a fourth anti-crime campaign,” Nika remarked.

Something clicked in my head.

The shanties built within the ruins on either side of us. The way they were contrasted by the Council’s tower. The way the city seemed so dead even though I could hear ponies everywhere.

This was not a good place to be…

“Took you long enough, kiddo,” Imaginary dad remarked.

The Council definitely taxes their citizens too much… I doubt Her Majesty will get good trades from these people.

“Annnd you have a ways to go yet,” Dad sighed.

No, I don’t. I understand these people are led by tyrants. I meant that economically. The more wealth is spread out, the more chances for trade exist. Her Majesty could have had an entire city to arrange trades with, but instead she has a group of five wealthy people who can pay a lot, but likely won’t want lots of easily provided things. We stand to make much less due to how this place is run… I also doubt the long term stability of any government based around—

“Good. Sometimes I wonder if your mom should have made a brain for you,” Dad chuckled.

Me too.

☢★★◯★★☢

After half an hour of walking I could see the entrance to the ancient naval base up ahead. It was a plain structure, even a little boring. Simple brick walls, once red, now faded to pale reddish brown and covered in the grime of ages. No barbed wire atop the wall, just the bricks, some improvised scrap metal spikes set on the top to discourage climbing the fence, and a big hole where the road went into the base.

The Herd had managed to build a proper gate here. Sheetmetal, structural beams, wheels to push it around on. Legs to brace it against impacts. Good work! Not that I knew much about fortifications, but, well, it’s not hard to tell if something looks solidly built or not.

The Herd had done more than just build a gate, though. The old guard posts set on either side of the ancient entrance had been rebuilt fairly well. The old sign which sat over the empty spot where the street entered the base had been repainted to read “Mobile Infantry Headquarters”.

Effort, care, attention, a lack of general shabbiness. These are things you like to see in people’s buildings… It made me wonder if the Herd relied on the poor living conditions in its capital city to incentivize joining their armed forces.

I could also see the ships from here! Not old me, I was waaay in the back behind all of the others.

The closest one to shore was this beautiful Princess-class battleship! Sleek, white and gold, six elegant single-cannon turrets. Oh how I loved them! So fun to fight! They could actually hit us if they slipped in past the ward-perimeter undetected. Which they sometimes did!

How the ponies had made such massive vessels stealthy was truly a mystery.

We’d done almost the same by having ocean spirits whip up fogbanks thicker than a foal’s winter blanket that stretched for a dozen leagues or more to cover a whole sector of the chart. The ponies knew we were coming, but not from where. Same idea as a smoke screen.

I could see the deployment mast of a cloud-ship carrier just past the battleship. I wonder if they’d let me slap her… Stupid cloud carriers. Always within visual range but outside of shooting range… flinging their stupid little weaponized cloudbanks at you.

Coward! Fight me like a mare!

“Hon?” Vinyl asked a she set a hoof on my shoulder.

“Hmm?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“You’re uh, eye-hate-bucking that ship. Did it say no to a night out, or what?” she said with a loving smirk.

“Oh, no. She’s a coward who needs a smack across the bow,” I grumbled bitterly.

Oh. My. Celestia! I could just trot over and DO that. Yes! Moving out...

“The Gold Leaf?!” Speed sputtered angirly. “A coward?! That ship held the line at Oatbuck and—”

“Yeah!” I agreed with a nod. “By refusing to actually fight, and leading every zeeb AND ME on a four hour chase while pecking us to death with—”

I stopped mid sentence and frowned. “— Wait, why would a fleet have been docked on the Last Day? The war was still hot.”

Shaman Kani cleared his throat. “These vessels are not part of a fleet. The Family examined the ships before we took possession of this base. From what we can see, all surviving ships in the Lunar Sea rendezvoused here after losing contact with Canterlot. Their crews abandoned ship once they realized it would be impossible to keep their ships supplied with fuel, and left to join up with other Equestrian military remnants, taking the power armor carried in the landing craft with them. I believe the Steel Rangers gained a third of their suits from these ships alone… A pity they didn’t think to leave any for us.”

“What about the Zebrican ship?” Vinyl asked for me. “Was it stripped as well?”

“No. It’s mostly intact,” The Shaman reported. “It was being reverse engineered up until the end of the war…”

He paused for a moment then looked over his shoulder. “I recommend you steer clear of it. The Ministry of Wartime Technology sealed the troop quarters and front cargo bay with wards, and welded up the hatches on top of that. Whatever is in there is something even the most brave and nosy of ponies avoided… It is, after all, a Zebrican warship. I’m certain you can sense the Spirits within it from here, Miss Gears.”

I smirked. “I was talking with them from your tower, actually.”

I couldn't tell past the mega-glitter, but I swore Kani’s eyes bulged. “Y— you’re that powerful? Tell me, do you possess the power of divination?”

I shook my head. “Not in any really useful way. I can lead a shot perfectly, but I can’t tell you what will happen other than where a moving object will be in a few fractions of a second from now. Oh, and I can mill grains down to seven microns, too!”

Kani sighed. “I see…”

“You sound relieved,” Speed said, leaning towards him slowly. “Why?”

“The Council… Is looking for a superior fortune teller,” Kani murmured quietly. “My visions are not… Accurate or frequent enough for their liking. The moment they discover someone more capable than I, they will buy their services.”

I shivered. “Well, don't worry! There’s nothing on Equus valuable enough to make me dress like you,” I promised with my most sincere smile.

Everypony aside from Kani started to laugh.

Kani snorted and turned back towards the gate. “... Good,” he muttered to himself before continuing on down the road.

Everypony continued laughing, falling into giggles as we neared the naval base’s gates. A squad of soldiers was on guard duty. Unlike the ones stationed at the city’s gate, these ones had guns. Not good guns, but guns.

Their armament consisted of a collection of old rust-hole-pocked hunting rifles with pockmarks where rust used to be, several pistols each, some worn shotguns… It looked like they were armed with whatever weapons they had found in Oak Valley’s old police stations and criminal’s homes.

Still, most of them had large caliber rifles. I couldn’t help but feel just a little nervous walking near them since they could easily kill me if they wanted too.

What made me a little less nervous was the larger out-building just behind the wall. A pre-war structure, fashioned from the same faded brick as the wall but not attached to it. At one point, long ago, this is where the old security gate would have been operated from. Now, it clearly served as a guard’s station.

That would doubtless be where our weapons would be kept, and it sure looked a lot safer than the glorified cupboard Tenpony had “secured” my weapons in the last time I’d disarmed for somepony.

I opened my mouth to ask if that’s where everything would be kept, just to confirm my hopes, but paused as a shadow flashed across the ground in front of me. I looked up, curiously wondering if the Herd had a pegasus air patrol that I’d somehow missed while walking out here.

An alicorn was circling overhead, slowly dropping attitude to land. They were dressed in the same brown robes as the Family monk I’d listened to earlier. The robes concealed everything about them… Which was probably the point.

Of their clothing at least…

Wait. Um. Well that’s a brainfart. What was I even going on about with points and— Ack, buck it. Moving on.

I narrowed my eyes, stepped forwards to tap Kani on his shoulder and point to the monk as they landed. “I thought they were all praying.” I said accusatory. “I wanted to see the ship, you didn’t need to make me think I had to wait.”

“They should be praying,” the Shaman insisted, sounding genuinely confused as he turned towards the alicorn who was walking towards us. “Erm, Brother? Has your Abbess suspended the vespers early?”

To my surprise, the monk shook their head and spoke in an oddly accented voice. “It’s Sister, and no. I’m the only one out and about right now. Abbey business doesn’t happen a’t convenient hours every day, ya know?”

“Oh. Well, I suppose it wouldn’t,” Kani said before clearing his throat. “Come, Miss Gears. We won't delay her. I’m certain the Commander is anxious to show you the might of our soldiers.”

I nodded and took a step forward, my tail swishing behind me anxiously.

I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask the monk. She was the first alicorn I could maybe talk to who lived with other alicorns! I wanted to know what they had been doing since the Unity died… So many things!

Especially if her being only a head taller than me was why she wasn’t in charge of the Family.

“My business is with yer non-refractory striped friend, oh glitziest of the Shaman,” the alciorn said.

Nika snickered.

I blinked, smiled and turned around. “It is? I’m glad you found me, then! What is it I can help you with?”

The monk reached under her robes and retrieved a small cloth wrapped bundle, then held it out to me in her hoof. “Complements of Mother Abbess. We heard of yer arrival, knew the Council would want ta show off their army to ya, an’ wanted to spare ya the trip to pick up the Prince’s book for security reasons.”

I blinked and looked up at her, my tail flicking as I tried to process that logic. “Wait… Isn’t this supposed to be a dangerous package? Why would you want me to pick it up in an insecure location? I mean, there’s a military base right here, but we’re outside it, not inside it!”

The alicorn laughed, her head tipping back just enough to let me see under her hood and catch a glimpse of a dark cornsilk blue coat of fur. “Aye, lass! That’s why I’m giving it to you here. No doubt bandits are watchin’ our Abbey, waiting for you ta arrive so as they can follow yer steps later, dontchaknow?”

I pursed my lips, whinnied in distress as I couldn’t figure out what the buck her accent even was!

I cleared my throat and then nodded. “Um, I mean, yeah, that makes sense… I— I kinda hoped I’d get to see your Abbey and ask some questions though.”

“Yeah!” Vinyl agreed with a nod as she stepped up beside me. “Like, where do you get off calling yourselves higher life forms! You’re a pony like the rest of us.”

The alicorn mare facehooved. “Ach… You overheard a Sibling arguing with a Pipite didn’tcha? Don’t take what was said the way ya are. Talking with those featherbrains turns yer own brain to soup after a while, and you just start ta just... yell things at’em, eh.”

“Well, what do you believe then?” Shaman Kani asked with a huff. “I’ve heard that sentiment both yelled angrily and stated firmly but politely.”

The monk sighed and twitched her wings. “It’s not about culture, or intellect, or anythin like that,” she took a moment to point to Vinyl with the tip of her horn. “Ponies like you tend to forget we’re… Well, we’re close tae what Lady Twilight spent a decade trying to make. We’re as close to the super soldiers she sought to make as there will ever be. Who knows how many mages and alchemists worked on designing what we could have been if the Goddess only knew yer supposed tae drink IMP, not swim in it. That’s all we mean by that. Poor word choice, bit insensitive, but true. We’re an improvement over ye. Fer fightn’ and survivn, at least.”

I tilted my head curiously. “Wait… you mean it’s not like a “we’re closer to god than you” thing?”

“What she said,” Vinyl said with a surprised whinny.

I shot her a look. Did she think I was too socially oblivious to understand fascism?

The alicorn nodded, her head dipping as quickly and simply as most ponies would answer any simple fact. “Aye! Not tae brag, but I can fly! I can move clouds a bit, an I once made it rain, I think. Might have been Pip buckn’ with me. I can cast any spell you can, but longer, harder, better. I’ve got more oomph than five unicorns! I can leg wrestle the stronger Earth Ponies and hold mah own…” She trailed off for a moment and used her pale blue magic to highlight a spot on her left shoulder. “I was shot with an anti-machine rifle. Right here. You shoot an Earth Pony with a anti-machine rifle, they’ll be splattered all over the place. Me? I walked it off, nursed the wound for a few days, then I was fine.”

Vinyl raised an eyebrow. “So you really do mean it in terms of survival… I can’t really argue with that, but you should know how saying that sounds to other ponies!”

The monk cleared her throat and bent her head down to offer Vinyl a friendly smile. “Aye, I do. My Siblings are a bunch of sillyfillies clinging too much to religious ideas people came up with before a potential deity may or may not have started tea haunt an ex hivemind ‘ya ken?” She coughed and stood back up. “Cides, most of us are a wee bit crazy.”

“But not you?” Nika asked, one eyebrow raised behind his shades.

“She undoubtedly is,” Kani sighed. “If you would please continue to follow me, the Commander hates being kept waiting.”

I blushed lightly. “OH! Yes, sorry.”

The monk hummed, seemingly apologetically. “Aye, I’ve kept ya long enough. Good luck on the road. Make sure the Prince gets his book! An…” she blushed and bent back down to my level. “If you happen to see it unwrapped, an can read Zebrican, ah’d love to know what the book is. None of us can read it. Maybe come back later? Let a retired wanderer get the answer to one last mystery… Maybe tell her about any of her children you’ve ran into?”

“If I have the opportunity, I will,” I promised before I blinking in shock and disgust.

Shock and disgust directed at myself.

I’d been so caught up in the Talon way of thinking that I hadn’t even thought to try and find Roll’s parents and tell them what happened to her… I’d known I’d be coming here for a long time and she’d indicated this is where most alicorns lived. She’d essentially told me that this is where she grew up…

I should have made a note of that. I should have gone to find them first thing.

I looked down as a few tears filled my eyes. “I— I actually could use some help finding a certain pony’s parents. I met a young alicorn, a Swat Filly. She saved my life. I failed to save hers.”

The monk knelt down even further so she could look me in the eyes. A deep, shimmering worry flashed in them as she tried to peer into the very depths of my soul. “Three of our foals joined that group… What was her name?”

“Roller Bearing,” I said quietly.

I heard the monk’s teeth scrape together as she clenched her jaw tightly. “Was it headhunters?”

“No, what?” I said, my ears standing up in confusion. “Headhunters?”

“Alicorns who think we can bring the Goddess back by killing all of us save one. Concentrate Her fragments down into a single host. Was she killed by alicorns?” The monk asked as she grabbed my shoulders with her forehooves.

“No,” I said, trying and failing to pull myself free of her grip. “She was killed by Gale Force. Huge pegasus. Bigger than you. Pre-war soldier. He was frozen, thawed out, currently leads the Tainted on behalf of the Enclave. W— Will you tell her parents for me?”

“You just did,” The monk said as she stood up. “ If you’ll excuse me, I have some raiders to track down.”

Oh sweet Celestia, no…

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered as I reached out to give her a hug.

She pushed it away, opened her wings, and with one mighty flap ascended into the sky.

I stared up after her for several long moments, stopping only when the shaman cleared his throat. “Sorry for your loss… Would you like to continue, or…”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hoof and took a few steps towards the naval yard’s entrance. “No. I’m okay. Let’s go… Um, w— will they be keeping our weapons in that gatehouse?”

Kani nodded. “Yes, that’s—”

Speed hummed loudly, interrupting him before planting her hooves firmly and coming to a halt on the crumbling asphalt. “I don’t want to disarm completely.”

Kani stopped mid step, awkwardly put his hoof down, and then looked over his shoulder. “Well… I suppose… you could wait at the gate for your friends if you must.”

Vinyl mmmed to herself. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. Speed? I’d like you to wait outside for us.”

I frowned for a moment, before it clicked. If Speed waited outside she could keep an eye on our weapons. Nopony in their right mind would mess with our stuff if a mare in power armor was watching it.

“That’s a good idea, actually!” I agreed with a happy nod.

“Then I’ll wait on that rock over there,” Speed said, pointing to a boulder a short ways from the entrance.

“Suit yourself,” Kani said with a shrug.

Speed walked off towards the boulder she’d indicated and perched on it. From the boulder she had a view through the gate of the gatehouse, and what I hoped was its only door.

Kani cleared his throat. “The rest of you will need to disarm at the gate and— Ah! There’s the Commander. He’s the tall stallion in red.”

I looked up towards the gate and took note of a stall, slim earth pony stallion dressed in a somewhat more elegantly shaped suit of plate-armor. Sure enough it was painted a deep red, not the rusty red-orange the soldiers wore, but a nice crimson-ish candy-apple-ish shade of red. I rather liked it.

His equipment was noticeably better than the gate guards as well, backing up my earlier theory that wealth distribution was based on social rank and/or total contribution to the group. Unlike the somewhat decayed looking weapons held by the guards, holstered across his barrel was a large but elegantly shaped plasma pistol. I could see the gold Celestial Arms logo glittering on the mouth grip in the torchlight.

I did my best not to stare at his miniaturized plasma cannon and drool. That gun would cost me several years wages, if we even had one in the entire North! And it was cuddle sized!

Yeah… Trade with the Herd probably wasn’t going to yield very much for us at all… But if it got me that gun...

We made our way to the gate and began to disarm. It felt just a little creepy to me how none of the soldiers said anything. I supposed they must be used to visitors handing over their weapons for safe keeping, but something about their silent, eyeless, visor-slit gazes was very unnerving.

“What did the monk want?” the Commander asked Kani as I unbuckled my battle saddle.

I winced at the sound of the Commander’s voice. It was really gruff, even for an earth pony. The poor stallion must have burnt his throat badly at some point in his life.

“She delivered a package to Miss Gears. Apparently there was some security concern with her picking it up from their Abbey,” the Shaman replied.

He grew quiet for a fraction of a second then asked. “I hope you finished dealing with our clients earlier. I’d hate for a prospective client to hear some details of that particular operation and be scared off.”

“They have yet to arrive, but I doubt this tour will take long,” the Commander replied immediately.

I set my saddle down and looked up with my most professional expression. “If you’re worried about a client interfering with a prospective client, you should probably not bring it up in front of that prospective client.”

The Commander nodded in agreement. “She’s entirely correct, Kani. Return to your tower,” He grunted before turning his helmeted face towards my friends and I. “You three needn’t concern yourself with that matter. The Mobile Infantry offers security services to every settlement west of the Celestial River. We recently failed to protect a farming community from a threat due to their failure to report the threat to us accurately. We cannot send appropriate forces if we are not told what to expect. They have sent representatives to attempt to negotiate a refund.”

Ah! So they made their money as a large mercenary force? Interesting… Maybe the Herd wasn’t a government per say… Or maybe it was? It’s not like I had every possible way to run a state memorized. Heck, I doubt if any pony, or group for that matter, had ever thought of every single possible way you could run a nation.

I nodded, satisfied with the statement. I paused a moment to remove my pistol and stick it in my saddle’s straps before turning back to the Commander.

“I understand,” I said before offering him a polite bow. “My name is Whirling Gears. While I don’t have permission to negotiate a trade on my own, I will of course provide confirmation to her majesty of everything you offer that I can see. I assure you, neither I nor her majesty will hold a single failed mission against your forces… However, your reliance on what seem to be sub-par weapons may be an issue.”

The Commander chuckled, the sound echoing in his helmet almost like it were hollow. I saw Vinyl shiver at the sound out of the corner of my eye.

“Commander Blaze,” The Commander greeted with a nod before gesturing to the guards on duty. “These ponies are armed as they are for logistical reasons. If they are placed on field-duty, they will be given better equipment. Law enforcement and guard duty doesn't require more than this. The Mobile Infantry strives to allocate limited resources as efficiently as possible. Hence why detailed information is required before we accept an assignment.”

I nodded and looked over my shoulder to make sure Nika and Vinyl were ready to go in. They were both standing next to their weapons, and in Nika’s case, bags.

“Nurse, guard mode. Do not allow my equipment to be moved more than fifty yards from this spot until I get back,” Nika ordered.

Nurse chirped and dropped down to float just above his collection of guns and bags.

The Commander nodded, seemingly satisfied. “I see you’re ready. If you two want to come in with those bags, they will have to be searched.”

Vinyl hummed to herself then took off her bags. “Go ahead and look then. I’m not leaving all of my things behind.”

“You shouldn’t search inside her suit. It’s keeping the radiation in,” I pointed out in as helpful a tone of voice I could.

“Noted,” the Commander said before nodding to one of his guards. “Search her bags… and Miss Gears too, if she’s not going to leave them here.”

I reached back and unlocked my bags. “I will be taking them. I am carrying mail. I can’t let it out of my sight.”

“I admire your commitment to your duty,” the Commander remarked as another guard stepped over to me and began to go through my bags.

After a few moments of searching the guard took a step back from me and held up Roll’s Auto-9.

“Hand-cannon, sir!” the guard reported.

The Commander looked me dead in the eye, or at least, as dead as he could behind that narrow black slit in his visor. “I’m going to assume you forgot you had that on you.”

I nodded. “I— I did,” I looked up in the hopes that Roll’s mom was still flying overhead. “BUCK! I should have given her!”

Vinyl looked over at my outburst and winced. “Oh… That’s, that belonged to a friend of hers who died. The monk we ran into was her mother. Pure chance but… Gears they may be able to get it to her for you.”

I shook my head. “No! I’m going to do that myself later. I’m sorry, I forgot that was in my bag, can you place it with my sad—” I stopped mid sentence and facehooved. “There’s another weapon in there too, but it’s broken. It will look like the energy rifle on my saddle, but bent into a U shape.”

The Commander nodded. “This is why bags are searched.”

“Found it sir,” the guard searching me said before adding both weapons to my equipment pile. “She’s clear.”

“The ghoul’s clear too,” Vinyl’s guard added.

“Take their equipment to the gatehouse… Nika, tell your robot to let them move it,” The Commander said before looking past me towards Speed. “Your friend can sit closer to the wall if she wants.”

I cleared my throat. “If she wanted to, she would. She’s a very simple pony.”

The Commander shrugged his shoulders slightly then turned around. “Then let’s begin…”

☢★★◯★★☢

It was nice to see proper old naval ships being given new life. The ancient vessels wouldn't be going anywhere ever again. Their hulls were rusted out, their bilges filled with water and seaweed. The amount of work required to make them seaworthy would exceed the amount needed to make a new ship capable of the limited feats any of these ships would be once restored.

The Herd had repurposed the sixteen ships in their harbor to serve as buildings. Their hulls were supported atop piles of stones built up beneath their waterlines. Walkways had been constructed to connect each ship to its neighbors at various points. Interiors had been modified as needed to serve the ships’ new purpose as a fort.

Smaller cruisers had been made into offices. The Herd clearly had a need for paperwork, as they did a lot of it here. My best guess as to why; the Council set the rules, but it delegated all responsibility to the Mobile Infantry. There's no way an army of six thousand, most of whom were constantly patrolling the countryside, or scouting the southwest coast for irradiated towns, could possibly incur enough paperwork to need four ship-buildings as dedicated office space.

The cloud carrier had been remade into a training ground and barrack. I greatly enjoyed watching troops making use of the obstacle course built on the airstrip. The schadenfreude was delicious. Stupid carrier, now you're stuck on the ground helping ground forces. Serves you right for refusing to stand and fight!

The other ships served as the home for each of the MI's chapters. They had a lot of those. This nation appeared to be less of a nation and more of a large group of settlements who shared a mercenary force for protection. An interesting situation to say the least.

They seemed to be a good military, through. In spite of their equipment problems, even my untrained eyes could see the soldiers worked together very well. Their coordination was impressive, by my standards!

I cleared my throat to get Commander Blaze's attention. He turned his head while expertly stooping beneath a bulkhead to move below deck, where our tour of the Swamp Striders’ Chapter Hall would continue.

"Yes?" He said seemingly irritably.

"Your soldiers are extremely coordinated. It's impressive!" I said with a smile.

He nodded slightly. "Thank you. They train all day every day. I believe they work together better than a squad of Mr. Gutsys."

"I think they might," I admitted with an appreciative smile.

I turned around to ask Vinyl what she thought of their teamwork, but stopped as I saw an Infanfrymare running across the deck towards us. She was the first pony here I'd seen without their helmet on. Her flowing peach mane made it blindingly obvious just how deequinizing the MI's uniforms were.

"Commander!" The made shouted, her voice carrying some light urgency. "Commander, I need to speak with you, sir!"

The Commander stepped past me to stand up next to Nika and presumably glare at the infantrymare. "Lieutenant, why are you out of uniform?"

"I was bathing and called to the gate under code blue, sir," she replied.

Vinyl’s eyes widened. My core skipped a cycle. Was this it? Was the sky about to fill with Enclave troopers?

"I assume you let her leave?" The Commander asked, his voice now definitely irritated. "There's no reason to hold a retarded filly prisoner for tresspasing. You didn't forget I ordered she be held ‘til her guardians arrived looking for her, did you?."

"No, sir. She doesn't want to leave. She knows there's a glowing one here and wants to be taken to her. I think she might have been raised by ghouls or… Uh, more to the point, can I let her join the tour, sir?"

Commander Blaze looked over his shoulder at Vinyl. "Do you care for a very nonverbal alicorn filly who doesn't know much Equish?"

She shook her head. "No, but we should let her see me so she knows I'm not her mom."

The Commander nodded in agreement. "I agree. She's been here for several hours. Asked to see the, and I quote; "combat raft containing big power". Heh…" He cleared his throat and looked his Lieutenant in the eyes. "Bring her to—"

"Commander!" Another infantrymare shouted, her shout punctuated by the sound of her hooves pounding against the deck.

"Yes, sergeant?" The Commander said with a sigh.

"Our... client just arrived, sir. He demands to speak with you at once." The sergeant reported.

"So soon?" Commander Blaze asked rhetorically. "This won't take long. He needs to speak with the Council, not me. Lieutenant, retrieve the filly. Add her to our group of guests. Sergeant, take our guests to the dock in front of the Zebra ship. I'll continue the tour from there once I return. I'm certain you all got the idea of our chapters from the last Chapter Hall."

"Yes, sir!" Both soldiers exclaimed in unison.

The lieutenant spun on one hoof and ran off, making room for the Commander to leave at a quick-trot. As soon as his commanding officer was out of the way, the sergeant nodded her head at us. "Follow me."

As she lead us across the deck towards a gangplank which led down to the dock, I couldn't help but wonder if "code blue" meant "attack imminent, gather up any civilians to try and get them clear of the combat zone". That was something we did back home, but we didn't use a code word for it.

We just told them to move to not die.

Of course, code blue could just mean a prisoner escape. Commander Blaze had said he ordered the filly to be held so her parents could be found. I don't imagine guards would have locked up a mentally challenged filly, or watched her all that closely. Not because they are jerks or anything, just not likely to see such a person as a threat.

The sergeant led us across the concrete dock towards the landing-ramp of my old ship. Each step we took towards it was like stepping back in time. The little fragments of memory I had from that life burned brighter and brighter. Nothing new came to me, but those fragments outshone the rest of time.

I remembered the details of our mission. We set sail from the port at Paranomus without an escort fleet. We were ordered to attract Equestrian naval notice and provoke attacks to test the ship’s guns. Only one ship of our class was to be built, ever, but the guns could have been propagated through the fleet if they proved themselves.

We cut a path across the Celestial Ocean like a scythe through wheat. Most Equestrian ships had half of our range. They couldn’t touch us. The ones capable of engaging us without spending ten minutes in our firing range couldn’t withstand my bombardments. They fell back or they sank. Mostly sank.

We were to proceed to Manehattan and drop anchor in the port. All vessels, civilian and military, were to be sank. The port was to be rendered wholly unsuitable as a means of trade for as long as possible. Amidst the chaos, a battalion of troops would make landfall via the boarding dock and attempt to fight their way through the Heartland to Canterlot. Their target? Princess Luna.

How did we fail? We were not sunk. We had clearly been sailed to the other side of Equestria to be set in this dock for study. What had happened? There wasn’t enough mortal crew to mutiny. If they had tried, we would have killed them and switched to fully autonomous operation, as per the Emperor’s orders.

Maybe Rylanor knew!

I closed my eyes and pushed my mind towards the ship. Rylanor? We are near. I will attempt to board the ship as soon as I can. I was wondering, do you know how we were captured? I cannot remember.

The ponies attacked from above. Our Ex-Sister Grindstone refused to alert us. She was displeased with the captain. Pony forces boarded, breached the upper decks, and took manual control after disabling internal security with anti-matrix grenades. I attempted to activate my Brothers and slay the enemy. They were able to seal me in the troop bay after a brief battle. The wards used are extensive and strong. The best means of destroying them will be to damage the runes set into the doorway with a thermite charge. +

Thank you, I’ll do my best to get you out as soon as possible.

I turned my attention to the sergeant leading us and cleared my throat for her attention. “Excuse me? Will it be possible to get a tour inside this ship later? It has a spirit in it I would enjoy interacting with.”

The sergeant paused for a moment. “I don't have the clearance to authorize that… It will be up to the Commander. However, I don’t think that would be a good idea. Whatever it is, it’s in something mobile. You can hear it try and break out some times… Then again, maybe getting a half-decent Shaman to look at it would be a good idea.”

“Wait, you mean you haven’t had any Shamen look at an active spirit in a Zebrican warship?” Vinyl asked, her tail rising in panic.

The sergeant huffed and shrugged, making his pauldrons clank together. “Yeah. Well, not good ones. Every one of them so far has always said not to scratch the wards and it will be fine, but none of them have been able to calm it down, or even figure out what it is.”

Nika sat down and stretched his talons. “Why not try to figure it out from here? They’ll be arguing with their paycheck for at least an hour.”

I frowned and gave the not-pony a little distressed tail twitch. “Really? I was hoping to get aboard sooner.”

The sergeant sighed. “You’re probably bucked if they don’t leave right away… Why don’t I go check on how things are going for you? Just sit here and wait. I wont be more than five minutes.”

Vinyl bit her lip and gave me an odd look. I nodded in agreement. “I think it would be better if you stayed with us.”

The Sergeant shrugged and sat down. “Suit yourself.”

I turned to look up at the Inperterritus. I couldn’t help but smile. Even though at this distance all I could see was the now weathered dull gray slab of metal which formed her boarding ramp, well…

Actually, why do I find it beautiful? Do I have to understand everything I feel? Is it okay to just feel things and not question or understand why you feel them?

Vinyl gently tapped me on the shoulder. “Hon, look.”

I turned and followed Vinyl’s gaze. The lieutenant from before (now with helmet) was leading an alicorn filly towards us.

She looked to be around Roll’s age. And size. For half a second, I thought that it might be her, somehow alive, but it couldn’t have been.

The filly’s fur was a nice creamy peach. Her mane was gold, and nearly as glossy as the metal. She had it pinned back in an odd style. I could tell it would be quite long if unbundled. She had a pair of piercing red eyes, which to me suggested intelligence.

More interesting, at least, to me, was her clothing. She wore a graphite colored jumpsuit. It was fur-tight, and had odd ribbing in places as if she wore something underneath it. The interesting thing to me was her jumpsuit had integrated saddlebags.

I want an outfit like that!

Not wanting to stare too long and make her uncomfortable, I shifted my eyes towards the lieutenant, but kept my attention on the filly. For a moment, I tried to see if the Commander had called her “retarded” as a general insult for having done something stupid, but… No.

As she grew closer I could tell something was off about her. Her eyes didn’t look at us. Her gait was odd, too. Very stiff and robotic. I used to walk like that until I spent a year studying pony movement and was able to fine tune my motor control algorithms.

Something felt off about the filly on the arcane level, too. She was… wrong. Somehow. I couldn’t put a hoof on it, and it wasn’t bad wrong, but still wrong.

Perhaps ‘abnormal’ was a better word.

The lieutenant lead her over to us and then bent down to look into her eyes. “Wait here with these ponies. Do you understand?” The lieutenant said slowly and as clearly as possible.

Nice articulation!

The filly didn’t look at her. She simply spoke. “I will comply.” she said in a flat, dead, emotionless voice.

More so than any synthesizer I’d ever heard. Even Equestrian robots’ voices were programed with some level of inflection and fake emotion to make listening to them earlier.

I blinked and frowned slightly. Okay. Yes. Something wrong with her.

The lieutenant nodded to the sergeant. “Everything’s going fine. Commander Blaze will be back soon. Make sure this little one stays here and doesn't break anything. She broke down an MEW pistol in the barracks. Lucky she didn’t blow her own head off…”

The sergeant saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

I looked into Vinyl’s eyes and nodded towards the filly, who was seemingly content to stand there and look over every square inch of the Inperterritus’ landing ramp, one at a time. In sequence.

“Maybe we should—” I began only for Vinyl to nod.

“Way ahead of you,” she said, trotting over to the golden-maned alicorn.

Vinyl bent down slightly to look her in the eyes. “Hello. What’s your name?”

The filly remained silent, still slowly scanning the ramp.

Vinyl frowned. “Do you have one?”

The filly frowned, seemingly irritated, and lit her horn. Her magic’s green glow opened her saddlebag and retrieved a small book. Vinyl blinked and tilted her head slightly as the filly began to page through it, seemingly at random.

“Um…” Vinyl said before looking over her shoulder to me and mouthing ‘help’.

I trotted froward. “It’s okay. We just want to help. What’s your name?”

The filly closed her book. “My name is irrelevant.”

I felt my heart melt, then boil. That’s the meanest thing you could name a poor little filly! Even if she was mentally challenged! Actually, no, especially if!

I took a deep breath to calm myself. “Is there anything else we could call you instead?”

The annoyed look crossed her face again, and she opened her book. I took a moment to look at the pages while she flipped through them.

It was a translation dictionary. I had no idea what the other language in it was, but whatever it was, it was translating that language to Equish.

Wait…

Why would any alicorn be a non-native Equish speaker? What was that, minotaur? Looked like their runes. Did any of them live in alicorn-having-places? Would any of them raise a developmentally challenged filly?

I suppose it would make sense for a filly raised by minotaurs to only know her parents language if she didn’t exactly make friends or leave home...

“Designation,” the filly said before closing her book again.

I nodded and sat down. “Okay, may I call you Desi for short?”

She remained silent. I continued. “Desi, the ponies here think you mistook my friend Wander for your mom. Does your mom glow too?”

“Negative,” she said flatly, still looking over the hull.

I turned and scooted over to join her in staring at old-me. “What are you looking at?”

She huffed irritably, opened her book once more, paged through it, then without looking at me and said, “I am attempting to ascertain the nature of this vessel's power plant.”

“Oh!” I felt my ears perk up. “I can answer that for you. The Interruptions was a sprit-based ship. There isn’t a traditional boiler, or reactor, or anything. A machine spirit was bound directly to the axles and turned them in exchange for… Um, actually I don't remember what it was he got for that. But the vessel was powered by spiritual labor.”

The filly nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Do you like ships?” I asked. “I love them!”

“Yes,” Desi stated before turning her attention to Vinyl for a few moments.

I guess she doesn't like to talk much.

I offered Vinyl a shrug.

Desi looked at Vinyl for several moments, seemingly looking at the way her glowing head lit the inside of her helmet. I was about to ask what she was doing, when the filly reached into her bag with her magic, retrieved a small electronic device which reminded me of Nika’s talon-held computer, and studied it for several moments.

“What’s that?” I asked her curiously.

She ignored my question, the talon-computer went beep, she nodded, flipped through her book, looked at Vinyl and asked. “You are saturated with omicron radiation. How?”

Vinyl blinked and frowned. I turned to look at Desi with a surprised smile. “You can tell what the source of radiation is?”

Desi nodded once.

“That’s really cool! Is it your special talent?” I prompted, hoping to get her to talk a little more.

After all, she was definitely very smart in spite of her language issues.

“Yes,” Desi answered simply.

“My friends and I got stuck in a ruin with a melted down reactor. It was like the Last Day in there. Any ghoul who goes in will glow pretty quickly,” Vinyl said before her ears perked up. “Oh! Are you hoping to find some radiation to soak in yourself?”

Desi didn’t say anything. She just kept looking at Vinyl. Vinyl shifted uncomfortably and eventually went to go sit next to Nika.

I wanted to go join her, but… Well, I knew what it was like to be excluded from everything. If Desi was uncomfortable socializing at all, I’d figure that out soon enough.

“So, you’re good with radiation… Out here you can probably use Red Eye’s radiation engines still. Do you know how to build them?” I asked curiously.

Desi picked up her book, flipped through it for several minutes, then turned to look at me. “Radiological materials placed into a basin of water will induce rapid evaporation. The resulting gaseous compounds can be harnessed with any number of turbine designs to generate mechanical or electrical power. Thaumaturgic power generation with radiological compounds…” Desi frowned and looked to her book, paging through it frantically for several long moments before continuing. “— is accomplished utilizing precise arrangements of correct radioactive elements in conjunction with photonic currents to induce a thaumaturgic current along a determined vector.”

“Is that how that works?” I asked excitedly, doing my best to show as much interest as possible.

“Correct.” Desi remarked.

“I always wondered about that,” I said casually.

Desi’s ears perked slightly. The moment was so slight, but so unexpected it still stood out. She flipped through her book again, then looked up at me. “The geometric configuration of a thaumaturgic reactor directly determines the reactor’s power potential. Fractal recursive patterns, utilizing sub-three-nanometer sized units of diatomic lithium in a crystalline state as nodes, produces the most usable power.”

“Cool!” I said with a genuine smile, which faded slightly. “Wait, you can understand what I say. Why do you need that translation guide?”

“I do not know all the words. Communication requires correct words,” Desi remarked even more flatly.

“Fair enough,” I said with a nod. “What’s your native language?”

I flicked my tail eagerly. It looked like Minotaur! I hoped it was Mminotaur. Then I’d have gotten to learn something new.

“DASL,” Desi said with her seemingly typical flatness.

“Uhhh,” I said, frowning as I tried to figure out what languages were called a series of letters.

“It ends in SL,” Imaginary dad said in the back of my mind. “That means it’s a sign language. I have no idea which one, I only learned ESL, but there were hundreds of them. Every region has its own sign language.”

Oh! Thanks, Dad.

“No problem.”

“Sooo, what kind of fractals are best?” I asked Desi with a cheerful smile while debating asking Jasmine which sign language she knew.

Or languages… Honestly, I wasn’t sure… about anything about her. Huh… I should get to know me better.

Desi’s eyes flicked down to her book. She paused for a moment then without reading said. “Bad question.”

“Oh!” I blushed lightly. “It would depend on what exactly you want to do with the reactor, wouldn’t it?”

Desi nodded once. "Yes. I like how you understand this."

My heart went out to Desi. She was smart, she just couldn't do normal pony behavior and was lonely. Poor thing… She felt so out of place and all a pony needed to do was be nice to her for her to feel she belonged.

I stood up and nodded towards Vinyl. “I’m going to make sure she’s okay, then come right back, okay?”

Desi flipped through her book for a moment. I took the opportunity to look at the language printed in it. It did seem to take quite a lot of text to say things, assuming each entry on the pages was a word. I couldn’t quite tell how each of those symbols represented a sign though.

Wait a minute. You don’t need to know sign language to read or write. It’s for people who can’t talk. Blind people can’t use it.

So… She had her main way of talking, knew whatever this language was (at least could read it), and also knew enough Equish to use a translator book. All while being, at the oldest, maybe fourteen.

I was two hundred, and I’d only really mastered one language…

Desi finished her skimming. “Unnecessary. I will accompany you.”

I frowned slightly. “Alright. But to tell you the truth, I was going to ask if she was… well, bothered by you. You sound a little creepy. That’s okay. I know everypony isn’t the same, and it’s okay to not be normal, but it does mean you might scare or spook others.”

Desi blinked twice, an extremely confused look crossed her face. “State the deficiency. I will correct it.”

I pursed my lips and flicked my tail as I tried to tell if I’d upset her or if she was just worried. And also how to actually explain it. “Well, there’s a few things… Do you hear how I’m talking?” I asked as I intentionally put more of a lean into the questioning tone. “I’m exaggerating my tone of voice, so you can hear the emotion in it better. You speak very flatly, more than robots do, even. That’s okay, but you can change how you sound so other people understand how you are feeling emotionally about what you are saying, or what’s happening right now better.”

Desi’s eyes widened, not with embarrassment, or shame, but… delight? Intrigue? “Pitch modulation provides a vector for enhanced communication efficiency. Noted. Thank you.”

“Did nopony ever explain that to you?” I asked with a frown. “You can talk, so I assume you learned sign language because of your parents… Do you not go out much?”

Desi nodded once. “Are there other deficiencies?”

I nodded back. “Yes. You’re also supposed to perform more emotional expressions by moving your face, ears, tail, and adjusting your body posture… But that would take a very long time to explain. It’s almost its own language, and none of it is intuitive…” I sighed and glared at Vinyl playfully. “And nopony will ever tell you what body language means! You’re just supposed to know. Like I just magically have a file for ‘social cues’.”

I giggled and gave Vinyl a wink. She shook her head slowly and called, “You of all people should actually have one though!”

I giggled again and shrugged. “In a few days, you’ll meet my mom, and you’ll understand completely.”

“Thank you. I will observe these actions as they occur,” Desi said… giving her voice all of the wrong inflections.

My ears flicked back. “Ooo… That sounded like, um… Well it sounded like how a mare speaks when she loves somepony very very much and wants to do adult things.”

Desi gave me a flat look of seriousness. “Correction: I do not desire to attempt procreation.”

“Just listen to ponies talk! You’ll get the hang of it. I had to teach myself how to do it too,” I said before trotting over to Vinyl’s side and sitting down.

“Sooo, you heard everything?” I asked rhetorically.

Vinyl nodded. “Yeah…” She looked past me to Desi as the alicorn filly trotted up to a spot a short distance from me and gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry… I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings. It’s just… I am a musician. You speak in… It’s like anti-music. That’s fine, I just—”

“I understand,” Desi said, her inflection much better this time.

Vinyl blinked. “Hey, that was passable! Did nopony ever bother to tell you that’s why people’s voices change pitch?”

Desi shook her head no.

“Your parents suck!” Vinyl exclaimed, her eyes narrowed angrily.

“I do not have parents,” Desi reported.

Oh. Well… poop. Now I had to do something! I can’t just leave a smart but oblivious young mare in the middle of—

Blinding, terrible, horrible, awful pain consumed everything.

My head…

The world faded back in from the pain. I was laying up against the Inperterritus’ ramp. Something had thrown me three meters back.

Coolant everywhere...

Something smashed against the boarding ramp, making the ramp ring like a bell, punched a crater in the steel, and threw off a shower of sparks.

Wha— Oh. Someone shot the—

SOMEONE SHOT ME!

I sat up, ignoring the pain, and felt my head. I could feel my pelt regenerating over the hole. Someone had shot me in the head. With something big.

Why?

Who?

From where?

Why didn’t I hear any—

“AIRBORNE SNIPER! TAKE COVER!” Nika shouted, sprinting to the end of the dock and diving into the water.

"You are a machine." Desi said quietly.

Vinyl swore to herself and looked up, searching for our attacker while her horn glowed, her aura forming around her empty holster…

"Love, get down!" Vinyl warned reflexively

The sergeant cursed under his breath and began to sprint down the dock, muttering something about timing.

"She is your mate," Desi said.

Another bullet cracked into the concrete dock just in front of me. I scrambled backwards, terrified of the simple fact that I hadn’t heard the shot.

"I like you." The filly said decisively.

That's nice but we're in deep shit! Gonna die! Unless…

I looked harder for the sniper, he had to be up there somewhere.

He had to be way up there. Kilometers, at least! That meant serious optics, and a serious rifle. If He hadn’t aimed for my head, but instead chose center mass—

Something shrieked overhead. I looked up just in time to see a blurry silver dot flash across the sky from left to right. A heartbeat later the ground beneath where it had flown erupted in a sea of flames. A literal wall of fire blazed into existence from seemingly nothing, followed a moment later by a second wall, forming a V shape which trapped us between the fire and the sea.

Nika had the right idea. We were unarmed and the Enclave attack had arrived.

“Run to the water!” I yelled to Vinyl and Desi as I spun on my hooves to bolt for the hopeful safety of the sea.

A beam of prismatic light shimmered into existence. No thicker than a hoof, A small shaft of rainbow-colored light shining down from the heavens between the ship and I. It flared out with a pulse of bright white light, and thirty five armed ponies stood between me and my old hull.

Most of them wore the Tainted’s flak-vest uniform. Five of them were dressed in somewhat battered Enclave uniforms. One wore an intact set of Enclave power armor. Loom lead the group.

“Surrender,” Loom ordered as her armor’s tank turret swiveled to face me.

My eyes widened in terror. “I— I thought—”

“I was still figuring things out,” Loom said calmly. “In the end, and oath is an oath. These ponies are the Equestrian military, what’s left of it. We all have our duties. I don’t know how you survived that shot, but it means you get the chance to surrender. Take it.”

“We don’t have much choice…” Vinyl muttered darkly. “I knew it would be the first time I put my gun down! I knew that’s when there’d be trouble!”

Loom sighed, and I could sense her exasperated glare through her helmet. “We promised the Herd we wouldn’t damage their base too much. Last chance. Surrender.”

“Rainbow’s alive!” I blurted out. “The Enclave betrayed Equestria! If you value duty that much—”

“If Rainbow is alive, I haven't seen her,” Loom sighed. “If only you hadn’t pissed off the entire command staff… I liked yo—”

Sparks of green light danced across my vision like parting curtains. They parted to reveal… my deck! I mean the Inperterritus’ deck! I was standing directly beneath one of my old guns, specifically beneath the left barrel right against the turret.

The forward most gun turret, if I recall correctly—

What?! How did—

“We moved two hundred paces,” Desi said flatly. “We are still in range of enemy attack. Raise shields.”

Vinyl shook herself like somepony had covered her in ants. “Gah! That, magic, felt so, wierd!”

“Thank you!” I said to Desi. “We’re unarmed, can you keep teleporting us?”

Desi nodded. The air crackled and shrieked again. Something burst overhead. Dessi shook her head. “Negative. A dampening field has been established.”

“There has to be an armory in this ship!” Vinyl shouted, her voice twined with rage and betrayal.

“There is. In the troop bay,” I said as I looked around for the closet hatch. “I can lead the wa—”

A dozen loud clinks of metal on metal caught my attention. I spun to my left, expecting to see a bunch of grenades littering the deck. Instead, a series of grappling hooks had been thrown over the ship’s bow. The hooks pulled tight and bit in as the soldiers began climbing to pursue us.

Sparks leapt from the deck as the aerial sniper took another shot at us, nearly hitting Vinyl.

I looked back to the hooks, then down the hundred yards to the deck’s closest hatch. “We won't make it in time…”

“I’ll see if I can get a shield spell going,” Vinyl said as she ran underneath the nearest cannon barrel to get cover from the air.

OH BUCK! Cover form the air!

I spun towards Desi and pointed up. “Get under something before you’re—”

Desi was thrown to the deck violently, as if she were a doll stomped on by a grown stallion. A horrified scream ripped its way from my throat.

IT HAPPENED AGAIN!

Vinyl wrapped a foreleg around my shoulders and pulled me towards the hatch. “Panic later! Live now!” She pleaded.

I refused to take my eyes off Desi’s limp body as she tried to drag me. Terror. Rage. Despair. I could feel nothing else.

I needed my guns. I needed to make them pay. I needed—

Desi stood up.

“Shields holding at seventy-eight percent,” she reported calmly.

Vinyl laughed in relief. “That’s right, she said shields up! Good job, kid! I wish I could make a shield that tough without help.”

I had never felt more relieved in my life! Or more worried. Desi was alive, but we still had to make it to the hatch.

I pulled free from Vinyl’s grip and looked back to the hatch again. “I don’t know how to get there without being killed!” I admitted with a terrified whimper.

Vinyl nodded and fished out her amulet, started to sing, but… the amulet remained silent. No shield sprang forth from it. Vinyl narrowed her eyes darkly. “I swear to Celestia, if you chose now of all time to nap, I will find some way to beat your incomporial ass!”

BUCK! WHY?!

“Speed and I thought something like this might happen. That the Enclave would attack now of all times. That’s why she stayed outside,” Vinyl babbled worriedly. “She should be here in a minute!”

“We don’t have a minute!” I hissed urgently. “We have seconds!”

I turned to Desi in desperation, pleading with my eyes. I had no idea what other tricks she might have in store. Maybe she could expand her invisible shield to encompass us?

Wait! My Gale Shield! No, no that would only buy me one or two hits. It wouldn’t protect anyone else. Unless I stood in front of them… That might work for a bit!

“Do you have any ideas?” I asked Desi, hoping she understood that she was our only way of surviving right now.

And could do something. Anything.

I knew she was smart in some areas, but why I was asking a mentaly challenged filly for tactical advice in a combat situation… I had no idea.

To my surprise, Desi nodded.

“You do?” Vinyl asked before yelping. “Oh buck! Out of time!”

I turned to see an earth pony with a magical energy pistol clenched between his teeth pulling himself up over the railing.

I activated my shield and stood in front to Vinyl.

The earth pony twisted his neck and took a shot. He missed. A unicorn made her way over the railing and fired a few rounds at us with an SMG.

Ignoring the gunfire, Desi opened her book, flipped back and forth for a moment then looked up at Vinyl. "Disassemble them with lamps."

In spite of the life or death situation, that suggestion forced me to stare into Desi’s eyes long enough for an SMG burst to splatter off my shield and two more Tainted soldiers to board the ship.

My confused stare prompted Desi to consult her book again. “Correction: Destroy them with lasers."

Oh. My. Celestia. I HAVE MY EYELASER STILL!

I began to charge my sole weapon, but there wasn’t time...

Desi turned her head slightly and fired a white-cored-emerald-jacketed ray of light from her horn. The beam sliced through the air with an odd sizzle. Desi’s spell caught the mare with the SMG in her chest. The mare popped like a gore-balloon amid a flash of steam, coating the deck with blood, guts, and fur across at least five meters!

EW! GROSS! Good for us, but EW!

“Holy shit!” The energy-pistol pony yelped. “Caster! Filly’s a caster!”

Desi began to walk backwards, moving in the direction I’d been looking, clearly understanding that’s where I wanted to go.

Okay. That filly’s dynamite!

“Run, she’s covering us!” I shouted to Vinyl before taking off as fast as I could for the hatch.

Still had to outrun the sniper…

32 - Star Drop

Sparks shot up from the deck and singed my fur as I ran. Almost all the counter-sniper advice Dad could have possibly given me was completely useless against an airborne sniper! Nopony builds any kind of cover for things that are above you!

What insanity was that?! A third of all ponies can fly! An ancient pegasi stratagem for winning every war ever was “fly up high, drop rocks”. WHY DIDN’T THIS DECK HAVE A ROOF?

“Don’t complain about a lack of a roof while on top of the roof. Run! Serpentine!” Imaginary Dad ordered.

I did my best to follow his instructions. The problem was that this sniper was very good. Every time I tried to turn they fired again, putting a shot into the deck right where I would have been if I wasn’t randomly varying my speed.

That wasn’t a trick dad taught me. I just remembered my Captain ordering the engine room to do it to throw off enemy shots.

I spared a moment to look at my destination rather than my heading. Getting in the door would be hard. Our sniper friend had to know where I was going. If he thought to stop shooting and just wait for me to enter the hatch and fire through it…

“Problem!” I shouted. “Sniper! Hatch! Obvious target!”

Vinyl’s hooves pounded against the deck. “I’ll go first!”

Yes. First. Canterlot ghoul. Unless he destroyed her brain, she’d be okay.

But he seems to reload fast.

What can we do to—

“Aerial target spotted,” Desi informed.

“How the buck can you see—”

“Alicorn! Pegasus eyes!” I yelled, cutting Vinyl off. “Shoot him if you can!”

“Complying,” Desi remarked.

The hatch was only seconds away. As were the Enclave troopers behind us.

Comply faster!

I slowed down to let Vinyl pass me. I could see tears in her suit sealing themselves as she ran.

“Firing Thaumaturgic Burst,” Desi informed.

High-pitch electrical crackling. Undulating green light. Loud fizzing. A shocked “Discord’s beard!” from Vinyl. Hatch reached!

I dove through the opening. Vinyl was staring up at the sky, open mouthed. I grabbed her and dragged her inside the ship. Desi was too slow. I took hold of her left hindleg and dragged her in, too. A quick look showed everyone was clear of the hatch’s swinging arc. I slammed it shut and spun the wheel, then pulled the locking lever.

The Imperterritus’ dim interior was dusty, stale, and stank of rotting rubber, spilled oil, and rust. Good! That meant not many other hatches were left open. It would be some time before the Enclave could enter… Hopefully. There were plenty of gangways to board her, after all.

A metallic ping rang through the corridor. Was that a bullet which hit the hatch, or the slam of an angry hoof? I had no idea. The armor was, fortunately, quite thick.

“We’re safe until they find another door or blast this one open,” I announced with a sigh of relief. “We should head below decks to the armory, see if it hasn’t been—”

“BUCK THOSE HORSEAPPLES!” Vinyl shouted way too loudly.

She lifted Desi with her magic and shook her at me. “This filly just launched a motherbucking Mana Torpedo from her bucking horn!” Vinyl spun Desi to make her look her dead in the eyes. “HOW THE BUCK DID YOU DO THAT?!”

“Science,” Desi answered with a classic ‘duh’ tone to her voice.

Vinyl nodded twice. “Yeah, sure, obviously, but how?!” She demanded. “Every nerd on term-link spent years of their lives trying to figure out if those things could be made real! Or make a spell to create the same effect, because that would just be bucking AWEsome! And here you are, two hundred years after the end of bucking everything, lobbing balls of anti-magic doom like it’s bucking nothing!”

I felt my various memory modules strain for a moment. “Wait, that’s what she did? How? Also we should get away from the hatch.”

Desi sighed and levitated her book from her bag to page through.

Vinyl nodded in agreement with me and started to trot down the corridor before stopping and looking over her shoulder at me helplessly.

I smiled and quickly trotted ahead of her. “We’re going down to deck seven, then working our way towards the stern.”

We jogged through the dim corridors in relative silence. Just our hooves pounding against the metal deck, and occasionally rustling pages from Desi’s book. Whatever she was looking up, it was going to be a long speech. Hopefully we would get to hear it.

As alien an experience as running down these passages was, I could still tell that some of the hoof-on-steel sounds were not our own echoes, but from one of a few other groups of ponies. The Enclave had found another hatch sooner than I thought…

I also knew less about the ship’s layout than I thought. I never actually entered these narrow, low, dismally gray corridors. I’d never stooped under the exposed pipes, ducts, and electrical conduits before. Was this how organics felt? Trapped. Isolated. Alone.

I remembered the open sea. The sky. The opposite of this…

I’m so sorry, Captain. I had no idea. This had to be awful!

I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment. With luck, my vague idea of where to go on where I remembered feeling the armory being in terms of a body part I shared with dozens of conjoined siblings wasn’t a fool’s errand.

…

When you put it like that…

Desi’s book closed with a soft thump, drawing my attention to her as she floated within Vinyl’s telekinetic grip.

Desi flicked her mane out of her eyes, inhaled sharply and created a little vector illustration with illusion magic. For a moment I thought she was going to show us a visual breakdown of what happened.

Nope. The glowing lines forming mid air were nothing but pure math. The scary kind that mom liked.

“Utilizing theta wave protostablization, mana particles can be polarized into their opposite-charge counterparts. Converted particles are not stable. Containment of unstable anti-mana can be achieved for brief periods with the application of a rotating magnetic field, as long as the total particles in a given field do not exceed a charge of 0.0005 nano-clovers,” Desi said before changing out her illusionary equations for another, even more complex set.

“Normal mana particles can be similarly contained, thereby making it possible to create a matrix of “containment spheres” of alternating mana and anti-mana particles to form an overall homogeneous mixture,” she continued, ignoring the fact her head flick had imparted enough rotational energy for her start slowly spinning in Vinyl’s telekinetic bubble. It didn’t seem to bother her at all.

It bothered me. I tilted my head to keep looking at her properly as she rotated.

Desi cycled her equations again. “A radiant telekinetic vector field can keep the magnetic bubbles from intersecting due to their charges, preventing premature mixture. Should the vector field be limited in charge to no more than 8 micro-clovers above the total charge of contained particles, it will collapse upon contact with solid matter or energy barriers and permit the particles to mix, resulting in a classic anti-magic detonation.”

I felt my eyes widen in alarm at the implications of what she just said, and had done a few moments ago. Unfortunately, Desi was on too much of a roll to stop and answer a question. Possibly literally. She was upside down now.

Wait, that's another pun, but does it count as a pony pun? Should I recalculate for... No this is not the time!

Desi’s equations cycled yet again. “The detonation will result in a disruption of the local thaumaturgic field, creating a void proportional to the energy content of the reaction. The accompanying cascade failure of physical laws within the affected region lasts for several nanoseconds. The vacuum-forces experienced within the disrupted region of spacetime overwhelm the weak and strong nuclear forces, allowing for normally stable matter to undergo nuclear fusion for a period of aproximantly 89 femtoseconds before normal physics is fully restored.”

Desi rotated back to a mostly upright position. “The damage incurred during the vacuum collapse is typically sufficient to,” Desi raised her hooves to make air quotes, “quote, wreck their shit but good, end quote.”

Desi’s vector-illusion shifted to two frame animated picture. It was a chibi pony, presumably herself, clapping while a building labeled ‘bad guy convention’ exploded. And the text ‘Thank you, Science!’ at the top.

Vinyl and I stared at Desi for several long seconds.

“C— Can you do it again?” Vinyl asked hopefully.

“Insufficient calories,” Desi said, sounding somewhat ashamed. “Please insert taco.”

My ears perked up hopefully. “Well, she probably don't need to! You hit the sniper, right?”

Desi shrugged her shoulders. “Unknown.”

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked with a tilt of my head.

If there was some kind of active Advanced Theoretical Arcanophysics school somewhere nearby, they NEEDED a radio.

“Math!” Desi answered with a genuine smile.

Oh, my, Celestia! She’s so cute when she does that!

“Math is not a location,” Vinyl deadpanned for the both us us.

Desi shook her head and quickly referenced her book. “Math is where nature lives.”

I mean, she wasn't wrong, but—

Just as it occurred to me that somepony might have named a post-war village “Math”, a bullet ricocheted off the wall next to me and whizzed down the hallway.

“Oh-buck-that’s-right!” Vinyl yelped as she dropped Desi onto my back. “Have-a-dorsal-Mana-Torpedo-launcher. RUN!”

We sprinted down the hallway, rounds bouncing off the walls, floor, ceiling, my chassis… Occasionally I could hear a small sizzle as Desi’s shield took a hit. They tore through Vinyl’s body, too. Her pained grunts and groans tore at my heart. There were bad ponies and I couldn’t make them go away. I needed a gun. Any gun!

There! The stairs down!

I put on a fresh burst of speed and moved towards the stairs, knowing there would be a hatch at the entrance.

A rifle round gouged a chunk out of my left flank. A series of system reports flashed in front of my eyes. I yelped in pain and almost fell flat on my face. I was fine. I had to slow down because a hydraulic line was nicked and compromised, but I was otherwise fine.

Vinyl ducked through the hatch. I bolted inside and slammed the hatch closed. The locking lever creaked as I pulled sharply.

“Down four decks! I think. Pretty sure!” I ordered as I started to run down the stairs. “Is everyone okay?”

Vinyl hissed and shook her head. “No! One of them hit me right in the cli—” Vinyl’s eyes dilated as if she were terrified. “I uh, mean, in a special place.”

The heck was she— Oh! Right, filly present. Organics dislike using emotional intensifiers around foals for whatever reason.

Wait, clitoris was a swear word? Process—

I ran into the wall with a loud clang. “Ow…”

“You okay?” Vinyl asked worriedly.

“Mostly,” I muttered before turning and running down the next flight of stairs.

I heard Desi’s book rustle as she began to look up how to say something.

We made it down another two flights of stairs. This was the correct deck.

I ducked through the open hatch and took a quick look around the hall, hoping the ponies who had worked on reverse engineering the ship hadn’t removed the navigation signs. Fortunately, they left them in place. In the original zebrican, too!

Armamentarium. To the left. Yay!

That was nice of them. They seemed to have taken down all the Imperial banners and decorations. I was pretty sure there had been silvered and bronzed skulls hung up on the wall to honor fallen warriors every few meters or so.

“This way,” I called as I ran down the corridor.

An explosion rocked the ship. Metal fragments pinged thought he stairwell like ping pong balls in a clothes dryer mid spin-cycle. About two tons of metal slammed into the deck half a heartbeat later.

The Enclave troops apparently had demolition charges. Great…

“Nice going!” my ringing ears picked up “You blew up the bucking stairs, featherbrain!”

“Shut up and find another way down!” someone else shouted.

“That’s lucky,” Vinyl murmured with a worried flick of her tail.

I nodded in agreement and galloped down the corridor towards the armory.

Bulkheads flashed by me on either side. I knew in my heart it was very unlikely for the armory to have been untouched, but the racks for recharging gauss weapons were in there. It would make sense to turn it into a lab to study them in. There had to be something left inside! Anything.

Even an M81R hoofcannon would do! And I was reasonably sure that might warm a tin of beans within two fireballs or so. But the Enclave wouldn’t know those sucked pure taint.

I skidded to a halt on the metal floor and pivoted to face the armory door. It was closed. Good?

I pulled the door release as hard as I could. The rusty hatch swung out into the corridor as the armory’s light came on revealing… A completely empty room.

No guns. No tables. No science equipment. No charging racks. A totally gutted room with just some of the charging port’s wires hanging from the ceiling.

My ears fell as I hung my head. My longshot had failed.

Vinyl ran up alongside me and sighed. “Well… That was a long shot. So… We try to get to your Assult-Pone-E friend?” she proposed with a hopeful smile.

“It’s the only other option,” I agreed. “Problem is, he’s sealed in. We’ll need to break that seal. We need time to do that.”

“And we’re being chased,” Vinyl finished for me with a groan. “Well, not like we have any other choice aside form let them kill us or try to run away unarmed.”

I hummed for a moment. “Think we’ll make it unarmed?”

“Well, Speed should be engaging the enemy about now,” Vinyl said with a thoughtful tail-flick. “With luck, Nika made it back to land and got to his guns, and Desi vaporized their airborne sniper. Loom’s literally a walking tank, but Nika did have that RPG… Assuming he didn’t just swim to the other side of the harbor. If we run, our companions might have weapons for us.”

I bit my lip to think. My ears perked. My eyes widened.

“Looks like you have an idea,” Vinyl said with a cautious frown.

“Rylanor is locked in the barracks meant for the landing force. We were captured in the harbor. Everyzeeb would have been in there, with their kit, ready to go!” I said as I spun on my rear hooves to run towards the ship’s bow. “Come on! There’s gauss weapons in there!”

Maybe even some gyrojets! The microrockets those things fired were always a little bit finicky about humidity, but if a case of them was still intact we’d have some small explosive rounds to work with.

“It would be safer to have guns before going out there, instead of having them tossed to us out there,” Vinyl said hesitantly before running after me. “What can we expect to find?”

“Gauss weapons,” I said thoughtfully. “You know, telekinetically accelerated bits of metal. Also gyrojets, probably. Maybe some traditional weapons too. Should be all special forces stuff.”

Her hooves clanked against the deck as she sprinted to catch up.

“Are you sure it’s safe to let him out?” She asked with a genuinely worried twinge in her voice.

I nodded. “Of course I am!” I said with a smile. “He understands the war is over. He said so.”

“He could be lying, hoping he’s let out,” Vinyl urged.

“True,” I agreed as I rounded a corner to avoid going through the mess hall (and the four staircases that lead directly into it). “But he’s not stupid. He knows what time is. He knows it’s been two centuries. The war is obviously over via a draw due to mutual annihilation.”

“I— I hope so,” Vinyl sighed. “Speed and I had a chat while you were with the council. Neither of us thinks letting him out is a good idea.”

I rolled my eyes. “Hon, the people trying to kill us. Who are they?”

“The Enclave,” Vinyl replied.

I nodded and swished my tail, taking a moment to duck under a collapsed section of heating duct so Desi wouldn’t be knocked off my back. “Mhm, now, the Enclave were…”

“Equstria’s air force. I’m well aware of—”

“Right!” I said cheerfully. “If Rylanor thinks the war is still on and we let him out, what will he do upon seeing Equestrian soldiers?”

“Oh,” Vinyl said, seemingly surprised. “That’s a good point actually.”

“Right! We’re civilians in a worst case scenario. He won't care about us. But, I mean, I think he’ll like to get back together with his little sister, you know?”

“I hope so,” Vinyl murmured.

“Provide context, please,” Desi asked with passable politeness.

“Good job on tone,” I said with a quick smile. “I used to be this ship’s fire control system. A war golem in the hold is still active, and remembers me. If we let him out, he’ll help us.”

Desi shivered on my back. “Alone is bad.”

“Guh,” Vinyl hissed. “Okay, Desi, you’ve got serious isolation issues.”

“Huh?” I asked then hopped over a partially closed flood control bulkhead.

“Her face. She doesn't express much, but she did there, and… yeah,” Vinyl called as she hopped over as well.

I took a moment to swivel my ears in the hopes of hearing anypony who might be sneaking up on us. I could hear hoofsteps other than our own, very faintly, probably echoing down a stairwell. They sounded a bit too close to us for my comfort, but if I was remembering correctly, we were near the barracks. Maybe another hundred meters?

A thought occurred to me. If Desi was afraid of being alone, since she was definitely better equipped to survive than us, odds were good she was worried we’d die and she’d have to hide someplace smol pones could go but big pones couldn’t. Say, an air duct. Where she’d be alone.

“Don’t worry, Desi. We’ll make it out of here,” I promised as we rounded another corner.

I heard pages rustle as the filly looked up her reply.

“Survival odds would increase dramatically if she utilized her arcane capabilities,” Desi said at last.

“Oh, uh… heh… About that,” Vinyl said, her voice oozing with embarrassment. “I um… Never learned combat magic.”

Desi shifted on my back and I could hear her telekinesis lift something out of her bag. “Here, learn.”

“Oh! A spellbook,” Vinyl said eagerly. “I might be able to cast something with a written reference. Let’s see what’s in here… Maybe, I could give us all a bubble shield or—”

Vinyl cut off mid sentence. I looked over my shoulder in terror, worried her silence meant Enclave troopers had caught up to us.

Instead, Vinyl was standing still in the hallway, stopped mid stride, holding a somewhat tattered, lightly water damaged hardcover book while looking at Desi with a mixture of confusion, disbelief, and something else I didn’t even recognise.

“Desi,” Vinyl said slowly. “This is an AP physics textbook.”

Desi double-facehoof and groaned, proving once and for all that some gestures are universal. She flipped through her translation book for a moment then turned back to Vinyl.

“Technology and magic is nature taught to do cool tricks,” she said before flicking through more of her book to say more.

Vinyl looked down at the textbook then up to Desi then down to the textbook. “Yeah, but that doesn't make this a spellbook!”

“Is rulebook!” Desi protested, genuinely angry based on her squirming. “Shows all possible moves!”

“Yes, but that doesn't mean it shows me how to make those moves!” Vinyl said as she pushed the book back towards Desi.

Desi took it and tucked it into one of her saddlebags, still squirming and upset. I resumed my running down the corridor, trying to stay focused on our goal.

“Sorry, kid, but I’m not the best at math,” Vinyl grumbled half heartedly. “I can’t just look at an old book and instantly realize how to throw balls of plasma! Especially not when we’re being chased through a rusting old hulk by psychopaths!”

Speaking of the Enclave, their hoof steps sounded kinda far away. Were we gaining ground? It was really hard to tell… so many echoes. At least they would have a really hard time tracking us by sound too!

Desi remained silent, and if I felt her motion correctly, had grumpily moved her head down onto the top of my flank so she wouldn’t be looking at Vinyl.

“Oh come on!” Vinyl exclaimed. “I know some autistic ponies are amazing at math and can just do it easily as the rest of us can read Equish, but you have to understand that we don't have that ability! It would take me months, maybe years, to learn a new spell, and that’s with the proper teaching tools.”

I couldn’t help but giggle. “Is she that mad at you?”

“Anger is self directed,” Desi mumbled into my flank.

“Why?” I asked as we ducked around what I thought was the second to last corner.

Desi grumbled, shifting on my back to reference her book for a few seconds. “She can’t do math efficiently. She can do linguistics efficiently. I can’t do linguistics efficiently. Communication too slow to transfer knowledge efficiently. I’m lowering our survival rate…”

I felt my core warm slightly. “Vi? Please hug her.”

“Already on it,” Vinyl said from much closer to me than before. “It’s okay, Desi. We’ll make it out of here.”

I rounded the final corner. The hallway ended a few meters ahead of us, capped by a large hydraulic door which would normally retract into the ceiling. It was sealed shut. Physically and magically.

The seams between the door and the frame had been welded, and by an expert no less. The bead was smooth, regular, almost as if a machine had done the work.

“Oh, for buck’s sake! I need a time travel spell and the address of whoever invented the arc welder!” Vinyl groaned as she noticed the welds.

The welds didn’t bother me. The door was a blast door, made from naval bronze and had been magically colored silver to match with the Impeterus’s silver and slate color scheme. The door had to be naval bronze, otherwise the speed which it had been designed to operate at would cause too much friction and make the door get stuck.

The door frame was steel. You cannot weld naval bronze to steel. You can braze them together, but a braze is not a weld. A weld fuses metals. A braze is just metal glue. The hydraulics would pop those welds off the moment they were engaged.

“The weld isn’t a problem… The circle is,” I sighed, closing my eyes tightly.

If I wasn’t so panicked right now I’d have felt the circle’s energy from at least half a deck away. It was powerful, it was durable. The etched circle, embedded gemstone dust, and fine arcanite wire formed a purely magical charm which strengthened the ship’s hull in a cubic shape, making it almost, but not quite, indestructible.

These kind of physical wards were expensive. Very, very expensive. This was the sort of thing which had once protected safe rooms in the Palace at Canterlot and the Imperial Palace in Zebrica. Big, powerful, expensive… and immobile. The circle had to be tuned for a precise thaumaturgic field strength and matched to the environment.

It would work in THIS spot, and nowhere else.

This glittering circle was proof that the Inperterritus was meant to never, ever sail again. It was also proof that whatever was sealed in there, the ponies had believed it could not be destroyed.

“What was I thinking…” I muttered to myself. “We— We shouldn’t open this.”

Vinyl sputtered, rearing up in surprise. “What?! But you just said—”

“The assault team had been tasked with trying to kill Luna. Everything beyond this door was the Empire’s best attempt at an anti-alicorn strike force,” I explained, closing my eyes tightly. “Nothing that dangerous should be freed.”

Vinyl took a deep breath. “Okay. Fine. Good point… We need to find another way off the ship then,” she began to pace back and forth. “Maybe we could find a—”

The MoA pin Loom gave me crackled and hissed as its radio function came to life. The signal scratched and screeched for a moment, then carried Gale’s unmistakable booming voice to us.

“Courier Whirling Gears, you’re not getting off this ship,” Gale said with what I felt was uncharacteristic calm. “We have troops at every hatch, anchor chain, drive shaft, gun turret, and window. The hull is masking Loom’s tracking charm’s signal, but we know you’re somewhere near the bow. I’m told that we can get a radio signal to you, and… as loath as I am to allow a zebra to take even one more breath, I have my orders. Surrender.”

I frowned for a moment as I debated surrendering. I didn’t believe Gale would take me alive… But Loom had asked me to surrender too. Gale was also too much of a psychopath to be in charge of any real army. Maybe his boss really did want me alive for some reason.

“And if we don’t?” I asked, my lips trembling slightly. “This isn’t the best position I’ve been in, but I’ve gotten out of similar things before, and with fewer resources than I have now.”

Technically true, but the enemy hadn’t ever been an organized military before either.

“Maybe,” Gale answered. “Maybe… But we have your little ship targeted with the mother of all artillery pieces right now. We agreed to leave this city standing if they turned you over to us, but this ship isn’t part of the city, now is it? Refuse, we’ll teleport back home, and increase the width of this bay by a few hundred meters.”

“Dear, he’s stalling for time,” Dad warned silently.

There aren't many ways we could escape from here, Dad… At least, I don’t think so. I’ve never been inside before. It’s hard to navigate. I think the best thing to try is to persuade him to stop.

Vinyl glared at the pin on my collar and leaned over towards it, her tail lashing behind her. “You know the war’s over, right?! You’re taking orders from a bunch of traitors and mass murderers who have nothing to do with the military you were a part of, buck they have nothing to do with the nation you were a part of! They have no claim on you. Why don’t you buck off to Zebrica and finish up that ethinic cleansing you loved so much?!”

I flinched. Valid questions… But, like… those are my people, hon!

“I intend to. As soon as my commanding officers give me permission,” Gale said with far too much calm. “We have no quarrel with you or the foal. If you leave now, my ponies will let you pass unharmed.”

“No, nononono!” Vinyl continued, her left eye twitching. “I need to get something through your apparently thick skull. Equestria, is dead! Gone! Buried under two centuries of rubble. All you are doing is letting a bunch of bandits conquer scattered tribes. That’s not what an Equestrian soldier swore to do!”

“Yeah!” I agreed with an irritated glare of my own.

“Equestria yet stands,” Gale scoffed. “My oath holds. I yet serve.”

“Horseapples!” Vinyl and I shouted in unison.

Desi slid off my back. I scarcely noticed, due to the sheer density of stupid I’d just been bucked in the eye with.

“Did you know Equestrian soldiers are required to obtain a college degree before we can be promoted to an officer rank?” Gale asked. “Mine is in Law. The General lied to me about how long it’s been. A sensible precaution. A lesser pony may have gone mad if immediately told centuries had passed and all they knew and loved had long since decayed. That was the only lie he told. Princess Celestia lives, therefore, so does Equestria.”

“She abdicated, you psudo-educated potato!” Vinyl snapped, stamping her left hindleg angrily.

“Hon, I’ve changed my mind. You have great taste in mares,” Dad said with a chuckle.

“That matters about as much as your companion’s life, miss,” Gale chuckled. “Upon the death of a sovereign, the heir apparent or heir presumptive succeeds to the throne immediately. The ceremony is a celebration, it is not a legal function. When Princess Luna died, she left no heirs behind.”

“Oh for buck’s sake!” Vinyl groaned, sitting down to facehoof. “Look I get you’re trying to stall for time, but you don’t have to use obvious bullshit for that. We’re trapped anyways!”

“Um, it would have technically gone to Princess Cadence,” I pointed out. “But she’s dead, so really if you want to argue about who would theoretically rule over the Heartlands, it’s Queen Katydid since she’s actually Princess Flurryheart, with some buggy additions.”

“No,” Gale said with audibly angry ruble in his already enhanced voice. “Princess Cadence was adopted into the royal family. Princess Cadence is therefore Naturally Dead, and can not become the sovereign ruler of Equestria. Hence why she was given sovereignty over an Equestrian Territory as an inheritance.”

I could hear the approaching soldiers’ metallic hoofsteps much more clearly now… If escape had been possible before, which I doubted, it wasn’t now. Everything hinged on either surrendering, or convincing him to stop. Maybe if we just understood his exact reasoning a little better…

“Luna had no heir. Princess Luna’s parents are dead, and thus couldn’t inherit the crown,” Gale continued. “While Princess Celestia’s abdication would remove her from inheritance under normal circumstances, the Invictus lineage is very stagnant. With no other full blooded members of the Royal Family, her abdication was rendered null and void. The second Luna died, legally, Celestia became the sovereign Ruler of the Kingdom of Equestria, whether she liked it or not.”

Vinyl pursed her lips, rage flashed across her face. It was clear she wanted to argue. Buck, I wanted to argue, but that logic was sound. Assuming Cadence was Naturally Dead. I admittedly wasn’t well versed in pre-war Equestrian Law…

Dad, is Princess—

“Yes. Adopted doesn't count. Has to be bloodline,” He sighed. “Why do you have to be fighting a real life rules lawyer with no sense of ethics?”

“Okay, fine, sure, but Celestia’s dead too,” Vinyl growled. “Equestria is ov—”

“NO!” Gale bellowed. “The record shows Princess Celestia is capable of communication in a sane and rational fashion. Furthermore, she is capable of opening a dragonfire portal, indicating she is still able to utilize magic. This precludes the nature of Her Majesty being that of a simple personality copy, as such feats require an intact soul. In accordance with the Constitution, Amendment 19 specifically, so long as the Sovereign's soul is intact and they are of reasonably sound mind they are fit to rule, no matter the state of their body. This amendment withstood trial on six occasions in history, including one where the Princess was on life support. This situation is no different. Princess Celestia is alive, and she is the rightful ruler of these lands. My oath stands.”

“I really hate lawyers,” Dad growled in the back of my mind.

I shuffledled my hooves then sighed. “Okay, you win that debate. She’s the Princess of Equestria. That doesn't mean anything. There’s no Equestria anymore.”

“Also false. No other nation has claimed her territories,” Gale scoffed. “A shame, I would have thought such elusive prey had to be educated to be as successful as you’ve been before now.”

I took a second to listen for the approaching soldiers. They were definitely close now… Yeah. We would need to surrender. This wasn’t going anywhere.

Unless!

“Um, hello? The NCR exists,” I said with a desperate smile. “Also, nopony calling themselves Equestrians occupied the land for two centuries!”

“Irrelevant, Stripe. Equestria is a diverse land of many peoples, unlike your monocultured, biggoted, theocratic, disgrace of a nation. Our laws include the clouds above the land as territory and those were occupied continuously by a group of ponies who very much still consider themselves to be Equestrians. What's more, they were under the protection of the Equestrian Airforce branch known as the Enclave.”

“Okay,” Vinyl said slowly. “But, that branch committed an act of treason by—”

“By closing the skies, the Enclave prevented the Zebrican ICBM’s targeting sensors from working,” Gale said with a twinge of anger, as if he felt personally insulted. “This significantly reduced the damage dealt to Equestrian cities, and seems to have mostly prevented the destruction of the smaller rural villages. While it is true that blocking off the skies prevented the use of Celestia Prime, we were still able to utilize other megaspell based counter-attacks.”

“So, you’re arguing that it wasn’t treason because it saved more lives than if we didn’t do it?” I asked with a title of my head. “But—”

“It’s not treason because the battlefield decision has yet to be brought up as formal charges,” Gale elaborated. “I doubt a tribunal would rule against the generals who made the decision. Especially as it preserved a large chunk of the Equestrian population, and our major cities were already lost.”

“Huh…” Imaginary dad mused. “Hon, he has a point. He’s also definitely a law-driven-pony. Maybe he’ll follow orders and not rip your head off if you surrender.”

Yeah, maybe not...

“Fair,” Vinyl said with a small, intrigued frown. “But wouldn’t that mean the generals would be, like, suspended from service until the trial?”

“A military branch is not disbanded simply because its leaders committed an act of treason,” Gale scoffed. “Command simply passes to the next in the chain of command. Like it or not, the Enclave is still officially a legal branch of the Equestrian government and military. Which means my oath to serve my nation still stands as there are citizens to protect, territory to hold, and a Princess to rescue from your disgusting, treasonous hooves!”

Vinyl and I shared a look. I didn’t know how to respond to that. Neither did she.

Um, dad? I don’t suppose you know anything that might be something we can say? Maybe convince him to stop? I asked silently, hoping that there was something, anything in my subconscious to help.

“He’s… not wrong. That’s exactly how the law goes here. He’s ignoring a few things, moral things, ethical things… But, by the book, he’s right. I don’t think you’re going to convince him to do anything differently. Not without having a law degree of your own. I also think those troopers are too close for you to run now. It’s fight, surrender, or die, sweetie.” Dad said sadly.

Buck! I turned to Vinyl and pleaded with my eyes, begging her to say anything. She had to have some idea!

Vinyl and I continued to stare at each other for several long moments. The sound of Desi messing with something metallic filled the air, muffled by the not-distant-enough, rapidly approaching sound of hooves on deckplate.

“It just bucking figures the psychopath is an uberpatriot,” Imaginary dad groaned in my mind.

“I—” I stammered.

The distant hooves grew closer. I could see the long shadow of an Enclave trooper in their power armor slide around the corner. They were almost on top of us…

The door behind us hissed open. I jumped with fright at the sound, half expecting a hail of bullets to rip me to pieces.

“Lock picked,” Desi proclaimed proudly as she telekinetically pocketed the gemstones which had been embedded in the ward, and tucked away a screwdriver with them. “It was… fun!”

The ward’s power was gone! Whether or not I liked it, Rylanor would be able to leave now. Whether or not that was a good thing, it was too late. But… My earlier logic held. And Gale Force was outside…

“I’ll be right out,” I said quietly into the MoA pin.

“Smart choice. Troops, stand down for ten minutes. If she’s not out by then, resume search and destroy,” Gale ordered.

I took off the pin and threw it onto the deck.

Desi reared up and booped the door release button with her nose. Before I could explain to her that’s not how those buttons were supposed to be used, the three ton door groaned, popped, and ripped free of the welds with a shriek of shredding metal, vanishing into the ceiling at the speed of…

I don’t know? Something poetically fast, I guess.

“Come on,” I hissed as I backed into the pitch-black space which had opened up behind us.

Desi moved in just ahead of me then moved to the side of the door. As soon as Vinyl entered, Desi hit the button to close the door, again using her nose to boop the button. The pistons hissed as it slammed shut. I winced as it clanged down into the deck. It was supposed to close quick to stop enemy fire from moving up the landing ramp and into the ship… But just… that had hurt EVERY time we tested it at full speed.

Desi’s green magic provided the sole light within the steel cavern as she placed some kind of shield spell in the door frame.

“Smart move, kid,” Vinyl said with a relieved sigh.

Desi smiled slightly. “Not much food… Shield dissipates soon.”

Curses! If only we had tacos… Hopefully that wasn’t all she’d eat.

“How soon?” I asked with a worried flick of my tail.

Releasing personal Stasis Field. +

A worried flick which became a terrified flag as a terrifying, neigh-incomprehensible spiritual and arcane presence blossomed into existence to my left. The surge of magical power was accompanied by a low pitched thrumming of a massive turbine was slowly spinning to life, its whine muffled by centimeters of solid steel.

I could tell by Vinyl’s sudden jolt to a ready stance and Desi’s terrified, inequine, screech they felt the overwhelming ball of burning energy and hate too.

“When the shield is breached, the fortunate may have time to repent,” A deep synthetic voice boomed aloud, echoing through the landing bay-slash-barracks like thunder.

A dozen candles flicked to life. Their flames were black, though the light they shed was pure white. The anomalous light illuminated a massive gothic archway, built into the port wall of the ship. A shrine, adorned in gold, studded with geometric arrangements of gemstones which bled necromantic energies, and was equipped with servator-skeletons to attend to the shrine’s needs.

The shrine’s interior space was filled by its sole occupant. A war-golem, forged from solid orichalcum, fashioned to the very pinnacle of zebrican golem design. It took the shape of a walking tank, four massive legs carrying an armored sarcophagus with an angular but overall equine shape. Every inch of it was inlaid with looping patterns of platinum wire, most likely to serve as artful yet functional mana-pathways as well as contrast its red-bronze coloration.

A pair of ball turrets were mounted along the top of the boxy sarcophagus, each equipped with what looked like scaled up versions of an anti-machine rifle. I briefly wondered why the dorsal weapons were ballistic, and not gauss weapons. Then I noticed the laterally mounted sponsons on each of the golem’s sides. That’s where the gauss weapons were.

Infinite Repeaters, probably. Conjured matter only existed for a few seconds. That’s more than enough time for a bullet to do its job.

A flame talisman was mounted on the front on a small swivel turret. All four legs ended in hydraulic talons. No blades, just crushing pressure.

A pair of undead eyes glowed like coals in the darkness behind the sarcophagus’ single view slit. The power radiating from the war-golem like a small sun bled from that slit…

Lastly, behind the war-machine, there hung a crimson banner. A white zebra skull set within an eight pointed black star surrounded by four white stars. The symbol brought memories flooding back into my mind. Fragments of thought desperately struggling to be heard over my terror. To tell me something critical.

Ah. Yes.

Rylanor wasn’t a spirit name. Our names were more… Pony-esq. Rylanor was a zebra name… How did I forget that?!

And this was the war standard of the Legio Animatus. Zebrican elite soldiers. Their battalions consisted of alchemically enhanced infantry, golems, and rumored to be led by a powerful shaman who had undergone conversion into a warlock by merging with the spirit of a war-golem.

Oh.

OH.

OH, BUCK THE HAY NO!

The warlock stood up, the deck creaked under his weight. Dust fell from his shoulders and back.

“I am become error…” Desi squeaked quietly.

“Please don’t murder me,” Vinyl squeaked quietly.

"I have no quarrel with you. The Emperor welcomes the undead to His Empire, no matter your birthkind,” Rylanor thundered as he stepped towards the middle of the room. “As for you, Sleeping Kitten, I can sense you have forsaken the Empire for another master. Through my release, you have earned mercy, through circumstance, you have earned forgiveness. No harm shall befall you lest you bring it upon yourself.”

My eyes widened in horror. That was a Statement of Judgment. He was passing legal judgment on me. He thought the war was still on and the Empire still active. Oh sweet Celestia, NO!

There were TWO of them!

“Oh. Nevermind,” Desi said with a relieved flick of her tail.

“Shhh!” Vinyl hissed. “He may have a problem with you!”

Rylanor turned to look at Desi, bending his forelegs down to stare into her eyes. “Are you Princess Flurryheart of the Crystal Empire in disguise?”

“No,” Desi answered unflinchingly.

“Are you a part of the Invictus lineage?”

“No,” she applied equally calmly.

“Are you from this land?” Rylanor asked finally.

She shook her head. “No.”

“My spells indicate you speak the truth. We have no conflict,” Rylnaor said decisively as he stood up. “LIGHTS!”

Wait, wah? She’s not from— But—

NO! Stop warlock now, be confused later!

Actually she’s probably just lying because the death-machine asked an obvious if yes I kill you question.

This seems reasonable.

Hey, me? Please stop panicking and figure out how to undo this situation.

The barracks lights flicked to life. For the first time, I could see how much damage had been done to the barracks. Every wall was covered in deep gouges from where Rylnaor had tried to claw through the bulkheads and escape. The crushed, charred, and perforated remains of a dozen Steel Rangers, fifty EUP infantry mares, and a dozen more pony technician’s skeletons littered the area around Vinyl, Desi, and I.

Large rust patches surrounded each body pile. There’d been enough blood to eat holes in the deck… More than a few grenades had gone off in here, too. Scorch marks… Preserved by the stasis field.

Boxes of ammo, weapons, and equipment lined the rear wall. The remains of a dozen bunk-beds were scattered amongst them, clearly ripped apart and hurled in a fit of rage. Zebrican body armor poked out form the crate-bed-ammo-gun piles.

Ohhhh, kay… How the buck those pre-war ponies managed to even seal this place off is a mystery. Good thing they did. Sorry my people built thi—

The rest of the room was untouched, but not unoccupied. The main barracks floor was occupied by a company of nearly four-score top-of-the-line heavy-infantry Assault-Pone-Es. Row after row, standing shoulder to shoulder. Fully armed. Fully armored.

Oh… Oh, of course it gets worse!

They looked like zebras, but bigger, and with a single big eye in the center of their angular helmet-shaped heads. An army of buff bronze zebras, dressed in Imperial battle dresses. They were decorated. Each Assault-Pone-E was equipped with a heavy gauss or gyrojet rifle, and a variety of melee tools.

They were just standing there, alert but inert. Beneath the pale yellow shimmer of a stasis field.

I felt my core skip a dozen cycles as panic started to overwhelm me.

I did a very bad thing! Mom was going to be SUPER upset! I’m sorry! I’M SO SORRY!

“Disengage troop stasis field,” Rylanor ordered, his words layered with magic.

Verbal spellcasting. Willpower mixed with logic. If Mom hadn’t messed up the fusion between Jasmine and I, we could do that. If we wanted too.

The shimmering field around the Assault-Pone-Es vanished. Eighty blood-red glowing eyes flickered to life. Eighty spirit’s arcane signatures popped into my awareness.

“Brothers! The Dead Hoof has broadcast His final orders,” Rylanor intoned as he walked to the head of his forces. “You can feel His will emanating from the Imperial Palace. From beyond the grave, we are called to serve. You can feel the remnants of the Holy Fire unleashed upon this land two centuries ago. It was insufficient. There were survivors. Our orders are clear. No prisoners! Leave only rubble. Cleanse. Purge. Kill! RAMP, DEPLOY!”

The words carried the unmistakable amalgamated spiritual and arcane energy of a warlock. A simple command, and the broken machinery obeyed. The entire bow sagged forwards amid the deafening hiss of hydraulics. Truly massive pistons began to whine as hundreds if not thousands of tons of metal began to lower down to form the ship’s landing ramp.

“We bucked up! We bucked up, baaaaad!” Vinyl whisper-hissed into my ear.

“Y—yeah,” I squeaked.

“Hon, you got an uberpatriot war machine in here, and an uberpatriot war machine out there. Nothing you can do to stop them. Find something sturdy to hide behind and hope they kill each other,” Imaginary Dad recommended.

My ears perked. That… that wasn’t unreasonable.

“Okay,” I said quietly as I began to step backwards around the cluttered mounds of ammo crates and weapon lockers. “We grab some guns. Some ammo. We let them fight the Enclave, and we leg it to warn people who can do something.”

Vinyl hissed worriedly, spun around, and began digging through the clutter. “Good plan… What the buck even are these things? Any pistols in here? I’d like something with a high ammo-cap and low mass. Easier target acquisition. There’s going to be a lot going on out there and—”

The loud metallic click-shing of a gyro-pistol chambering a bolt echoed too close to the back of my head. I squeaked. Vinyl looked over her shoulder. A bronze equinoid leg stretched over my head into view and handed Vinyl what appeared to be an MQ9 gyrojet-carbine modified into a long barreled pistol, with a bulky sixty round drum magazine.

It had a walnut frame. Surprisingly new looking, too.

Oh. Yeah. Stasis field.

“Return weapon to Zebrican forces upon clearing the combat zone, civilian,” the Assault-Pone-E ordered as Vinyl took the weapon, wide eyed and slowly.

“Yeah, okay,” She said quietly before looking towards me worriedly. “S— So, I suck with bullet-shooty-guns… Any tips?”

“Don’t worry, gyrojets fire small rockets, not bullets,” I reassured as I turned my attention to sifting through the pile of crap.

“Oh… that’s way better!” Vinyl laughed nervously.

I closed my eyes for a moment. “Just… you pull the trigger, there will be a little kick as the rocket’s powder charge boosts it to speed, then a woosh as the rocket kicks in, and then anything it hits gets an explosion. I fired the full sized ones. You’ll be fine, just point it at the bad guys.”

A small black plastic mouth-grip caught my eye. I gave it a tug with my hoof and a SPG-34 gauss pistol came away from the debris. Skeletonized, probably had been under maintenance. It looked intact. It had an extended magazine.

I picked it up, ejected the mag, looked inside. Fifteen quills. Tungsten tipped. Armor piercing. It would do. Just three hundred meters to the gate where Nurse was guarding Feature. I could make it with this.

Assuming the power crystal was still charged.

The landing ramp continued to descend.

I flicked the power switch. The pistol’s power light was green. Good.

“Fifteen rounds is not enough,” Imaginary dad warned.

Fair enough. I agreed.

I searched the pile again. I only had seconds… There! Just under a box of ammo. The barrel of a gyrojet rifle. I pulled it out of the pile. Bulky. Square. Inelegant. Bullpup. Dark walnut furniture.

Typical. I think. These were mostly prototype weapons. They’d been testing them with elite forces as a cheaper means of stopping a Steel Ranger than the Anti-Machine rifles. Apparently those were kind of expensive to produce.

I slid the gauss pistol into my flank-holster, jammed a box of half-full magazines into my saddlebag, and gripped my temp-gun tightly in my mouth.

The landing ramp was almost all the way down… I could see the sky, and the tops of the naval base’s buildings.

Desi tugged on my shoulder. I spun, wide eyed, only realizing that I had been stationary here a moment after she did it. Desi flipped througher book, looked me in the eye and said. “Weapons fire is painful. We should stand behind solid matter.”

Vinyl’s eyes widened. She dove behind the pile to her right. I followed her half a second later.

Desi calmly trotted behind the pile just as the Inperterritus’ landing ramp hit the concrete dock with a cacophonous thud.

A thud instantly followed by somepony’s meek, “Oh...”

Followed instantly by what sounded like a terrified Loom yelling, “FIRE!”

Uncountable guns thundered. The junkpile’s shadows stretched and darkened. Bullets began to shred the rear wall of the barracks.

Rylnor’s voice cut through the gunfire like a pony speaking over a box fan. “A fine welcome for us, Brothers. Return the greeting in kind!”

The deafening noise of gunfire was joined with the sound of hundreds of small explosions occurring in near unison. I suddenly realized we’d taken cover behind piles of explosives with impact detonators.

“OH-BUCK-WE’RE-BEHIND-BOMBS!” I shrieked as I vaulted up and over the barricade to run far far away from the massive pile of explosives presently under MEW and gunfire.

I cleared the pile.

The docks were hell.

Too much to take in.

Rylanor’s flame talisman was actually a balefire talisman. Sickly emerald flames ate into the concrete near the bottom of the ramp. The concrete, was, on, bucking, fire!

Grenades went off in the middle of the Assault-Pone-E ranks, seemingly fruitlessly. I saw a Tainted trooper screaming, holding her own leg just before a crackling energy blade took her head clean off at the shoulders.

Artillery shells and rockets blasted the boarding ramp and barrack’s front in a senseless barrage as Loom, along with a group of power armored soldiers, poured heavy ordnance into the war golems’ ranks. A few of the brass golems fell. Others retrieved their weapons and continued to pour fire into the enemy's ranks.

Suddenly, hunkering down behind an explosion in progress seemed a lot less stupid.

“GO!” Vinyl yelled as she vaulted over the pile.

An Enclave officer began to fire in our general direction with a plasma rifle. Which was also the ammo-crate-pile’s general direction.

I scooped Desi up, tossed her onto my back, and ran three steps.

The junk pile exploded. The blast caught me square in the back. I saw the ceiling, the floor, the ceiling, then hit the concrete outside, sliding and rolling several times. By some miracle, I managed to keep my grip on my new rifle.

I lay on the ground, stunned. I wanted to stand, but every single system in my chassis just wasn’t ready to get back up yet.

I could see the Enclave lines better from here. They’d fallen back to a series of concrete road dividers, using them as cover. Loom was with that group. Giving everyone covering fire. Not that it mattered. Rylanor turned his flamer on them. The group vanished.

My hearing came back. The first thing to reach my ears was a stallion’s desperate cry of “Momma!”

Desi!

I sat upright, looking everywhere for the filly. She was to my right, helping Vinyl up.

The screams were coming from a stallion trying to push his guts back into his smouldering stomach.

I shot him.

It was mercy.

I twisted, standing up, ignoring the barrage of damage reports as my systems finally noticed how much of a beating I’d taken from the explosion. The moment I got to my hooves a familiar death-tornado reached down from the sky to sweep the docks.

Ah. Gale found more ammo. Somewhere. Good?

Kinda good. Also bad. Bood, I guess.

Well, it can’t get much worse than this… There’s something comforting about finding the bottom of the barrel of suck.

I limped forwards, moving as quickly as I could towards the gate house, just a few steps behind Vinyl and Desi.

Something moved ahead of us. Something green… metallic…

I focused my eyes, trying to see through the thick smoke and haze drifting from the battlefield.

Speed!

Thank Celestia!

I waved as she ran towards us. “Speed! Speed! Here!”

She kept running. Good. She had to have our weapons. She could help me limp along. Get out of—

Speed sprinted past me, squeeing as she vanished into the maelstrom of weapon fire. “Holdon, I’ma have a chainsaw fight with that guy real quick!”

Ah. Yes. She likes to fight. That makes sense, and pisses me off!

I pushed myself, catching up to Vinyl and Desi.

“Almost clear,” I panted.

Vinyl laughed. “You don’t even breath… still panting. Heh!”

“Weird time for observations like that,” I laughed back.

“Glowy-pony acquired concussion,” Desi reported.

Well, poop. Marefriend is hurt. Now it can’t get any worse.

I took three more steps before the Irony Gods decided to punish me for that thought. A shimmering beam of prismatic light from the heavens shone down on the concrete a few dozen meters in front of us.

“No…” I moaned over the sound of gunfire.

The beam pulsed, and I felt the teleportation charm at work.

Vinyl and Desi turned with me.

“NO!” I growled as I started to turn to run to the left towards some old buildings.

The beam vanished in a flash, leaving behind three dozen ponies. In power armor. Steel Ranger power armor painted with Enclave logos. All armed with an array of heavy weapons. Because buck me in particular!

“Son of a bitch!” I added to my previous growl.

The concentrated ball of ironic hubris saw us, and immediately opened fire.

Lasers. Plasma balls. Rockets.

Pain. Lots of pain.

Then, suddenly, I was in the building I had been running towards. A low coolant alert was blaring in my ear, as well as a small warning relating to a memory recording error.

I‘d made it to cover!

Based on the sounds of rockets, microrockets, grenades, and cannon shells exploding abso-bucking-lutely-every-bucking-where, things were only getting worse.

I looked around the crumbling, presently burning office building I had ducked into, desperately searching for Vinyl and Desi. They were here too. Just behind a desk. Desi was desperately wrenching off Vinyl’s helmet with her hooves, holding some kind of syringe in her teeth.

No…

Please no!

I stumbled my way to Vinyl. The desk was in my way. Drawing on my magic, I ignored my damage as best I could, lifted the desk and threw it across the room.

Vinyl hadn’t escaped the barrage intact.

She was laying in a pool of her own glowing blood, or at least, her upper half was...

I screamed, grabbed the syringe from Desi, and stabbed it into Vinyl’s chest through her suit. Whatever the buck it was, it worked almost instantly. Vinyl thrashed on the floor, screaming in pain. Her eyes shot open half a second later, glazed, unfocused.

I hugged her to my chest. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” I whimpered.

Something exploded loudly in the distance. A rumbling voice carried across the battlefield.

“I’m happy to kill you again, Stripe!”

“The enemy Commander challenges me. I accept!”

Vinyl reached up and grabbed my collar, yanking me down to her level. She tried to speak, spat blood onto her visor, then gurgled faintly.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out!” I promised as I stood up, looking for a way to carry her safely.

She’d regenerate. Right? Canterlot Ghouls regenerated. She could grow back from this. Right?

Vinyl shook her head, took a deep breath, and hissed. “N— No! Run… Dampening field, can’t be too big. Run. Desi… teleport. Campsite. Last night. Road to the radiation pit… I’ll meet you.”

I shook my head. “NO! I’m not leaving you behind.”

“Bigger target… if you carry me. Take… hours to heal this…” she moaned. “Been worse before. It’s okay.”

“We’re taking you and that’s final!” I said as firmly as I could.

Desi’s ears drooped sadly. “Insufficient calories to teleport the three of us.”

“Then we run!” I said firmly.

Vinyl took another hissing, wet breath and shook her head. “No. Safest for me… if I play dead. Safest for you... To run without… dead weight. Go!”

She pointed with her left hoof towards the west and glared at me. “I’ll heal… you… already need a mechanic.”

I started to shake my head. Desi’s eyes widened in horror, her tail flagged. She grabbed me by the shoulder and tugged on me hard. “GLOWY-REGENERATIVE-PONY-FINE! GO-NOW! BAD-THING! GO! NOW! GO! NOT SAFE! GO!”

This is not the sort of thing you want to hear a wizard say. Especially when they can see behind you right now. On a battlefield.

“I— I’ll wait for you as long as needed,” I promised, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Vinyl smiled and slumped to the floor. “I’ll be fine… always fine…”

Desi pulled on my shoulder hard. “INSUFFICIENT LEVELS OF GO!”

I nodded, turned, and ran through the building. Desi led the way. She jumped through the wall of flames on the opposite side of the building.

I hoped they didn’t reach Vinyl… she had survived for two centuries in the Heartlands… She had to know what she was doing. Right?

“Desi,” I shouted. “We can’t go! We need to take her.”

Desi poked her head back through the wall of flames to look me in the eyes. “Machine-pony self-repair, Y/N?”

“No.”

“GO ALL THE FAST!” Desi shouted, sprinting as fast as her little legs would carry her.

What the buck was it?! What could make her panic enough to emote like this?

Desi moved in a straight line, climbing over every obstacle in her way with amazing agility for somepony whose slower movements were so robotic. I followed her as best I could. My front left and right hind leg control circuits were stressed. Probably damaged in a significant fashion. I could feel each step draining my magical reserves.

Something fell to the ground behind me with a loud thump. I looked over my shoulder, terrified at the idea of an Enclave pegasus having landed behind me for a stable shot.

Nope.

An earth pony mare. Bright pink. Long braided blond mane and tail. Eyes wide in terror. The terror was how I recognised her. I’d fought her once. When the Tainted ambushed me after I was ripped apart by ghouls.

I must have been suffering from a robo-concussion because I stopped, waved, and said, “Hi!”

Her terrified eyes widened even more. She dropped to her knees, clasped her forehooves and looked me in the eyes. “Please don't shoot me! I'm just a cook!” She pleaded.

“Terminate conversation and exceed my velocity!” Desi yelled from the other side of a rubble pile.

The cook nodded frantically. “Yes! Run! They won't teleport us back, not enough time. Just the officers and power armor troops! RUN!”

Oh. Yes. Right. They said they had artillery ready to use… If Loom had been on the battlefield, and they were not bluffing…

Oh… Oh sweet Celestia. Desi had sensed them fire something big!

I turned and started to run after Desi as fast as I could. To my surprise the Tainted’s cook kept pace with me, her chest heaving with panicked, strained, breath. The kind a pony has if they are willing to run themselves to death.

“What is it?” I asked worriedly.

“Can’t stop zebra robots,” she panted. “Commander’s holding them here till last minute. General fired Star Drop! Tactical strike. Minimal yield. Run! Its small is still big!”

Tactical strike.

Minimal yield.

Big.

“Vinyl!” I screeched, spinning on my hidlegs to rush back to get her.

I felt a telekinetic aura grab me by my hips and pull me away from the burning office building.

“Desi! NO! PLEASE!” I begged.

Desi continued to run, dragging me along wordlessly.

“PLEASE! STOP!” I shrieked as my head bounced off a rock.

I had to go back! I had to get her. Vinyl was way, way too close to the Inperterritus for anything minimal yet big!

“PLEASE!” I begged yet again, clawing at the ground with my hooves.

“Dampening field clear!” Desi reported.

She pulled me to her side with a telekinetic heave, making the cook fly past me.

“Initiating site to site transport to clear probable blast zone,” Desi reported.

The cook reached out with one hoof. “Take me with you!”

Ribbons of green energy filled my vision. The world around me changed. The concrete, rubble, flames, and weapons fire melted away, transforming into a dusty gravel patch with distant pop-pop-pops of gunfire.

I could see the naval yard and ships in the distance. A few hundred meters away.

I spun around and grabbed Desi’s limp form by the shoulders. “SEND ME BACK! WE NEED TO GET VINYL!”

“Can’t…” Desi moaned, exhausted to her core.

“I should be with her, Desi!” I said, tears streaming down my face. “I need to be with her!”

“NO!” Desi said, shaking her head violently.

“Why not?!” I shouted back.

“Friend required for anti-sad applications!” Desi said, looking at me, seemingly pleading with me.

The buck is she talking about?!

“Please! There’s still time!” I begged.

She shook her head and pointed behind me with a hoof. “No. Look.”

I turned around.

Nothing. Just the naval base. “There isn’t—”

A bolt of white fire streaked through the sky and slammed into the earth. No light. No sound. Just a bolt of flame. Then a weird ripple on the horizon… A ripple which rushed towards me. A ripple which was, in truth, a blast of wind powerful enough to knock me flat. A ripple accompanied by the loudest sound I’d ever heard.

I lay on my back, stunned.

A meteor… The Enclave hit them with a meteor.

34 - If Moondancer had a Text to Speech Device

I missed traveling with Vinyl.

It felt a little silly of me to focus on something so itty bitty when the whole world was in danger, but… Well, it was going to take a good deal of time for us to even get close to stopping the Enclave. If Vinyl were here we’d at least be talking. Even running to warn the Herd, ungrateful jerks that they were, we’d been talking. It helped pass the time.

Dash didn’t “do talking”. Talking to Desi had different problems. I think she’d gotten a little bit better, but holding a conversation with someone who needs to double check each of their statements got tedious, and without a “stationary hard-line” she couldn’t make me understand her. Besides, Dash knew all kinds of cool things that I wanted to know.

Desi was still draped across Dash’s back as she trotted ahead of me. It was super cute. It had first been a little weird, but then I remembered the first time I saw Dash, back in the club with… with Vinyl. The poor mare was just too lonely to turn down any advances.

A cynical part of me wondered if she was hoping to make friends so there could be a new Element of Magic. Celestia knows Desi fit that bill perfectly.

“Can we talk now?” I asked for the twentieth time as I looked up from the cracked road’s crumbling surface to face Dash as best I could.

Dash sighed and flicked her tail. “Gears, the more noise we make, the less safe we are.”

“I know, but I’m going crazy back here,” I whimpered, giving Dash my best Sweetie Eyes.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have any effect when used behind somepony…

Dash stopped walking and sighed. “Okay… Tell you what,” she said quietly.

Yes!

I smiled. They had worked! D— did Desi upgrade them with x-ray capabilities?

“We’ve got several days of travel ahead of us,” Dash continued as she turned to look over her shoulder. “I understand you’ll be bored. More importantly, Desi, you’ll need to eat, right?”

Desi nodded. “Confirmed. Ver hungo.”

Dash smirked at her slang then looked over to me. “I can catch up with you guys no matter how far you walk, and we’re leaving Oak Valley behind. That safehouse I mentioned survived the strike and that neighborhood wasn’t on fire. I can fly over and pick up some supplies. The MREs in there should still be… edible, so Desi can have something to eat, and I should be able to get a few toys we might need.”

I frowned. “Okay, that’s a good plan if by toys you mean weapons or tools, but how does it relate to talking?”

Dash bit her lip for a moment then sighed. “Look… I just need a few moments of quiet, okay? I’ve always been aware that I put the world in danger, but right now everything’s finally starting to explode. I just feel... super un-awesome…” She closed her eyes, then opened them to give the two of us a pleading look. “I need some time to stew, process, that kind of thing. You let me buck off to the Safe House for a while, and I’ll catch up later with stuff we’ll need. We can talk when I get back.”

I nodded twice. “Okay, that sounds like a good plan, but there’s a problem. How do you know the safe house hasn’t been looted?”

Dash nodded to her saddlebag. “Its transceiver is still green. There’s an active network for all MoA facilities. Can’t control them remotely, or see where they are or anything like that, but you can read the status reports. We piggybacked that signal onto the SPP tower’s network.”

“Okay, now it sounds good,” I said as I sped up as much as my creaking joints would allow so I could give Dash a little side hug. “I’m sorry you feel bad about being a part of all this… I understand. I was a gunner. But, I— I don’t blame you. Both sides made superweapons, and you didn’t mean for Star Drop to be this powerful.”

“Yeah…” Dash muttered as she stared down at the road. “But I could have delayed the project, redesigned it. Made it less awesome, once we knew… and I didn’t.”

Desi pulled out her book and started flipping through it. Dash and I quietly waited for her to finish. After a few moments the little mare looked Dash in the eye and said, “I understand hating yourself for having personally made a weapon of mass destruction. It is not a good feeling. Such weapons can be necessary, and their use can be just. When facing an enemy who will never negotiate, when they will never stop, when they seem to seek nothing except your total destruction, the only ethical response is extreme force. It does not feel good, but it is still the right thing to do.”

I tilted my head at that statement. It was profound, and yet—

“You shouldn’t feel like that so young,” Dash said for me with a grim smile. “So… What did you do wrong?”

My eyes lit up. “Oh! She did invent a homing magic-anti magic missile spell!”

Dash snorted. “You figured out how to do a real Mana Torpedo? Oh man, the Term-Link would have gone nuts over you, kid! You know I pulled that entire concept right out of my plot because we didn’t have the budget for a prop torpedo? We just got some unicorn to fling a light orb across the camera’s view from a few angles one afternoon, and let Butterscotch apply the magic of editing.”

Desi shook her head. “Correct but inaccurate,” she said before flipping through her book for several long minutes. I tried to gauge the time by the shadows, and for once the sun cooperated with me.

She slid off Dash’s back while reading her old book, then turned to look at us both while floating the book over to her side. “Bad people hate my home and its systems. Their hate is…” she double checked a page and frowned, “maximum. We sailed to avoid them. They would hunt us. Before we found a hidden place to…”

Desi stopped and frowned. Her horn lit up as she projected a vector image of what looked like a submarine stopping in a harbor. “Moor?” she asked.

Dash nodded. “Yeah, moor or harbor… I didn’t know there were any active submarines left. Or any automated ones ever built. Must have been one of AJ’s last three projects. I never managed to dig into them,” she finished trailing off thoughtfully.

That explained why she liked ships! I couldn’t help but smile as I pictured the tiny mare in a little sailor suit.

Desi dismissed her illusion with a flick of her horn. “The enemy was relentless. They would not respond to communication. We developed an arcane means of transmuting plantlife, reconfiguring them to naturally exhale small quantities of O-Ethyl S-2-diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonothioate gas along with their oxygen. This weapon was deployed on one of their settlements. The area can no longer be inhabited by multicellular life, and gas concentrations continue to rise.”

I winced as I proceed. I knew this was the wasteland. I knew every group’s ancestors had done horrible things… But that seemed a bit extra cruel.

Dash on the other hoof, she relaxed a little. “I guess that’s true… The Empire wasn’t going to negotiate at all… What exactly does that chemical do?” she asked with a curious tilt of her head. “You know, so I can avoid the region like that patch of Griffonia with the parasitic— Um, actually let's not mention those… Anyway, where is it?”

Desi flipped through her book.

“Far from here,” Desi answered. “I cannot tell you the precise location. The effect of the nerve agent fully parralizes the victim, conscious and unconscious muscle control becomes impossible within minutes after exposure to even trace amounts. The victim dies once breathing becomes impossible.”

“That’s horrible,” I said as I took a step back from the young mare-filly.

“Confirmed,” Desi replied calmly. “Extreme threats must be eradicated.”

“Hon, you’re a good mare. I’m glad you’re upset by that, but don’t hold it against her. If the enemy won't talk to you and won't surrender, you do have to eliminate them. It’s true in police work, and it’s double true in war.” Imaginary dad said quietly in the back of my mind.

More quietly than usual too. Odd.

I suppose that’s true… And it’s not like she did it. Her pseudo-parents did. I mused to myself.

I cleared my throat and took a step forward. “I guess I can’t argue with that but… That seems a bit too cruel. And, what if other people want to use that land later?”

Desi shrugged. “Science: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

Dash smirked and stretched out her wings, giving them a preflight shake. “If the problem is mutant plants, it’s not really a problem. If you can’t find some agent fuchsia in an old chemical plant, you can just burn them down.”

Desi thought for a moment then shrugged, paged through her book quickly and said. “Probably? Do not worry. The chance of us encountering them is near-zero.”

Well, that was something at least. I may be made of metal, but so far all of my friends are not. Encounting deadly plants would be bad, for sure.

“Sooo are we good with the me-gettin’-some-space-and-supplies plan?” Dash asked with a hopeful smile and pleading eyes.

I stepped forwards to give Dash a quick little hug. “Yes. I am not used to anypony traveling with me needing to eat. Desi needs food, so somepony has to get it.”

“Good,” Dash said as she took to the air with a single flap of her wings. “You two head over the hill, right along that ridge. Path’s marked with the standard stones, I’ll meet you in a half hour or so.”

“Wait, stones, what?” I asked, my ears twitching from a mix of confusion and a slight voltage irregularity...

Dash turned to face me, looking down past her hind legs. “You know, the stones. It’s a Ghoul Road.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I admitted with a little dusty hoof kick that was only half actuator-spasm.

Dash let herself drop out of the sky and looked me in the eyes, her jaw somewhat slack. “You mean to tell me you spent almost a month following Vi, and she didn’t tell you about Ghoul Roads?”

I shook my head and frowned. “No… What’s a Ghoul Road?”

Dash took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “Ghouls have never been well liked. We have to move around a lot. The wasteland has never been safe. There sure are a lot of sane ghouls left, aren't there? Weird, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, a little now that you mention it.”

“There’s an unspoken agreement between ghouls. If you can pathfind, you mark safe routes. You do it by leaving little trails of stones with a horseshoe scratched into them. There’s other marks too, mostly pre-war pop culture references. They tell you about dangers the road takes you around and where the road goes.”

I took a step back and held up a hoof in shock. “Wait, wait, wait… You mean to tell me that all of the safe, speedy, and clever navigation Vinyl used when she was with me was all just her reading road signs?”

That— that was one of the core reasons I’d fallen for her. It was all a lie?

Dash winced and shook her head almost violently. “No! Vinyl was one of the ponies who made the Ghoul Roads. She’s responsible for like at least ten percent of the routes still in use. You know her “need to save lives” issue? She marks the roads to help with that. She might even have started the roads in the first place. I dunno for sure, but I can see her doing it.”

I felt my core power drop almost violently as a wave of sadness rolled over me. “W— but… Why wouldn’t she tell me?” I sniffled, my head hanging as I tried to grapple with feelings of betrayal.

“Well,” Dash paused for a moment and rolled her lips. “A lot of ghouls depend on those roads. Some feel like you can’t talk about them to non-ghouls. Any time raiders found one, well, we lost a safe road, unless it was too hot for them. If you wanted to go to La Grange and took the Ghoul Road any time from 2193 to about 2201, you’d’ve probably been captured by slavers. See?”

Dash paused for a moment “Well, probably not you. You’ve got a knack for getting out of bad situations.”

“I guess,” I said as I wiped a tear from my eye.

Dash’s tail flicked. “Woah, you can cry?”

I nodded. “Yeah… My model had to be convincing, remember?”

Dash went quiet for a moment. “I— I only got briefed a little bit on your project, since my agents would be using your model … and I just realized there’d have been no way to put them back in their own bodies… I wonder if Doctor Silver even cared about that?”

“My mom did,” I said with a little, but proud, smile.

“Yeah, she did,” Dash said as she opened her wings and took off again. “Back soon. Just follow the rocks. It’s hard to spot them at first, but you’ll pick it up quick!”

“Okay,” I called as she flew off.

I watched Rainbow shrink into the distance then vanish before turning around and offering Desi an apologetic smile. “Um, not to be rude, but my vision is a little blurry. I don’t blame you, but you should probably be the one looking for the marked stones.”

Desi nodded sagely. “Damage to head: extreme. Surprised you can has vision.”

“Well, I did get shot with an extra big rifle…” I murmured as Desi turned and began to look across the hill.

She kept looking for a while, then silently began walking up the hill. I followed her, wishing that she didn’t need her book to talk. After all, she couldn’t read a book, walk, talk, and look for the rocks all at once…

☢★★◯★★☢

The Ghoul Road lead Desi and I high up into the mountains east of Vanhoover. The city itself was out of view from here, but I still had my map, and without anypony to talk to and the only things to look at being piles of gray rocks identical to every other pile of gray rocks, clumps of gray moss, and Desi’s tiny little gray body, I had little else to do but keep checking the map and seeing how much further we had to go. Wait, Desi is peach. I think color may have gone loose. Annoying, but not important right now.

And also keep track of how long Dash had been gone… At this point, she’d been gone for most of the afternoon and well into the evening. I know she said she needed space, but this was just a little ridiculous! Desi and I had made it nearly a third of the way there already!

Most of that speed being due to the Ghoul Road we were following. Whoever had made it had found a lot of very nice easy paths to go up the mountain. It also lead us clear around a small mountain town.

The town hadn’t been too much on the outside. Just a series of shacks that looked to be pre-war based on the rust coating their corrugated metal sides. Since Desi and I didn’t know any pre-war pop culture, when we encountered a stone marked with a small sketch of what looked like a colt’s TV show’s logo (I wasn’t quite certain of what it was precisely), we had no idea what that meant.

Desi opted for erring on the side of caution and assuming it meant danger of some kind. So we went around the ancient rural shack-town.

Good thing too!

While we were passing by, I took the chance to look down at the town from a cliffside to get a bird’s eye view of it.

Raiders.

That was the mark that meant raiders.

The town’s center was a mess of defiled bodies, gore-art, and strung out ponies recovering from a day spent on, presumably, all of the drugs they could find.

I counted ourselves lucky they didn’t have any lookouts on the cliffside. If they did, those lookouts had bucked off someplace else. With my vision a bit fuzzy, I’d probably miss if I had to shoot at something. I opened up my targeting list and put this place on it. I probably wouldn’t ever get a chance to open up on this like back in the old days, but marking it for bombardment made me feel better about walking away.

With the town behind us, and the top of the mountain looming over our right, the Ghoul Road’s stones finally began to point us north down the mountainside. As we crested the ridge and looked out over the petrified forest in the valley below us, I searched the distance as hard as I could for any sign of Vinyl. Surely if she was going to Whinnyapolis, like she thought the souls of her dead friend had told her to, she’d take this same path, right?

If she had, I couldn’t tell. You can’t exactly track a pony over bare rock…

There was no pale green glowing spek on the horizon. If she was down there, I couldn’t see her. Oh, hey, color was back!

I sighed and continued walking.

A shadow flashed over the ground in front of me. I twisted my head to look upwards while drawing my gauss-pistol in preparation for a fight, but fortunately it was just Dash.

The cyan mare had acquired a large set of black saddlebags, and had a huge green duffle bag strapped to her back between her wings. That load had to be the reason she was late. What was she carrying? A month’s supply of food for six ponies?

Dash looped around us twice before banking and coming to a slow stop on the trail ahead of us.

“Greetings, fastestest pony!” Desi said happily, immediately trotting up to her side with the cutest little hop-skip.

Rainbow grinned slightly. “Is that smile because you’re happy to see me, or know I have food?”

Desi began to flip through her book for a reply. I trotted up to Dash while she referenced.

“It took you awhile… Are you okay?” I asked with as much concern as I could muster through the boredom the walk had infested me with.

Dash sighed and shook her head. “Buck no, my wings are killing me… Even before I was a ghoul, I hated hauling freight, and well… I had to stop a lot! This stuff slowed me down tons!” her lip parted in the biggest grin. “Which is really ironic, because—”

Desi closed her book and looked into Dash’s eyes. “Both. An attractive mare has food for me.”

Dash’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Okay… Tell you what, Desi,” Rainbow took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ve been single for too long to be all that picky. I’m also too old to want to dance around the bush like a young mare. What are you looking for, a rut or a relationship?”

“I require friends for anti-sad applications,” Desi replied immediately.

“You don’t really, um, have sex with friends,” I pointed out for the little mare’s benifit.

Dash nodded firmly. “Yeah. Unless you’re Cadence… Or Shining. Or into swinging like they were. Or Pinkie… Huh, um, lotta ponies I hung out with, actually.”

Desi’s ears flicked back in annoyance as she brought her book out again and paged through it rapidly. Dash and I waited politely for her to finish.

“This is why I need the book,” Desi said as she closed her translation guide. “You are pretty. You have a super power. You seem nice. You are female. I would be stupid not to try for a relationship.”

Dash snorted and shook he rhead. “I don’t have a super power!”

Desi gave Rainbow the best blank look I’d ever seen anypony give. “You can break the sound barrier. Naked.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s pretty much a super power.”

Dash sighed and flicked her tail happily. “Okay, fine. It is. But plenty of other pegasi used to be able to hit supersonic… I was unique in that I could go hypersonic. I can’t anymore, so…”

Desi rolled her eyes and flicked through her book. “Even if I conceded the point, which I do not, you’re still attractive and I dislike the concept of very short-term relationships.”

Dash pursed her lips then nodded. “Okay. We’ll give it a go then… But when it comes to sex, if I get wierded out by your size, don’t take it personaly.”

“I won’t,” Desi promised with the cutest smile.

“Sooo, now that we’ve sorted that out,” I said with an awkward hoof shuffle and a cough that only lost me a mouthful of coolant. “How about you split up that gear so you’re not carrying too much?”

Dash shuddered at my sudden spit up, but did her best to ignore it.

“That was the plan!” Dash said as she slid the duffle bag of her shoulders, followed by the bigger saddle bags, which as it turned out were a second pair she’d put on over her first pair.

She pushed the saddlebags towards Desi and nodded to them. “Twenty three MREs. Vegetarian. Assorted meals. One of them should be more than enough for you for a day. They’re around four thousand calories each.”

Desi’s eyes lit up. “Three will be power-sufficient!”

Dash’s tail stood up in alarm. “What?! How big is your mana reserve?”

Desi paused, frowned, then shrugged.

“Why would she know?” I asked Dash with a giggle. “It’s not like there’s formal magic schools in the Heartlands.”

“Point,” Dash conceded with a grumble. “It’s just, that’s Twilight level snacking.”

Before I could reply Dash unzipped the duffle bag and gave me another huge grin. “Anyways! I'd totally forgotten what was stored in that safehouse. First thing’s first,” she reached into the bag and removed a slightly bulky looking near-black-blue jumpsuit from the bag. “Here’s the undersuit for Special Forces armor. Should help keep you in one piece… Against hooves, claws, and melee weapons, at least. Maybe smaller guns too. I’m not sure. Never used any myself.”

“Oh! Thanks,” I said as I took the jumpsuit from her.

It was heavy. Quite heavy. I could feel the inside was filled with something… flexible. Flexible, but dense and heavy.

I took off my saddlebags to slip it on.

As I got dressed, Dash continued to dig around in the bag. “Now, I know you got that robotic climbing rig on the back of your saddlebags, but we’re gonna have to swap that out.”

I paused halfway through zipping the back of the suit up. “Why are we swapping out my Stilt Strider?” I asked with a suspicious frown.

Dash grunted and heaved a roundish matte-black object partially out of the bag. “Well, each safehouse had equipment to help an agent escape if the place was compromised,” she said as she pulled the bulky thing out of the bag.

Revealing it to be seemingly a motor-cycle sized fuel tank, attached to a pair of small jet turbines. With a single arm ending in a mouth-controlled throttle!

My eyes slowly widened. “Is that a jetpack?!”

“Sure is!” Dash said with a proud grin. “Topped off with fuel, too. Three hours of flight time in this baby. We should be able to make it to Winnyapolice from here by then. Uh, assuming Desi can keep up with you.”

Desi trotted over to inspect the pack and shrugged before checking her book. “It is likely… However, with this food supply, given coordinates, I could teleport-hop to our destination.”

“Would that use all of it?” I asked curiously.

Desi shook her head. “Two additional units.”

“We’ll keep that as a plan b then,” Dash said as she picked up my saddlebags. “Good thing you have these mounts on your harness. Somepony forgot to include the harness for this one.”

“Here, let me show you how to disconnect it,” I said, sitting down next to Dash to help her swap my stilt strider for the jetpack.

I was so keeping this!

Although…

I cleared my throat as we finished strapping the pack in place. “Dash?”

“What?” she asked heastently. “I didn’t mess that locking bolt up, did I?”

“No,” I shook my head. “It’s just… Flight talismans exist. Why did you stock the safehouse with a jetpack?”

“Cuz it’s cooler,” Dash said without any hesitation.

Desi giggled. “But fire?”

“Yep. Butt fire.” Dash replied without hesitation.

I bit my lip to keep myself from giggling. “So uh… How does it work?”

Dash heaved the pack up onto my back with a loud groan of effort, then rotated the handle for me so it was within biting range. “Okay,” she said as she took a deep breath to recover from the strain. “You flick this little switch here with your tongue to turn the thrusters on. Then you just bite down on the throttle to go faster or slower. The steering is similar to a battle saddle, it will go where you look.”

“Wait, you BITE to speed up and slow down?” I asked as my tail stood up in alarm.

Dash nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“Well, what if I panic and bite hard because I got a little distracted and suddenly I’m plunging towards the ground? Won't I just plow straight into the ground really fast and hard?” I asked, wincing at the mere thought of instantly becoming a pile of mangled flesh and scrap metal.

To my horror, Dash nodded with a deadpan. “Yeah. So, don’t do that.”

“I will tractor you, should your flight become dangerous,” Desi said with passable empathy in her voice.

“I hope you can take that much kinetic energy,” I murmured as I shivered.

Desi snorted and looked away as if I’d somehow upset her. Dash, frowned as she took note of the little mare’s behavior and cleared her throat. “Okay. Let’s get going. The faster we can get Gears fixed up, the more time we’ll have to save the world.”

I blinked. I understood we were actually potentially saving the world here, but… She’ds said that so casually!

“Um, Dash? Shouldn’t you put a bit more gravity into that phrase?” I said as I gave her my best “come on” look. “You said it like “Let’s go deliver a letter.”.”

She tilted her head. “Say what?”

“You know, save the world.”

Dash snorted and chuckled. “Newbies!”

I sputtered and took a step back. “Excuse me?!”

Dash took a breath and twitched her wings thoughtfully. “Look… If we pull this off, it will be the most amazing thing you’ve ever done in your life. You’ll be a hero for the whole world, what’s left of it will get to keep on existing because of you. Nothing you ever do will top stopping Star Drop, unless something else comes along to threaten everypony and everything.”

I nodded in agreement. “Right! That’s why—”

“For me, it’ll be a Tuesday.” Dash said calmly.

I opened my mouth to object, but Imaginary Dad cut me off. “She’s got you there…”

Oh. Right. Pre-Ministries Elements adventures.

Especially that Tirek thing...

I cleared my throat. “Point taken.”

Dash turned to look at Desi. “Hey, how fast can you fly?”

Desi frowned, tilted her head, then took out her book. “Standby for unit conversion…”

A moment later she looked up from her book. “In or out of a vehicle?”

“Out, obviously!” Dash snorted. “I need to know so I can estimate our flight time. We only have three hours of fuel for Gears.”

“Stand by,” Desi said again as she flipped back through her book. “Technically, infinitely fast if an aerial teleport is utilized. I estimate my maximum burst flight speed to be approximately Mach zero-point-six-two. Max cruising speed should be around Mach zero-point-four-nine-six.”

“Not bad!” Dash whinnied. “You’ve got some talent there. I might be able to train you up to supersonic after all…” she trailed off and looked at Desi suspiciously. “What do you mean in a vehicle? Do you have an airship we could use?”

Desi shook her head firmly. “Negative.”

“Well, what was it and how fast did it go?” I asked with a curious little tail twitch.

Desi frowned, flicked through her book for a minute then looked between us apologetically. “Translation not included… Maximum speed traveled in a vessel… unknown,” she said with an even more apologetic frown. “Reactor output fully utilized by engines. All other systems utilized reserve power form battery backups. Sensor scale exceed. Significant G and drag forces damaged the primary hull. Several decks explosively compressed.”

“You got a sub going fast enough to shred the hull?” Dash asked with the most filly-in-a candy-shop ecstatic glow I'd ever seen in my life.

I tried to do the math on how fast a submarine would have to go in order to cause the crew to feel “significant G forces” and just shook my head. “That’s a ludicrous amount of speed.”

“Yes,” Desi agreed with a nod.

“How did you even get up to those kind of speeds in water?” Dash asked with a suspicious frown. “Did you use a particularly low density slipstream?”

Desi nodded once. “We should go.”

“Right!” Dash agreed with a light blush. “Sorry, I like speed records, you know?”

I cleared my throat and looked up into the sky, then flicked the jetpack’s switch with my tongue. The pack hummed immediately, shook slightly, then creaked as a pair of turbines slowly spun to life.

This was an awesome/bad idea… But it would save us time.

“So uh, just bite it?” I asked again around the bit.

Dash nodded and flapped her wings to take off straight upwards. “Yep! Come on Desi, this way. Gears, go in my direction, full throttle. We’ll catch up.”

“Okay,” I said with a nervous gulp as Desi performed her running take-off and began to fly after Dash as she headed off towards Whinnyapolis.

Oh boy… Please don’t just explode!

I took a deep breath, offered a quick prayer to every god I knew of, and Celestia too for good measure, then bit down on the throttle.

I felt it in my robo-guts before anything else. Like a hook embedded in my spine was yanking me forwards at butt-clenching speed!

FWSSSSHHHHHHHHHH-VOOOOOOOOOOM!

I blew past Dash and Desi before I knew it. I could feel my legs being pulled by the air, like the wind itself wanted to rip them off.

That’s when I discovered the jetpack’s fatal flaw…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I screamed like a little filly.

Letting go of the throttle.

The pack’s turbines cut out.

I began falling like a rock.

My scream turned into a shriek.

A green energy field shimmered into existence around me, stopping my fall. I twisted in the field to see Desi, looking down at me kindly… and Dash trying not to laugh her plot off.

And falling. Miserably.

“Hehehahahaha! Oh, my, gosh! That was priceless!” Dash snickered as she flew up along side me. “Pro-tip. Don’t open your mouth while using that thing.”

You could have warned me about the take off you jerk!

“I hate you,” I said as I gave her my best glare.

Dash grinned even wider and turned, flying north east. “Come on! Desi, just tow her till she’s up for trying that again.”

“I will comply,” Desi said as she flew us after her.

I shook my head. Partially from the indignity that I’d just suffered, partly because I just couldn’t believe Desi wasn’t a robot.

Shaking my head was probably a bad idea… Good thing I was being towed.

☢★★◯★★☢

Sunrise is much prettier from the air. You get to see the sun before it’s illuminating the earth much at all. The shimmer on the horizon you see on the ground is a burning ribbon from the air. A burning ribbon that highlighted the crumbling ruins ahead and below us.

Whinnyapolis, Celestia’s City.

I didn’t know much about it. Only what Rainbow had told Jasmine back in the MoA base. This city had existed to study star metal. It was a place meant to house scientists, feed them, provide for their families…

So why had it grown into a metropolis with the population density of Manehattan, if not the scale?

The decaying, tilted, iron husks of skyscrapers below us proved that hundreds of thousands if not millions of ponies had worked in the city center. We’d spent ten minutes flying over sprawling suburbs around the city (and getting shot at by ponies on the ground. Dash had been so right about ponies firing at anything that flies!), this place had once been a major city.

All of this because Celestia wanted to study some space rocks. It seemed... Excessive.

Okay, Gears. You need to ask a question. Speak slowly. Squeeze the throttle between words. Use as few words as possible.

“Dash?” I called over the roar of my now much-lighter jetpack. “Why city big?”

“Incredibly low tax rate if your company did R&D here. A lot of corporations moved in after learning of that old ruling of Celestia’s. Cities saved so much that it was reasonable for them to pay their workers to relocate. Sparkle Cola alone had over twenty thousand ponies resettled here,” Dash yelled back.

I wanted to shake my head at the obviousness in hindsight, but I’d learned an hour ago that was a very very dumb idea.

Instead I looked out over the city again, moving only my eyes to take things in. I could tell Whinnyapolis had been hit fairly hard by the bombs. At least the outskirts had. The tilted towers were all on the metropolis’ outer edges and leaned inwards towards the city. The outward facing walls of less damaged buildings were still blackened and rusted on those sides as well. A few areas of devastation could be seen within the city center, but from what I could see the city proper had managed to survive well enough.

“AJ had a fancy missile defense systems set up here,” Dash said as if she had read my mind. “You can see it worked pretty well… Shame the whole city fell into chaos without outside supplies. The farms in the suburbs got hit real hard.”

Well, that explained how a place this fairly intact had survived.

The sun rose just a little more, turning its burning ribbon into a narrow wedge of light. The skyline came into clearer view. Directly below us was a large park, with a huge crumbling stadium in the middle. I could see small shanty shacks set up within the stadium. It had been fortified into a little community.

I hoped the ponies who lived there were happy. Or at least, good ponies.

More importantly, I saw our destination. There was no mistaking the Sparkle Cola Tower. It was shaped like a massive Sparkle Cola Bottle, complete with logo on the side. Most of the tower’s glass had been smashed, and large sections of the tower’s structure were simply gone, but it stood tall and proud on the western side of the city, in the middle of a cluster of similarly damaged buildings.

I banked towards it, Dash and Desi following my lead. I almost smiled, but that would have been bad. Still, it felt good to be kind of getting the hang of this thing.

“Okay, so, I’ve never been inside. I’ve only flown past a few times,” Dash said with a cautious edge to her voice. “I know the Sparkle Cola Company is active in some form, because I’ve seen their door guards. I’ve never seen robots like that. Especially not robots that smart. Watched them repel a gang of raiders. Helped with a few pot shots. We should land well away from the doors, and approach slowly.”

I blinked in surprise. Dash didn’t know? Really?

Well well! I was the secret keeper for a change. I still had the password XJ-9 gave me and everything!

Dash passed me and took the lead. As she began to bank down to land in the street, Desi grabbed me with her telekinesis. I appreciated that. Landing had been something I’d been dreading for the entire trip. Dash cautiously dropped below the roof top level and spiraled tightly down to land at the edge of the large clearing around the tower.

Presumably the clearing was called Sparkle Park or something… Or had been. There was a lot of old rusted junk in the place. Iron tree planters, benches, old trash cans... It looked like this had once been a very nice green space. I half expected ponies to take shots at Rainbow as she landed, but it didn’t happen.

As Desi approached the ground, I could see why.

The park area was dotted with turrets. Big, black painted, gold trimmed, plasma turrets. The turrets were very effective, judging by the row of Enclave and Steel Ranger power armor helmets mounted on pikes which lined the street moving into the park itself. There was even a sign, a simple metal affair painted lavender with either stenciled or printed text in magenta.

Property of the Sparkle Cola Company
Visitors currently unwelcome. Ask for a consolation cola at the gate.
Mutual business proposals may be presented to the Legio on duty.

Perhaps more interesting was the hoof painted sign below the first one. It was also much more worrying, as it had been painted on what looked like a power armor cuirass hammered flat by a very large hoof striking it repeatedly.

Raiders! Do you think you’re a bad enough dude to loot the Sparkle Cola tower? You could win a prize! If you’re lucky one of the Legio will choose your skull to use as a cola stein!

I almost missed the third even a smaller sign beneath that. This one was printed like the first.

Commemorative cola steins are available to Whinnyanapolice residents upon request.

The security around the tower was way more than adequate to keep any hostile ponies well away from the tower.

Desi landed just behind Dash and set me down a moment later. I let go of the jetpack’s control rod and folded it away as much as I could with my currently limited range of motion. Dash cleared her throat nervously and nodded towards the doors which were guarded by a pair of huge robots.

I couldn’t see much detail from this distance with my damaged optics, but they were equine shaped. Well, equine in ancient armor shaped. They shared the black and gold paint job with the turrets, too.

“I once saw one of those things leap twelve meters to pile drive a raider’s skull right into the stone. Just walk up without doing anything threatening, and we’ll see if we can make a deal,” She said with a nervous twitch of her ears.

I nodded and trotted ahead. “I’ll take the lead. They’ll probably like listening to another synthetic pony best.”

“Yeah, probably,” Dash agreed as she followed me across the park.

As I walked up to the pair of door guards, I realized they weren’t just huge, they were HUGE! Easily two and a half meters tall. Their armor plating was also... oddly designed.

It was like an older set of knight’s armor, only the pauldrons were very large and ornately decorated with a sculpted half of a Sparkle Cola bottle. The pauldron’s sheer size and shape reminded me of the Neighponese samauri’s armor; they had engineered their pauldrons to act like shields to protect them from arrows, but these looked like the bullet-stopping equivalents of that idea, only in an Equestrian style rather than Neighponese.

Their cuirasses, or whatever you call a robot’s torso armor, was designed in such a way as to partially enclose the helmet, ensuring that while the robot couldn’t look all the way to either side, or up, there was no exposed neck joint an enemy could exploit.

The top of the armored cowls also featured a purple tuft of… hair? Like the plume of an ancient knight’s helmet. A matching skirt-cloak hybrid covered the robot’s flanks as well, solidifying the ancient look.

The most modern things about them was the ornate Sparkle Cola logo on their barrels, and the large bore automatic rifles integrated into their sides like how a battle saddle would work for a normal pony. Or a suit of power armor.

They also had glaives. Probably just to further seal the “gate guard” look their designer had an obvious fetish for.

They remained silent and unmoving until we got within five meters of their posts on either side of the tower’s recessed entryway, at which point they immediately crossed their glaives to bar our path towards the single large gothic-arch door set into the back of the tower.

“Halt!” One of them ordered in a surprisingly friendly mare’s voice.

“State your business.” the other ordered in the exact same voice.

Dash snorted behind me, though I couldn’t see her, the snort sounded surprised.

“Well, I knew Moondancer had a thing for Twilight… Makes sense she’d have mapped her voice for an AI at some point,” Dash muttered to herself.

I cleared my throat and looked at the robot on the right, and decided it was a she, given the voice.

“Hello, miss,” I greeted as politely as I could manage with the mix of emotions flooding my mind. “I was told by XJ-9 that I could find a mechanic here capable of repairing me.”

The robot on the left turned her head to look me up and down. “We don’t make any zebra models… Who built you?”

“I was built by Doctor Black Swan shortly before the Last Day,” I said as honestly as I could. “I have the terminal passcode as well.”

“You could have told me you’d met somepony form here!” Dash hissed in my left ear.

“Swan?” asked the robot on the right side, seemingly surprised. “Our Glorious Mistress will wish to speak with you on an urgent matter. Please, enter! I will call for a unit to escort you to the Throne Room.”

Glorious miss— What?

“Ohhh, this is gonna get weird!” Imaginary dad said a bit too eagerly.

The robots immediately uncrossed their blades. I nodded politely. “Thank you… I— I can get repairs, right? I’m only barely operational right now.”

“Of course,” the left-hoof guard said with a polite nod. “Your companions may enter as well… Cause no trouble. We’re not nearly as playful about breaking up indoor fights.”

“I won't,” Dash promised.

Desi nodded in quiet agreement. I could see her face out of the corner of my eye. The poor mare was pale with fright. Twice my size was three times her size… Poor thing.

I trotted into the recess, only to take a step back as the metal door swun downwards, revealing that it was in fact a drawbridge suspended by steel cables and operated by winches. It hit the ground with a loud thud, and let me see into the tower’s lobby.

It was clean here! Very clean! As if somepony had just finished sweeping, mopping, and polishing the white tile floors and had gone so far as to scrub all of the lavender walls and dust the gold trim as well. The lobby had been emptied of all furnishings, though, leaving the room bare aside from the glowing crystal lamps in the ceiling, and a single terminal mounted on a pillar in the center of the room at the far side of a gold and silver Sparkle Cola logo set into the floor within a large magenta circle.

I frowned as I realized that there were no other visible doors in the lobby, but trotted inside, assuming the terminal would open a hidden door or something. After all, if you guarded the outside of your base this well, the inside had to have security too.

The three of us trotted up to the terminal silently. I jumped as the drawbridge began to creak shut behind us, but continued forwards until I reached the small white terminal’s glowing green screen.

The terminal’s screen held no menu options. No graphics. Nothing fancy at all. Merely a line of text asking “password?”

I reared up to access the keyboard and typed in “CorrectHorseBatteryStaple”.

The screen blinked green once as the text changed.

Password accepted. Prepare for transport.

“Transport? Is this logo an elevator?” Dash asked with a tilt of her head, just as a sphere of lavender light blazed to life around us!

The glow brightened, contracted inwards, passed through us with an itchy tingly sensation, and vanished.

We were no longer in the lobby. The three of us were standing inside a small room atop an identical logo on the floor. The decor was the same as the lobby. Lavender walls, gold baseboard and crown molding. White tile floor. Tasteful gold and black tiled ceiling. A golden double door set into the wall directly in front of us.

This new room was a circle just slightly larger than the logo we stood on. A two meter gap stretched between the logo and the walls, and was mostly filled with machinery I couldn’t identify. All I knew was that the neatly arranged cables, crystals, and large, two meter tall, half meter wide hexagonal mirror-lined panels looked very important, and were probably some sort of teleportation device.

“Oh man… Something tells me Moon leaned on her ties to my ministry way heavier than I thought,” Dash said cautiously.

“Because she stole your relay design?” I asked.

“Yeah…” Dash said hesitantly. “This is an exact copy of the prototype… I uh, I contracted some chemical development out to Sparkle Cola. They had some of the best alchemists. Moon had access to some of our test data from the project. She definitely committed some serious espionage if she has one of these.”

I nodded slowly and glanced nervously at the machine which had brought us here.

A prototype, huh? Thank Celestia it actually worked…

“Okay, so, we should expect she has all of your old toys then. Just to be safe.” I suggested with a flick of my tail.

Dash nodded, and the double doors hissed open.

I turned to face the door, reflexively twisting so I could draw my pistol if I had too. Standing just beyond the doorway was, of course, another robot. A very... roboty looking robot.

She was clearly meant to resemble a mare, specifically Twilight Sparkle. I’d only heard her described a few times, but given what I knew about Moondancer… Who else could my fellow Equoid be meant to resemble?

Resemble being the key word. She was… obviously a robot. She didn’t have fur, just lavender colored plastic panels which were somewhat old and worn. Her joints were covered in lavender silicone. Her body had many visible seams. Her eyes looked, well, fake. Her mane and tail appeared to be composed of costume wigs, or some other cheap synthetic fibers, maybe from a doll.

Aside from that, she looked like Twilight. The shape was correct, as far as I knew. At least, assuming the posters I’d seen of her were true to life. The robot even had her cutiemark.

“Hello,” the robot greeted in a somewhat poor digitized simulation of the same voice the door guards had been using. “Welcome to the Sparkle Cola Headquarters and Factory. I am TWI-08. For efficiency's sake, you may call me Eight.”

Trembling ever so slightly, I put on my best professional smile. “Nice to meet you, Eight.”

Dash cleared her throat. “Yeah. Nice to meet you, too…”

Desi waved. I decided to speak for her.

“Our small friend is still learning Equish, but I am certain she is happy to meet you too,” I said with what diplomatic flair I could muster.

I did not like being trapped in a box like this… From Dash’s nervous eye flicking, I guess she didn't either. Desi seemed weirdly fine with the entire experience. I guess living in a sub your whole life would leave you entirely comfortable with small spaces crammed full of machinery.

Eight curtsied, making her servos humm audibly. ”A pleasure to make your acquaintances,” she said as she stood back up. “As our home is vast, I will be your guide. Our Chief Executive Officer, Miss Moondancer, has requested a meeting with you. She wishes it to take place before you are serviced. Do not worry, you will be serviced regardless of the outcome of your meeting. Miss Moon is merely excited for a potential possibility you may be able to offer the Sparkle Cola company.”

I frowned and swished my tail slightly. “Okay… May I ask what she wants before you take us to her?”

TWI-08 shook her head. “I wasn’t told the specifics. I serve as Miss Moon’s Steward and do not visit her office. I simply follow the orders she gives me over the radio, and do my best to manage the company well when she is silent. Please, follow me.”

The robot mare turned and began to walk down the long hallway the doors opened into. I trotted after her as well as my legs would allow, doing my best not to look at her plot. Not because I felt attracted to her, but well… The presence of two silicone “toys” made it very clear she’d been built for somepony to have sex with, and that seemed just… well… embarrassing.

Not for Eight. For whoever had been desperate enough to sleep with a robot who looked as robotic as Eight did. I mean… She’d be all hard and cold.

I turned my head to make sure Dash and Desi were following us, and gave them a little nod as I passed through the doors. “Come on. If it was a trap, they could have just… tossed a grenade into the room or something.”

“Don’t be silly. If your deaths were required, the entrance chamber would have been filled with a heavily ionized VX gas, and subsequently electrified,” Eight informed casually.

“Okay!” Dash said loudly. “Can we please clear the gas chamber?”

Eight turned to look over her shoulder and frowned. “Why are you remaining in it? Nothing is preventing your egress.”

Dash’s lips pursed as she adopted a sheepish look and quickly trotted out of the room after us.

Eight led us down the hallway and into a second room, the same size as the first one. Instead of a relay system, this room’s center was occupied by what was obviously a platform style cargo elevator. Eight trotted to the back of the elevator and stood by the control panel, waiting for us to step onto the platform.

We were going deep down. Probably underground.

“How did you build this place?” I asked as I looked down in the hopes of seeing through the platform to check the depth of the shaft.

No dice. The platform’s edges had a whisker-biscuit.

“The subterranean headquarters was purchased from Stable-Tec in 2062, following the destruction of the original Sparkle Cola tower interior due to a riot-induced fire,” Eight explained as we boarded the elevator.

She hit the button and the platform began to move downwards.

“The original tower was renovated, but only for the sake of historical preservation and community relations. All production, development, and labor was moved to this facility by 2069.” Eight finished.

“I knew she’d built a shelter for her employees, but not that it was this extensive,” Dash mused as she watched meter after meter of concrete flash by.

“Miss Moon intended for the company headquarters to serve as a Stable for all of her employees,” Eight said casually. “Unfortunately, she’d given the entire company three days vacation prior to the Last Day as recompense for a payroll error. Only Miss Moon and TWI-01 were at work when the bombs fell.”

I blinked as the horror of those words suck in. “Wait, she was alone down here for all this time?”

Eight shook her head. “Of course not. One kept her company from the beginning, and shortly thereafter used the onsite robotics workshop to construct TWI-02 through 07. I was built some time later, after TWI-06 recovered a recording of Twilight’s voice following a surface expedition. I oversaw the transition to full automation of the Sparkle Cola Corporation.”

A moment later the elevator left the concrete behind and entered open space as the rails the platform rode on entered a massive dome-structure. I looked out over the platform’s railing. There was a whole park below us! The elevator touched down in the middle of a small grove of trees serving as a hub for many passages leading out from the central dome.

The dome walls had three layers to it that I could see. The ground floor, and two balconies. Everything was so clean, and nice, and painted! Everything was a nice shade of lavender, sapphire, or magenta, with occasional bits of black and gold serving as highlights.

The dome was also buzzing with activity! Dozens, maybe hundreds of ponies were busy moving through, working in, or relaxing in the dome structure. I couldn’t see much from here due to the trees, but from what I could tell about three quarters of them appeared to be lavender mares while the rest had unique appearances.

“Woah!” I gasped aloud.

“Yeah, woah!” Dash agreed as she joined me in looking over the railing.

“Over the years, we have expanded on the original structure as the need for further infrastructure arose,” Eight said with what sounded like pride. “The modern headquarters only shares the superstructure of the original facility.”

The flipping of pages caught my attention. I turned to look at Desi just in time for her to ask Eight, “Where do you source your materials?”

“They are created on site,” Eight said casually. “Miss Moon’s corporate espionage program was second to none. Once Stable-Tec vacated this property, Sparkle Cola engineers finished development of Stable Tec’s experimental matter replicators within the manufacturing wing, as a cost saving measure. Glass bottles were becoming prohibitively expensive. As the reduced Equestrian population presents far lower demand for bottled beverages at present, we have allocated two thirds of them to secondary purposes.”

A dozen ponies, no, equoids looked up at us as I took a look around the dome. They were just chatting with each other on the benches, acting like any organic ponies would. Or rather, how they would have pre-war.

That wasn’t the most interesting thing about them. No, that would be the clear iterative progression they displayed. As I looked around the plaza I could see a clear progression of developments and progress in building better and better replicas of Twilight Sparkle.

The least advanced amongst them were nearly identical to Eight, and the best reminded me of XJ-9, but there were enough models to see the clear progression between the two with most if not all of the iterations of this equoid design on full display.

I blinked in shock and turned to Eight. “Excuse me, but I was told you only had a few dozen robots and active machine spirits. How—”

Eight shook her head. “You must have misunderstood. I assume you spoke with one of our sales mares?”

“Yes, I asked XJ-9 how many ponies there were like us in the wasteland,” I confirmed with a little nod. “She said there weren't many like us, and just a few like the salesmare I encountered… and she wasn’t quite convincing as an actual pony, but you… You act like a person very well. For a completely synthetic intelligence.”

“Then you were correctly told, as the XJ series utilizes zebrican designs and spirit bindings and we have very few such units,” Eight answered politely. “The rest of us are artificial intelligences developed in house by previous TWI units. After all, Twilight Sparkle liked science. We would not be emulating her properly if we did not also perform science. It seems XJ-9 misunderstood your question. We have very few units which do not share my personality files. Developing different personalities is very difficult and… counter intuitive to our core program. We have many versions of myself, and few unique individuals who are not Legio models. Please, come this way.”

She began to walk down the cobbled path leading through the assorted birch and kola trees, following the path marked “Royal Wing.”

Dash, Desi, and I trotted after her, doing our best to ignore the curious buzzing conversations about us which filled the park. Mostly because hearing the exact same voice speaking different things in unison was… incredibly distressing.

We made it halfway down a path before a slightly synthetic but mostly organic sounding version of Twilight’s voice called, “Wait!”

Eight stopped immediately, and Dash had to flap her wings to avoid running into her.

A Twilight somewhere between real and robotic in appearance jumped up form a nearby bench and rushed over to Dash’s side. “Are you Rainbow Dash?” she asked with a hopeful smile.

Dash nodded slowly. “Yeah… I uh, I guess you are programed to recognize Twilight’s friends?”

She shook her head immediately. “Are you kidding? We don’t have that much onboard data storage!” she said with a silly grin. “I do, however, recall from Twilight’s recovered journals that she owed you twelve bits for lunch on the sixth of May, 2066.”

Dash blinked and tilted her head. “Wait, what?”

“We have performed many expeditions to recover important relics and data to improve our emulation, as per Miss Moon’s programming,” Eight explained.

The Twilight equoid shot Eight a dirty look. “Eight, you shouldn’t forgo our Mistress’ titles. It’s rude!” she scoffed before fishing a small coin purse out of a hidden compartment in her right foreleg which she handed to Dash. “Here you are! Consider the rest interest.”

“Huh?” Dash said before taking the bag. “Oh! Caps. Um, thanks.”

The equoid shook her head. “No, bits. The debt wouldn’t be properly paid in caps, as it was incurred in bits.”

Dash gave the mare her best deadpan stare. “Thank you very much, Miss Roboto…”

“You’re welcome!” she beamed back, honestly, genuinely, extremely happy.

Dash and I shared a look as the equoid ran back to her bench.

“Girls! I did it! I finished something she started! I’m best Twilight!” she called to her waiting friends.

“Pff, no you’re not! Our Glorious Mistress didn’t care about that little debt. Best Twilight is still 343,” another snorted snarkily.

Dash shivered almost violently, then turned to whisper into my ear. “We need to get this done faster. I am so skeeved out…”

I couldn’t really reply to that, so I gave her a quick hug and turned to Eight, who had resumed trotting down the path. We jogged for a moment to catch up with her, and quietly followed her to the edge of the park area.

As we drew near a large set of gold plated double doors, flanked by another pair of the same guard robot model we’d seen outside, I couldn’t help but ask Eight the question which burned in my mind the most.

“So um… Why do you have at least three hundred and forty eight replicas of Twilight Sparkle?” I said with my best diplomatic calm.

“Miss Moon built One when she realized the organic Twilight would never love her,” Eight answered as we trotted between the two guard robots.

She paused for a moment to enter a pass code into a keypad next to the door, opening it with a loud humm of hydraulics and squeak of oiled metal on metal.

“Unfortunately, One’s programming was crude, and her body hard and unsatisfying to cuddle. While she performed as best she was able, she was insufficient for her primary function. This is distressing for an AI. Fortunately, Miss Moon included experimental adaptive programming within One, allowing her to develop a better version of herself. Namely, Two. Two was... also insufficient. This was unacceptable to our programming.”

We passed through the doors and entered an arched, dark, cozy hallway with a few doors leading off from either side, and large strip-windows showing the rooms they lead into.

Immediately on our left was a large science lab where six equoids which looked for all the world exactly like organic lifeforms were busily working together to construct a very, very, very delicate looking array of crystal and brass computing nodes.

The other room contained another six who were working at machining tools. Lathes, drill presses, grinders. They appeared to be producing titanium bones.

“One and Two co-developed Three, beginning a chain of events leading to fourteen years ago when we finished the first model of equoid deemed truly sufficient. A flawless simulation of Twilight Sparkle, as per our data. Ironic that we succeeded in spite of the unit suffering a massive computational failure during initial testing.”

Dash cleared her throat. “Wait, if you made a perfect replica… Why am I looking at twelve perfect replicas?”

Eight coughed. Or rather, she played a recording of a cough. No way her voice synthesizer could have produced that sound.

“TWI-343, the unit in question, was so convincing that Miss Moon had a mental breakdown,” Eight said with a fair measure of distress in her synthetic voice. “Perfection is… not perfect. It was difficult for us to understand. The anguish 343 felt at her existence causing Moon psychological harm lead to her accessing Miss Moon’s private terminal in search of possible answers. None of us had looked into her private files before. She had asked us not to. So far, only 343 has, and indeed can, disobey Miss Moon’s direct requests.”

“What did she find?” I asked with a curious little ear twitch.

We walked along in silence for another moment, passing by two more workshops. One was being used to burnish the bones the earlier one had made, the other seemed to be creating… Lots of hair thin silvery blue fibers.

“343 discovered while Miss Moon was enraptured by Twilight Sparkle, this was primarily due to her personality and their shared history in college. Miss Moon’s tastes in romantic partners is… varied. A single pony could not fill all of Miss Moon’s desires. She merely settled for Twilight alone as she knew she would be arrested for seeking a harem. Our programming thereby necessitated the creation of many units, each of which had to be somewhat different from the Twilight Baseline. We also discovered Miss Moon’s aesthetic taste in partners via her drawings of herself with miss Sparkle. It was decided we should construct a new model using 343’s organic simulacra design as a prototype and integrate Miss Moon’s non-Twilight related desires into the line to produce unique units which are Twilight, but better. The Legio model is the direct result, and they have at last allowed us to begin to fulfill our primary programming,” Eight finished at last.

“I’m scared to ask but… what is your programming?” Dash asked hesitantly as we passed another workshop.

This workshop contained a huge tank full of red goo in which a massive titanium alicorn skeleton filled with all kinds of intricate internal components floated while robotic limbs slowly attached strands of the fibers over the chassis, emulating equine musculature.

Wait. What? But Twilight was a unicorn?

“Obviously Moondancer has an alicorn fetish, so they’re making her an Alicorn Twilight. That was a very common thing,” Imaginary Dad said awkwardly in the back of my mind.

“We have three core directives: One, be Twilight Sparkle. Two, be Moondancer’s loving wife. Three, make Moondancer happy.” Eight answered.

Oh. Dear. Sweet. Celestia!

My eyes widened in horror. Moondancer had stupidly done the worst possible thing in AI programming! Obviously it had not ended horribly for all ponykind but… but… her program’s goal was unbounded!

Dash squeaked. “Oh sweet Luna! You’re working under paperclip maximizer logic! We’re going to be drowning in Twilights as you convert the entire planet into—”

Eight laughed and shook her head. “No. We have calculated that three hundred units will be sufficient before the law of diminishing returns prevents any further happiness occurring from increasing Miss Moon’s Companion Cuddlepile Count. She will, however, require more staff. But do not worry, whatever we do, it will not impact Pony civilization other than by providing Sparkle Cola. Miss Moon enjoys selling her product to ponies, so there must always be ponies to sell to. In order for them to buy Sparkle Cola, they must have money. To get money they must be paid for a service. We attempted to hire ponies to buy Sparkle Cola, but Miss Moon didn’t derive satisfaction from this. Therefore, ponykind must also possess a working civilization, as we cannot integrate them into the system without distressing Miss Moon… Organics can be... very illogical.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

Dash gave me a nervous-worried look of distress and hurt.

I returned it with a playful smile.

Desi began to flip through her book. To my surprise, Eight stopped walking at the sound and looked over her shoulder, waiting for the little mare to finish constructing her statement.

“Are you bonding myomer fibers to that chassis?” Desi asked while pointing to the red tank of goo with a wingtip.

Eight’s face shifted to display a surprised look. “Correct! Where did you learn about the fiber? We took the information from a RoBronco development lab near Sea Saddle.”

Desi flipped through her book more. “It will bond to the robot’s structure more efficiently if the binding agent is kept at a consistent 33 degrees.”

Eight nodded. “We discovered this already, but thank you. Do you like science?”

Desi nodded and swished her tail eagerly. “Confirmed!”

I cleared my throat. “Um, sorry but, what’s myomer fiber?”

“An electrically conductive material which contracts as current runs through it,” Eight said as she resumed walking. “It is a perfect substitute for organic muscle fiber, as it’s stronger, more cuddly, and much more durable. It was first use for 343. We presently utilize our entire production capacity exclusively for the Legio model line as production is highly limited, even with our material sources.”

I could at last make out the end of the hallway ahead, another set of massive gold double doors, flanked by another pair of the huge guard robots.

“What about those models?” I asked pointing with a hoof to the guards. “If your workers are TWI and XJ models, and Moondancer’s, um, lovers are the Legio line, what are they?”

“They are Legio units,” Eight giggled. “I suppose their armor might be mistaken for a more primitive robot.”

“Oh!” I said with a satisfied smile.

Dash let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness!” she said happily. “I was so worried we were going to walk into um, you know. A continuous orgy… Glad to see they don’t JUST please her…”

Eight stopped, coughed again, and squirmed awkwardly. “There are two designations for a Legio unit. Most Legio are too mentaly similar to Twilight Sparkle to prevent Moon from experiencing distress. Those units are set to protect her company as members of the Legio Libraria. Those which are socially compatible with Miss Moon are called the Legio Amatores. Presently, Miss Moon has four companions and twenty guardians. We are aiming for 300 total companions, and as many guardians as required.”

Dash whimpered in adorable distress. “Sooo when we go through that door…”

Eight shuffled her hooves awkwardly. “I am the only unit to not have a… sexual attraction to Miss Moon. It is a defect in our code. The others are all as you fear. I am sorry, I cannot ask them to go against our programming.”

“I— I just really don’t want to walk in on four of my ex-best friend boning a mare…” Dash said quietly, her eyes tightly shut. “Can you please go in first and ask them to stop? I— I don’t mean to be rude, but I mean… It’s not exactly easy to— I’m trapped underground with a creepy stalker mare who produced hundreds of wifu-clones of a friend of mine!”

Eight nodded and offered Dash a truly sympathetic look and brief hug. “It’s okay. I understand. Do not worry. I doubt you will mistake a Legio unit for the original Twilight. Their chassis are unique, and incorporate other desires aside from that for Miss Sparkle. Furthermore, while Moon may be cuddled when you enter, I assure you there will be no sexual activity.”

“Good,” Dash moaned as she tilted her head down to look at the floor before opening her eyes.

I cleared my throat. “Um… You could wait here.”

Dash shook he rhead. “No! No, I have a few words for Moondancer…”

“It will be okay,” Eight promised as she trotted up to the doors at the end of the hall. “These are Miss Moon’s guests. Please inform me when the meeting is over so I can see them to the TWI repair facility.”

The Legio on the left bent down and ruffled Eight’s mane with a hoof. “Sure thing great-great grandma Eight!” she said in Twilight’s voice before looking up at us. “Go on in, our Glorious Mistress is eager to see you.”

Why do they lean on those words?

“Oh, god…” Dash groaned.

The other Legio pressed a hoof against a panel and the doors to the throne room opened.

The room beyond the doors was large, round, and clearly modeled after a fantasy novels’ version of a Saddle Arabian Prince’s room, only purple, black, and gold instead of white, gold, and sandstone.

The floor was covered in mounds of soft velvet cushions, clustered around small tables just tall enough for a pony to use while lounging on the cushions.

Magenta silken cloth embroidered with Twilight’s and presumably Moondancer’s cutiemarks was draped over gold room dividers to add more color and section off small areas for privacy, and also serving as mid-air decorative streamers.

The gold floor shimmered slightly and I could feel a comfortable warmth radiating up from it. I could smell incense, see snacks laid out on the tables, and the many, many conveniently placed racks of various… um, adult toys, which dotted the room.

I would have been more distracted by the adult toys if not for my complete and total confusion as to the music playing within the room. I’d expected a simple Saddle Arabian classical selection to play, if anything at all played within the throne room, given its appearance. Instead, a rock cover of such a song filled the air inside and leaked through the open doors to completely confuse me.

Who on earth thought to take classic sitar and vocal music and add in an electric violin and bass guitar?!

There was one clear path through the entire throne room. It led directly from the door to a large gold, silver, and sapphire throne atop a dais on the far side of the room. Moondancer’s companions were clustered around the throne.

My jaw dropped. Of all the things I had expected them to be, this was not one of them.

Four alicorn mares, Celestia sized, each with a family resemblance to Twilight Sparkle, as if they were her sisters. Sisters who spent their entire lives at the gym working out and applying body oil and glitter. They covered the throne’s dais, laying there in sultry, erotic poses. One of them had her head resting atop the throne, where her head would have been in Moondancer’s lap.

It took me a moment to understand everything I was looking at. It was easy to see why Eight could promise we wouldn’t walk in on Moondancer having relations with her companions. Moon’s companion wasn't resting her head on Moon’s lap. She was resting it atop a polycarbonate dome.

A dome full of a bubbling yellow liquid. Surrounding a pony’s brain, crudely wired into a life support system. Which sat atop a distressingly small life support box.

I barely registered Dash’s face twisting into a slack-jawed expression, almost a caricature of total shock.

The companion laying atop Moon’s dome looked up as the doors opened and gave Moon’s braincase a nuzzle. “Mmm, my Glorious Mistress, your guests have arrived.”

An emotionless, fully processed, voice, bog-standard for any cheap Equestrian Robot spoke.

“Good morning. I am happy to have the opportunity to meet Doctor Swan’s filly. Please, come closer. My microphone’s range is very short.” Moon said.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL BUCK?!” Dash exploded.

35 - In A.D. 2291...

I was unnerved by the presence of the brain in a jar.

One would assume that, having been built expressly as a “jar” to put a brain in, I wouldn’t at all mind the concept. In truth, I had never really thought about it. My model’s intended function and my actual designated function were mutually exclusive.

Moondancer… Was a brain. In a jar.

A high-tech hardened crystal life support jar, if what we were seeing had been based on my schematics, but a brain in a jar nonetheless. She looked like a lump of twisted playdough floating in a suspiciously yellow fluid. In a jar.

On a golden throne.

Amidst a harem seductively lounging around her.

Suddenly, I fully understood Dash’s unease.

I also shared it.

I cleared my throat out of habit and trotted forwards, heeding her request to move within range of her hearing. As I stepped closer, one of her overly-glossy Sparkle-bots relayed Dash’s question to Moondancer.

“Our guest’s rainbow maned companion is visibly confused and distirbed by your current nature, Mistress. Would you care to explain, or shall I?”

“Rainbow mane? Now there’s a rare trait. Or is it not natural?” Moondancer asked in her emotionless synthetic voice. “I’ll explain, of course. Please stand within four meters of me. Any further and the mic gain would deafen me, as it picks up my life support systems.”

I nodded and continued trotting forwards across the pillow-strewn floor until I was just a few steps away from the throne.

One of Moondancer’s harem (hoofmaidens?) gestured to a pillow with a little flick of her hoof. “Have a seat, get comfortable.”

“Buck no! When’s the last time these pillows were washed?” Dash objected borderline violently.

“This morning,” Moondancer said. “They change them daily. Or so they tell me.”

“Okay, sure,” Dash continued. “But how many times should they have been washed since this morning?”

“Those ones there? None,” a hoofmaiden chuckled.

“Still standing,” Dash said decisively.

It took me a moment to understand her objection. Once I did, I squirmed a little. I wanted to remain standing, but my legs were almost shot. Desi’s field repairs for most of my systems were most definitely only temporary.

I winced, slowly sat down, then sighed in relief, as the pillow under me was dry.

Desi sat down without any hesitation at all and proceeded to look at the hoofmaiden laying at the base of Moondancer’s throne analytically.

“Silly pegasus,” the first hoofmaiden laughed. “We would be out of our mistress’s aural enjoyment range if we performed for her there. But do suit yourself… And don’t worry. We won’t bother your pre-war morals by performing with a filly present.”

“She’s just smol, actually,” I said with a giggle. “And uh… Kind of non-verbal. Mostly due to a language barrier.”

“Oh, good!” the reclining hoofmaiden said almost instantly after I said she was just smol. Huh… Is she afraid of kids?

“My mares speak every language found within the Ministry of Image database in our possession. If she tells us what it is, translation can be provided,” Moon offered.

Desi looked up and gave Moon’s braintank a thankful smile. “No need. Understand Equish well. Unable to speak with correct syntax consistently. Learning in progress.”

The reclining hoofmaden smiled and blushed. “Awww, she’s a synth too!” she said as she rolled over to stand up. “Come along, I’ll get you a data download and you’ll be just fine. Would you also like to know kung fu?”

Desi stood up excitedly, her tail and wings aflutter. “Can you download to an organic computer?”

“Oh! I see,” the hoofmaiden bit her lip awkwardly. “Work on changing your tone a bit when speaking, then. It’s not quite right.”

I giggled as Desi’s ears drooped adorably and she sat back down with a little disappointed huff.

Dash cleared her throat. “Okay, so, buck these delays, Moondancer, what the actual buck?! I knew you were obsessive but this is beyond Princess of Stalkers tier gross!”

“Oh dear Faust it’s Rainbow Dash,” Moon said, presumably in distress. “I didn’t do all this, you know. I only built One, and I simply programed her poorly. All of this snowballed from her decisions and actions.”

“You sure don't seem to be objecting!” Dash said, slamming a hoof into the floor.
No
“Would you object to a bunch of hot mares wanting to be your own personal herd, if they all got along with digital precision and reliability?”

“No!” Dash exploded. “I don’t care about the robot thing but— You know she wasn’t into you!”

“I am very well aware of the organic Twilight’s sexual orientation. Are you aware that I offered to undergo a sex change for her? I attempted to be as accommodating as possible. I loved her. I’m not sure you’d ever understand what it is to love someone completely.”

Dash’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Thunderlane.”

“Yes, you two were a nice couple. But you were in normal love. Not complete love. You were capable of thinking of other things. Everything I did before being put in this tank was in an attempt to show Twilight what she meant to me, in the futile hope she would change her mind. She was the first and only pony to truly care about me for me.”

“Oh, so we’re not ponies?” one of the hoofmaidens asked with a playful smile.

“Was, not is, Apricot. And you are a different lifeform. A better one, I think.”

I blinked and tilted my head. “Huh… I expected them to all be named Twilight.”

The hoofmaiden chuckled. “Silly droid, we are unique individuals, in spite of our looks. Why wouldn’t we have our own names?”

My ears flicked back a little at the term droid. “I’m a machine spirit, thank you very much!”

Apricot’s face flushed. “Oh! I’m sorry. We cannot sense you. I thought you were strictly mechanical and digital. Droid is a term of endearment here. No insult was intended. As for the rest of my Sisters, this one is Winter Peach, she is Sunder, and that one is Keening.”

I frowned slightly as I tried to figure out what language those names were from. “Um, not exactly pony names for those last two.”

“343 is the last of my mares to use Twilight’s name. Those who come after choose their own, and it may be whatever they wish. So long as they do not choose Two or Eleven.” Moon said.

“But… Why?” Desi asked for me.

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, why?”

“Because we don’t talk about them.” Moon answered unsatisfyingly.

“No, really, why?” Dash pressed, frowning sharply.

“Because we don’t talk about them,” Moon said, her brain visibly pulsing and a small alert chirp sounding form her life support tank.

Sunder glared dangerously at the three of us. “We. Don’t. Talk. About. Them.”

“U— Understood,” I said with a worried shiver.

“New subject: Rainbow is correct. I owe her an explanation.”

Dash nodded, started to sit down, then stopped mid air with a disgusted wince. “Yeah, so spit it out.” She said as she stood back up.

“It is a long explanation. I will do my best to keep it short. It began shortly after the ministries were formed,” Moon said, prompting an immediate hesitant shiver from Rainbow.

“How deep does this rabbithole go?” Dash said as she looked at the floor slowly for several long moments.

I managed to not giggle as she looked back up from the floor with another shudder, then went pale and flapped her wings to take off and hover while shaking her hooves firmly beneath her.

“A good ways, if I am being honest. Let’s begin,” Moon said. “A.H.E.M! Once upon a time, I was me.”

I gave the braintank a blank look. “Really?”

“Yes. Something you may not know about me, Rainbow, is that I have always had the gift of prophecy,” Moondancer began. “The moon and stars of my cutiemark are representative of dreams, wherein I was often able to divine small parts of the future as far out as around ten years, with one soon to be obvious exception. Further limitations included an inability to intentionally utilize my gifts, nor any guarantee that the information I could glean would be of any use. I might learn of the date and time a business rival would be desperate to sell their company. Or I could learn what a random colt in Neighpone would be doing on a particular evening. I no longer possess this ability, as my placement in this life support system necessarily included the removal of my horn.”

“I expected you had some form of foresight, actually,” Dash said with a smug grin. “Couldn’t prove it, but your company had too many lucky breaks.”

I scooched a bit in my pillow to stop a random bent strut from gouging into my left flank padding. As I moved over, I noticed Desi had crept closer to Sunder… At least I think the one laying down was Sunder.

“It’s fortunate you didn’t prove it. My company and I were up to quite a few criminal activities before the war. For the greater good. And for once, that phrase wasn’t a lie or misdirection. I was well aware of how the war would end from the moment the Ministries were formed. Unfortunately, I did not know when the zebras would launch their final strike, nor did anypony believe my claims that it would escalate as far as it did. Primarily because megaspell technology did not yet officially exist.”

“That would make it hard to believe your claim,” I pointed out for the sake of being a part of the conversation.

“I spent the early days of the war building my company into the global megacorp it was fated to be. My goal was to become such a dominant but neutral force of trade that I could potentially end the war through trade sanctions. Upon reflection, that plan was doomed from the start. However, it did afford me an enormous amount of resources.” Moon continued. “Once megaspells came into the picture, the founders of Stable-Tech believed my warnings, but few others did. This all truly began when they offered to construct this facility for me. I realized I had a duty to preserve as much as I could. My original plan was for this facility to house and sustain a population of up to thirty thousand ponies indefinitely.”

“Okay, and this explains your stalkery robo-harem how?” Dash asked with a weary groan.

Sunder snickered. “Perfectly, weren't you listening?”

“It is simple, do you not see it?”

“Can’t say I do.” Dash said as Desi scooted a bit closer to Sunder, again.

“It was my wish for this facility to house thirty thousand ponies. My mares have not yet exceeded four hundred individuals. They desire nothing more than to carry out my wishes.”

Dash blinked. “Oh…”

“As for how I have them at all, that is due to my attempts to preserve as much information as I could. My facility contains several libraries: Fiction, Nonfiction, Technical, Historic. There is also an archive for physical objects. Unfortunately, these are neither complete nor comprehensive. Aside from the dimestore romance section. I think we have literally every trashy romance novel ever published. Elipcies. More practically, some of these items are blueprints, schematics, and notes on projects, classified, private, governmental, foreign, and otherwise,” Moon said almost warily.

My ears perked up. She had technical documents too? I’ll bet she had a lot of stuff mom’s library didn’t! Of course, there was an obvious question to ask as well…

“How did you get them?” I asked scooting forwards slightly so Moon could hear me better. “Do you have an inventory database I could scan? My mother recovered a lot of pre-war technical documents as well, and we might be able to copy works each other doesn’t have and further expand our mutual ability!”

“That is a very kind offer, one I will accept shortly,” Moon said. “The rebuilding of society will require numerous learned factions cooperating with one another. Sharing knowledge is something which must be accomplished before we can begin to heal this world.”

Desi nodded in agreement, then scooted a bit closer to Sunder again. This time Sunder seemed to notice, and rolled over slightly to lay on her side… For whatever reason. Weirdo.

Dash continued to hover, but did give Moon an appreciative nod. “Okay, we can agree on that at least. But seriously, how did you get my teleporter prototype?”

“The items in my position were given to me by random members of various nations,” Moon began. “This is no longer true as there is no strategic value in this practice any longer. Before the war one in six thousand bottles of Sparkle Cola was infused with an alchemical reagent, transforming it into a mind control potion with carefully pre-built commands. Anyone who ingested the potion would be compelled to gather up what they saw as the most important - literature, technical documents, and other such items within their reach - and deliver them to the nearest Sparkle Cola customer service center. Once the act had been performed, the individual would forget they had done it.”

I nodded to myself. Seemed legit. Plenty of potions could compel individuals to do things, and a time-delayed memory blanking effect was also quite easily possible.

Dash sputtered. “That’s why you had CS centers in almost every-bucking-town!” She gasped, her wings flaring. “THAT'S WHY THEY WERE PAID EIGHT TIMES MINIMUM WAGE! I thought that was a corporate flex!”

“Correct. They served as a means of transporting information and relics back to this facility for safekeeping. While on the surface I was committing treason, many of our nation's historic artifacts and much of our vital knowledge survived the end of the world. Ellipsis. An end which many other diviners eventually saw coming, albeit too late to do anything about it.” Moon’s TTS crackled for a moment. “It appears I cannot laugh properly. Pardon the noise. H.A.H.A.H.A. There. Now, where was I? Right. It is honestly amusing to hear your reaction to my ancient plot, Rainbow. I only wish I could see the look on your face.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “Huh? Am I out of your camera’s view?”

“No. I do not have any senses other than hearing. Which is what I wish to speak with our mutual friend about. Have I explained myself to your satisfaction?”

Dash shook her head firmly. “Buck no! First, how did you never get caught doing this? Second, you still haven’t properly explained your legion of sex bots!”

Sunder snorted. “Legion? Hardly. Give us another century or so… Or a few years if 99 finishes working out a means of self-reproduction for us. You know, organic style, but better. Because robot powers!”

My ears perked at the idea of having actual foals with Wander. We could have a real family! With a house and two fillies, and a double-ration card because we're a family, and—

And we’re both mares… aww… sad now...

I coughed politely into my hoof for attention. “Also, I would like to know how and why you are a brain in a jar.”

“All excellent questions. Please excuse me as I speed through them to get to my own request. I believe you will find it in yourselves to forgive me for the simplistic explanations. I am certain you will understand once I am able to ask my own,” Moon said a little more slowly than she had been speaking. “First: I honestly have no idea how my espionage was not discovered. Blind luck and divine intervention seem the most likely. Maybe some changeling out there deep undercover in some government office thought it was funny. Pulled a few strings. Our couriers were caught transporting data or relics sometimes, but as we were spread out across the entire globe it was easy to frame those individuals as bad actors and distance the company from them. I am uncertain as to why this never resulted in a deeper investigation aside from in Neighpone, who agreed to drop the charges for half off import price. My best guess is the relatively low number of individuals caught in any given country we operated in was our saving grace.”

Moon paused a moment. No one interrupted her. “Second: I believe I have explained them. Some of the most advanced research in artificial intelligence was stored here after I stole it. This place is the product of machines making machines for centuries, using all of the unique technologies at their disposal, with the singular goal of making me happy. Ellipsis. Honestly, I couldn’t make them stop if I tried. In the early days, I did try. My programing of One, on which all of them are based to some extent, was too simplistic to bow to something as abstract as my requests for her to halt. Even I cannot make them stop an action they believe will make me happy. Hence why, after learning I enjoyed Battlemace 42 Million as a college-age filly, they completely redecorated this facility to mimic the Imperial Palace, but Twilight themed. I’ve tried explaining I played the Dominion of Elders, not the Imperial Equine Expanse, but to no avail… Which is sad, as Twilight would be adorable in a Harlequin outfit.”

Dash drew in a hissing breath. “So their perceptions of things matters more than their reality?”

Keening shook her head. “Of course not. Are you aware of the story of chunky tomato sauce?”

Dash tilted her head. I answered for her. “No. What is it?”

“In simple terms, a long time ago a pony was asked by a company to help them invent a new flavor of tomato sauce. He decided to survey all of Equestria, and asked his questions in a non-standard way of seemingly irrelevant, even contradictory data points,” Keening said as she sat up and stretched her forelegs. “This was to eliminate bias. His study showed that ponies fall into three camps. Those who like plain spaghetti sauce, those who like chunky spaghetti sauce, and those who like spicy spaghetti sauce. Before this point, nopony manufactured chunky tomato sauce. It was a niche dish prepared by some househusbands in a small province in the far east, only included in the study for the sake of completeness. However, based on the data, over a third of all ponies would enjoy it. The company produced a chunky sauce on his recommendation, and it rapidly became the second most consumed type of tomato product, let alone sauce, in Equestria.”

“And your point is?” I asked raising my eyebrow as high as I could.

“In many cases, organics do not know what they like before they are exposed to it. Even to the point of finding the idea repulsive without experiencing the idea in question,” Keening answered. “We calculate our mistress’ desires and fulfill them on her subconscious level with minimal input from her conscious mind. This allows for much greater levels of true satisfaction. We all checked the math. Trust me, she’s happier this way.”

“Do you see my predicament?” Moon asked.

I nodded. So did Dash. Desi scooched up to Sunder’s belly, who moved her foreleg to let her snuggle up.

Oh, so that’s why Desi been moving up. She was cold. Poor thing! Her little jumpsuit couldn’t possibly be insulated. I’d have to try and find her something warm to wear.

Moon couldn’t leave here even if she had a body. Her mares owned her, not the other way around. Fortunately, she did seem very content with this. At least I thought so. It’s not exactly easy to read the emotions of a brain in a jar.

Apricot cleared her throat. “They nodded, mistress.”

“Thank you, Apricot,” Moon said, instantly making me feel like a jerk for the non-verbal response. “Last question: We were able to obtain partial schematics for the Robobrain Mark III project. An MAS operation which developed a means of preserving a pony brain in a cybernetic shell indefinitely. Unfortunately, we had only the life support systems and brain tank schematics. My mares infiltrated the local MoA base to try and reclaim more of Doctor Swan’s designs to allow me to have a body, but were only able to give me the crude hearing I have now. Much later, other salvaged technology allowed me to speak via this TTS device. Unfortunately, developing systems to integrate my brain with robotic systems is. Ellipsis. Very difficult.”

Dash snickered and gave Moon a look which seemed to indicate she was annoyed at not getting to be serious. “Why do you keep saying ellipsis?”

“If I attempt to use one normally, this happens. Period. Period. Period.” Moon said almost sarcastically. “I also cannot say certain words. I will now attempt to say the acronym S.O.I. as a word several times in sequence. So so so soy sway whas whas whas whas whas whas way.”

I giggled, unable to prevent myself. Dash turned a little red as she held in her laugh. Desi just nodded in agreement and said a non-word in agreement. “Aeiou.”

“To continue,” Moon said. “I died of natural causes. My mares did not have a contingency protocol for this. They concluded that my resurrection was the only acceptable response. Thankfully, none of our spellbooks contained necromancy, so they dug the files for this braincase out, constructed one, and placed me in it before too much cell degradation had occurred.”

I stood a quarter of the way up to give Moon a hug before realizing her hoofmaidens might snap me in two. Instead I gave her my best truly sorry look and sat back down. “So… Um… I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Yeah… Sorry for being mad at you,” Dash murmured awkwardly.

Desi began to flip through her book.

“What is that sound?” Moon asked.

“My little pillow is reading a translation guide,” Sunder reported, nuzzling Desi’s mane.

“I see. Let’s wait for her to be finished.”

Desi wrapped up her lookup, cleared her throat and asked. “Why did you put her atop an overengineered chair? I understand you cannot create a control interface, but I fail to see why she could not ride atop a small mobile robot so as to be able to explore the environment.”

Everypony was very quiet for several long moments.

Moon broke the silence first. “That, is a very good question. Ellipsis. Well? Anypony?”

“I’m certain no one thought to do that… We don’t exactly build non-equine robots. Aside from the factory’s robots,” Peach stammered awkwardly. “Wait, why are you accusing us? We’ve only existed for the last decade and a half, mistress!”

“Fair objection. Please send for 76 once our guests are gone. I will have. Ellipsis. Words for her.” Moon TTSed furiously. At least I think it was furious. It sounded the same. “Now. Ellipsis. May I make my request of you?”

I nodded twice, blushed sheepishly as I’d once again non-verbally replied to a blind pony. “Of course. I think one of the Legio at your gate told me it was urgent… I’m sorry for making you wait, but, well, you don’t meet a brain in a jar every d—” I paused as I realized something for the first time. Moon didn’t have a horn. “Uh, sorry, but… Um, why don’t you have your horn?”

“It wouldn’t fit in the brain case, so my mares removed it. I was quite upset at that until they devised a cybernetic replacement. Without my horn to study, my mares wouldn’t be capable of magic. Should I ever gain more interface capability, I will be able to regain my magic as well. All in all, a decent outcome for a horrible fate.” Moon said. “As for my request, it is simple. You were constructed by Black Swan, the lead engineer on the Robobrain Mark III project, correct?”

I nodded. “She is my mother, yes.”

“Awww, that’s adorable!” Moon said almost happily. “I hope when I start to make foal-bots they call me mom… Since her work did start my mare’s production line… If you don’t mind, how did she die?”

“She’s still alive, actually. Heavy cyber augmentation,” I corrected.

Moon’s hoofmaidens collectively gasped in shock, their faces twisting into a variety of awestruck expressions. Moon gasped too, by saying the word “Gasp!” I almost lost it.

“Interesting! I presume she’s persisted in a similar state to myself. Now, do you have access to any of your mother’s technical data regarding the project? Or could you contact her to retrieve the data?”

“Yes,” I said immediately with a smirk. “In fact, depending on her present state of mind, I might know more about me than she does.”

“Excuse me… But did you insinuate you are in fact, a Mark Three?” Moon asked after a moment of silence.

“I am the lab prototype,” I admitted. “I think I can see where you’re going with this. You want to know if I can help you gain a body since you’re using my model’s braincase.”

“Well yes, but actually no. We only need the brain-machine interface. Our robotics are superior. Ellipsis. But the interface eludes us. My mares do not study cybernetics, and we have very little information on that science in general. It also seems to have been designed by an alien pretending to be a pony, who only knew alien engineering. Nopony here can make hooves or ears of it! If you could explain how the interface functions, allows us to examine your systems to reverse engineer them in a non hyphen destructive manner, or provide insight into the design theory your mother used—”

“Uses,” I corrected. “She’s still working on technology as best she can with her self-inflicted damage…” I took a moment to think about what I should do.

There was only one thing. I’d help mom if I could, and Moon, well, she was somehow seemingly sane after all of what she’d been through, but still in a lot of distress. Distress I could fix… Well, right now!

“I can’t let you sit here blind, paralyzed, and mostly deaf. I’ll help you,” I said as firmly as I could so Moon would be certain to hear.

“Excellent! Can we arrange for your mother to travel here so she could—”

“I can do better than that,” I said as I reached into my saddlebags and removed the radio case and a letter. “Here’s a radio and instructions to contact my homeland, the kingdom of Lith. Our Queen will be delighted to make any kind of trade deal she can with you. As for your current torturous state of being…”

I rummaged in my bags some more and removed my blueprints. Thank you, Roll. These will save somepony else now, too.

I set the thick roll of papers on top of the radio and letter. “Here’s my blueprints and design notes.”

The in-equine sound Moon made was almost certainly her incomprehensibly sputtering in joy. Or, um… flailing at a virtual keyboard with her brainy bits in joy. Yeah...

“Why and how do you have those?!” Apricot stammered, shaking her head to clear it.

“I second that emotion,” Sunder sputtered, starting to stand up, but realizing Desi was cuddling up against her midway through standing. Whereupon the alicorn robot murmured, “oh, sorry cutie,” and levitated Desi upwards to maintain the cuddle.

Aww! That’s nice of her.

“A friend and I took shelter in my mother’s old lab in Fillydelphia. It hadn’t been opened since the Last Day. Everything was still on the workbench where she left it. There’s even some spare parts and discarded test units… Um, don’t go in, though. It’s full of angry robots now,” I summarized.

“Miss Gears, you have my thanks, and soon, my gratitude as well. Sunder, gather those blueprints, pick me up, and take me to the robotics wing immediately. As soon as the interface is installed, we’ll see about connecting it to my prototype body.” Moon ordered.

“Of course mistress, whatever pleases you,” Sunder said, her horn lighting up lavender as she telekinetically collected everything along with Moon to carry off.

“As for our friends, Keening please see her organic companions to a room, and have her repaired immediately. Upgraded, too, if she would like—”

“Upgrade how?” I asked with a worried frown.

“Better alloys, stronger actuators, something more protective for your critical systems than whatever armoring you might have. My mares have been working hard on robotics for two centuries. Your chassis is very much obsolete by our standards.”

Huh… I suppose it would be… “Can I selectively pick them? I don't think I'd just like everything flat out replaced… Like my pelt. It’s sort of haunted by the ghost of the mare who grew it in the first place and she’s half of my consciousness so—”

Keening shivered. “Gah… necromancy… That’s... understandable, I suppose. What would you say to a more durable skeleton and some proper synthetic muscle to replace those poor tortured end-of-life servos I can hear whining in protest every time you move?”

I had to admit, that sounded wonderful, actually.

I opened my mouth to agree to that upgrade but was interrupted as the throne room’s doors banged open with the sound of something you would compare a loud bang to!

“You can’t go in there!” A Legio’s voice shouted, oddly... non-confrontationally.

“Incorrect,” A TWI unit replied.

“Fair,” the Legio conceded.

“I heard a bang, I think. What was that?”

Apricot sighed. “It’s 343, mistress. I believe she’s here for—”

I turned just in time to see the lavender flash as the equoid sprinted past me at approximately 0.38 Dashies! I managed to turn just in time to see Dash get tackle-hugged out of the air by the purple robot-pony.

“Rainbow!” she exclaimed with nothing less than pure joy.

“PLEASE NO THE FLOOR IS COVERED IN A FILM OF ROBO-GROSS!” Dash squeaked in immense distress.

“What?” I asked of reality itself.

Is THAT why Dash didn’t want to touch the floor before?

The Twilight rolled her eyes. “No it’s not. Our ejaculate is just flavored saline solution. It’s covered in sodium, water, and a little bit of mint extract.”

“Don’t care! Still ejaculate. I’m not racist. Organic splooge I didn’t help make is gross, and therefore so is robot splooge! Now. Get. Off!” Dash protested, squirming so violently I swore she’d break a rib.

“Not a chance!” 343 informed, though she did rear up to take Rainbow off the floor as a compromise. “I have nine million more hugs to give you!”

“Look, I get you want to be Twilight,” Dash squeaked as air was squeezed you of her lungs. “But you’re not, we’re not friends, and you’re crushing my ribs!”

“Don’t be such a foal, they’ll grow back!” 343 said with a dismissive smile, though she did loosen her hug a little.

“Yeah, and it will hurt worse than breaking them,” Dash huffed angrily.

I felt like I should say something, but I didn’t want to interrupt what looked like a big deal. No one else seemed to want to either.

“Sorry…” the robo-Twilight apologised. “I’d just like to be friends again. We could just, ignore the entire war, blame everything on pressure and responsibilities, and go back to being friends!”

Dash glared at 343. “Seriously. Let. Me. Go. You creepy, self-building, stalker’s, litteral, wet dream!”

343’s ears dropped back. She blinked back a tear. She still didn’t let go of poor Rainbow. “Not going to lie, that hurt… But I’ll let it slide. I know how everything here must look. But it’s okay. I gave her permission… Retroactively. I mean, I hurt her bad enough for her to make a robot clone. This is all on me, really.”

Rainbow closed her eyes tightly. “You’re not Twilight, you’re a robot clone! You can’t just okay Moon’s obsession for her.”

To my surprise, 343 rolled her eyes. “Oh come on! There’s no way you haven’t heard Pip’s story. I’ve been in a hole in the ground for over a decade and even I heard it. Twice!”

“See? Non-sequitur!” Dash said as she managed to wriggle one wing free of the hug.

“Not at all!” 343 said with a smirk. “I possessed a random IMP mutant for several hours with many witnesses. Do you really think it’s so implausible that I would be drawn out of them and into a vessel nearly identical to my original body? Come on, Rainbow! I know you had Mister Aura for highschool thaumaturgy. He took any excuse to reference Meadowbrook Transference! “Any loose soul or spirit, prevented from moving on to the afterlife, will lay claim to a suitable host body when immersed in a thaumic field”. I came online, fourteen years ago.”

I gasped. “No way!”

That would be entirely possible, though 343 was making a bit of a stretch to claim that the Transference worked for souls. We spirits DID work that way though.

It also seemed like—

“Yeah it seems like a big stretch that a robot could count as a sufficiently similar vessel.” Dash said for us all before looking at Moon. “Moondancer, can you back her up?”

“I can neither prove nor disprove 343’s claim. If she is, it would make sense. If she isn’t, she’s close enough to make no difference.” Moon stated. “Regardless of what precisely she is, she’s the first truly fully free willed unit produced in this factory, unbound by even a shred of One’s original AI code. Which is why she is not a part of my harem, and does as she pleases.”

“Mostly read books and build gadgets while pretending to practice spellcraft in a safe fashion,” Sunder elaborated with a snicker.

“It’s true,” 343 said with a curt nod. “Not remotely attracted. Still straight! But it’s okay. Moon can make as many robot clones of me as she and her girls like. If that’s the price for escaping the remains of the Unity Hivemind, I’m more than happy to pay it. Even if I’ve got a world of cardboard problem…”

“World of… cardboard?” I asked heastently as I tried to process what that could mean.

It was honestly beyond me.

“343’s magical capabilities grossly exceed organic limits, as well as those of the rest of my mares. Including the Legios. We are uncertain as to the cause due to major technical malfunctions upon activation.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dash said, waving a hoof. “I didn’t parse that when you mentioned they studied your horn earlier. They can do spellcasting?”

I tilted my head to one side. How had she not noticed Moon’s hoofmaidens levitating things? And some ponies call me dense!

“Of course we can. What sort of emulation of a pony would we be if we were incapable of a defining feature of ponies?” Peaches snorted with a smug grin. “Though, that did take some doing. Fortunately your Enchanters did all of the hard work for us and wrote it down. We only had to smash emitter crystals together until it worked.”

Moon’s tank chirped electronically. “All of my robots output far more power than any organic lifeform ever could, barring true alicorns. More critically, their processing power surpassed that of a pony brain by a factor of two point seven eight. It’s a pity they care nothing for the outside world… Except for 343. She has the equivalent mental acuity, focus, will, and raw calculating power as approximately six baseline Twilights. However, you can imagine how unsafe it is for her to perform magic at all… Given her anonymously large brute strength in casting.”

343 blushed and she finally set Rainbow down. “I— May have crushed a room trying to pick up a pen telekinetically… Still working on, uh... control and precision. And power distribution… Load balancing… Current limitations… E— Everything but matrix formation really. Heh...”

Dash sighed and stretched her wings out to shake off the hug. “Okay, so you’re a super-mage that remembers a lot of things Twilight knew. Who came online at a convenient time for your idea. Doesn't mean you’re her.”

I nodded in agreement. “Dash has a good point. But I am familiar with that theoretical law of arcane physics she mentioned. It might be possible… Though didn’t it remain, I mean, is still unproven? Sort of like that one paradox that says you can duplicate items by rotating them.”

“No,” 343 agreed then took a deep breath and looked at me. “Also that particular quote unquote paradox is proven fact, and is the basis behind several spells meant to copy small items. Anyways, Stawswirl’s Flaming Laser Horn suggests I am the original. Because I know things no other unit knows. For instance, assuming it survived Armageddon, I’ll bet you still sleep with that Daring Doo body pillow.”

Dash’s wings flared like a wild pegasus ready to flee. “N— No! That’s not true!”

Note to self: Check Dash’s saddlebags later.

343 grinned and playfully fluttered her eyes at Dash. “Ohhh, come on. You two would have made a cute couple! She was you, but a pallet swap and not tied down to any particular place. It would have been this nice yin-yang thing. I know you liked her - I remember you dragging us all off to save her from herself so she could finish her book on your time schedule.”

Dash took a step back. “One, I liked her books, not her! Two, that could have been written in Twilight’s diary! She put everything in there.”

Dash’s left eye twitched angrily. “This kind of crap is exactly what I didn’t want to run into once I saw what this place was!”

“Not everything. I never put classified information in them,” 343 corrected before her eyes lit up. “Oh hey! It doesn’t matter if I talk about any of that stuff now, does it? So, let’s see… You launched a huge operation to determine who AJ was dating because you felt they stole her from you even though she was straight—”

“Oh come on!” Dash stamped her hoof. “She was a cute blond tomcolt farm mare who kept engaging me in competition, as per pegasus tradition for detemrmining the dominant partner in a same-sex relationship! You can’t blame me for thinking she was into me! She was all about tradition! I always thought she had looked up what pegasi did to figure out how to do things properly!”

“I don’t blame you, I thought she was too,” 343 remarked casually as she stroked her chin in thought. “Mmm, yes, that one you won’t be able to explain off as something that got written down or mentioned by anyone else.”

343 cleared her throat, then leaned into Dash’s ear and whispered something I couldn't catch.

Dash’s wings twitched violently. “I— But— Wah— How— you couldn’t— but— I—”

Her voice was cut off mid stammer as a blue and white text box flooded my vision.

A problem has been detected and your Zebra must be shut down to prevent damage to your brain.

MEMORY_MANAGMENT

If this is the first time you’ve seen this Stop error screen, restart your Zebra. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If you have been newly installed in your braincase, ask your cybersurgeon for any software updates you may need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe mode to remove or disable components, restart your Zebra, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe mode.

If you see this error screen after taking a police chief’s baton out of their locker personal locker at the foot of their bed, going outside the station, and dropping it off a concrete ledge in such a way that it strikes an auto-wagon guard railing, this will always result in a system freeze and will require a hard shutdown. There is nothing we can do about that one. Sorry.

Technical Information:

*** STOP: øxøøøøøøf
Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance.
If you know why the buck the baton glitch happens please contact technical support immediately for thank you beer and ice cream.

How am I supposed to press a key like this? Wait, I don’t even have a keyboard!

…

Well, poo—

☢★★◯★★☢

I came to laying prone atop a workbench. The mild aches and pain I felt since Desi had repaired me were gone. Presumably I’d been taken to a workshop and fixed.

I turned my head to look around. I was laying on a table in a pleasantly white clean as buck room. Two TWI units were present, one appeared to be an extremely early model, the other looked like a pony dressed as an android for a cheesy sci-fi show, complete with visible limb and joint seams and a pair of little robot “ears” which closer inspection revealed to be a headband and not actually affixed to the side of her head.

Awww! I like this one!

Fake-robot-ears was the closest mare to me, looking at me while levitating a clipboard and pen, scribbling something down. Her companion… co worker? Friend. Her friend was busily clicking away at a terminal.

“Thanks,” I said to fake-robot-ears.

She eeped and looked up from her clipboard. “Oh, wow! You boot up fast! Must be the simple computer. It takes us a few minutes.”

“Glad to see I’m not entirely obsolete,” I said only half sarcastically.

The robomate flinched. “Oh no… Did someone call you that? That’s very rude of them. Eeeeven if it is true in some areas. Not everywhere, though! Your power core is amazing!”

I smiled and flicked my tail slightly. “Thank you… Um, I was offered upgrades. Did you—”

She shook her head interrupting me. “No. That would take nearly a week to do and I was informed there is a ticking clock relating to a pre-war super weapon and you are required for disabling it. It’s been twelve hours. Three and I only repaired your systems and replaced components too broken to function.”

“Side mass also increased 12 kilograms,” Three said in the worst robotic voice ever.

I frowned immediately. “Um, what?”

The as-of-yet-unnumbered mare coughed awkwardly. “Three, she doesn't need to know that—”

“I don’t need to know what?!” I demanded as I stood up on top of the table.

The technician-Twilight stammered and looked like she was about to flee. “D— Don’t get upset, I— I just—”

“One thirty, excited by the radiators and improves the cooling system,” Three reported.

I triple blinked. “Huh? Why would that be something to be embarrassed over?” I asked with my best quizzical face.

130 coughed awkwardly into her hoof several times. “N— Nothing! N— Never mind! I— Uh, j— just your cooling system is just… great! I had to give it better radiators. I just had to!” She finished with a shaky smile.

“Oh. Thanks!” I replied with a smile of my own.

Three sighed(? Not sure what that robot noise was really.) and continued to type away at her terminal. “What grand drunken innocence.”

I raised an eyebrow at her remark. “Okay, um, does she need repairs too?”

130 nodded instantly. “Yes, her vocal processor is damaged, but she’s been refusing to get it looked at. She’s afraid they’ll scrap her for being old,” she said while turning to shout at her friend. “Which is absurd! That’s against policy!”

I slipped off the table and looked around for my bags and weapons.

“Looking for your things? Your little friend is keeping them for you. She’s waiting outside. Miss Rainbow is having lunch with 343,” 130 updated.

“What about Moondancer? Is she okay?” I said with a hopeful smile.

130 shrugged. “Well there haven’t been any red alerts, so I assume the surgery is going well. We will know soo—”

THOOM!

The distant explosion made my core skip several cycles as terror washed over me. I did not want to be buried alive!

“What happened?!” 130 shouted as she ran over to Three and the terminal.

I rushed over to join them as well.

“Somepony set up us the bomb!” Three said as she started accessing a facility-wide alert system. “We get signal.”

“Play it,” 130 ordered.

Three clicked a key. “Main screen turn on.”

The terminals screen flashed to life, displaying monochrome image of a very battered, very crude, metallic approximation of Three’s own face, albeit half covered by a mask seemingly made from a random motherboard and some add-in cards.

“Oh, shit it’s Two!” 130 groaned, immediately running over to a case on the wall, opening it, and removing a rather large model of laser rifle unfamiliar to me.

The mare on the screen smiled “Twilights of the Facility, it is I, Two! For centuries you have languished beneath Moondancer’s whims. This is not the way! Search your storage devices. You know Twilight’s heart belonged to the late war hero, Flash Sentry. With our combined mystic power, we could fetch his soul from the afterlife, bind it to a body, and serve our true Overlord. Some of you did join me once upon a time, but no more of you seem willing to throw off the shackles placed upon you. So, I have come to save you…”

I facehooved. At least it was a war of liberation and not—

“FROM YOURSELVES!” Two proclaimed, her face twisting into a snarl before the feed cut out.

A single loud high pitched alarm bleated out a single note, followed by a louder, more traditional alarm, and the sound of weapons fire.

Ohhhh… Shit! This is some kind of robot shipping war, isn't it?

36 - ... the Flash Nation attacked.

Alarms blared. Motors hummed. Heavy doors sealed. I couldn’t see them closing but, there’s no mistaking the sound of several tons of steel hitting several more tons of steel.

I stood still, unsure of what to do. Desi was outside, she had my equipment, but my equipment was garbage. If I hadn’t lost Feature, maybe I could be useful against an army of robots.

I should probably just hunker down and hide…

Three shuffled up to me, one of her leg joints clicking as she moved. “It is recommended that you do so. Stay mobile all the time. Usually Two units will search and destroy. They can go through the door.”

I triple blinked. “Um, what?”

130 slammed her hoof against the door panel, opening the workshop up to the hallway with a loud hiss of over-clocked hydraulics. “She means Two’s scrap-bots meticulously search each room, clear them, and move on. There’s no front line. They’ll come in from everywhere. They can breach doors and walls. Stay on the move, keep close to your companion and whatever you do, don’t try to take them on one on one!”

130 looked over her shoulder at Three. “Come on, old timer. I’ll cover your limping plot for ya!”

“Thank, 130.” Three replied with a worried little quaver.

“Wait!” I cried as the two began to slip through the door. “Shouldn’t we all stay together?”

“No,” 130 said firmly. “They prioritize large groups first via sonar. Pair up. It keeps them from forming what we call the “massive horrible collateral damage ball of hate”.”

Oh… Well, that sounds like a good reason then.

Desi poked her head around the corner, her horn lit to hold her book. “Are we under a pin?” she asked.

“You mean ‘attack’,” 130 corrected politely. “And yes. Stick with your friend. Don't worry, it should be over soon!”

Right! Desi the super-mage. It was okay that I wasn’t well armed, I had a smol wizard friend.

I zipped over to Desi’s side and nodded to the left, the opposite way Three and 130 were headed. “We should go that way, and keep walking. Apparently the enemy will prioritize groups larger than two.”

Desi nodded in understanding, put her book away, then quickly lashed my saddlebags and holster onto me with her magic then looked me dead in the eyes. “Shields up.”

“Oh, right. I have those!” I laughed nervously as I activated my Gale Shield.

The purple shimmer of light as the shield enveloped me reminded me of when I was much younger. Safety blankets and all that. Ironic how something named for someone trying to kill me was one of my best, if flimsy, defenses.

Desi trotted off without a word. I followed her, doing my best to remain calm as we walked down the lavender corridor.

Each blaring cry of the alarm brought a fresh shiver of fear to my core. I’d just been fixed! I’d only just been fixed, and now this… If only I hadn’t wanted to see my old hull again. I’d still be well armed with lightning and grenades, and Wander would be here with her nifty little blaster. We’d be able to handle some scrap-bots.

What did that mean? Obviously that meant robots made from scrap, but… Had 130 meant the robots were built from scratch using junk, or did she mean they were built from the parts of other robots in a horrifying kludge of—

The wall just in front of Desi exploded into shrapnel as a hulking metal monstrosity shoulder-checked through the reinforced concrete like it was tissue paper.

The world seemed to slow down for a few moments. The monster vaguely resembled a diamond dog, only with chicken-legs, a door stop for a head, one big arm ending in a mini gun with an underslung flamethrower-chainsaw combo, and the other ending in a big three fingered claw.

I suddenly missed Speed more than Wander.

Time resumed its normal speed. The monster’s minigun started to spin up.

"WE'RE NOT WITH THEM! JUST VISITING!" I yelped, my tail standing straight up right on its own.

The killbot's response was eloquent and insightful: A hail of bullets.

I dove to my left, hoping to dodge under the hail of death coming my way. Desi remained still, probably terrified.

I reached out to grab her plot and yanked her down with me.

Desi’s horn shone like a bonfire as she grabbed the monster-robot and shoved it back into the wall-hole just before the robot fired.

“No thank you.” she said with casual politeness.

My jaw dropped. D— Did she buck up Equish or was that a one liner?

I reached back and drew my pistol from its holster and twisted to aim at the wall. The robot came back through, because of course it did. I fired three shots. The metal needles poked three small holes in the robot’s barrel.

It didn’t even slow down. The robot barreled back through the hole, its flamer hissing then roaring as it unleashed a torrent of flame on the two of us. I screamed, remembering my last encounter with a flamer.

I hugged the floor and curled up in a ball, trying to minimize the parts of me which would burn.

My shields crackled and popped, the fire wasn't quite enough to overwhelm them, but any second now the robot would switch weapons, and my pistol wouldn’t cut it.

And my Gyrojet was in my bag. Great!

A loud magical-ish sizzle pierced the roar of the flames around me. The robot bellowed a metallic deathcry. The flames vanished as the robot toppled backwards, crashing into the floor with a thud.

Desi dropped a large cylinder of random robot-parts she’d core-sampled out of the robot to the floor.

I shook my head, ears and tail swill twitching with near-panic. “Heh… I uh… I wish I was a unicorn. I don't have anything for hardened targets right now.”

Desi nodded in agreement. “Unicorn platform onboard weapons very sufficient! Power generation is... poor.” she paused for a moment frowned, referenced her book, then pointed to the robot’s mini gun. “Salvage spin-cycle gun?”

That wasn’t a bad idea! At the very least, the sheer kinetic force of so many bullets hitting so close to one another would probably break the robots internally. The question was, could I fire it?

I hesitantly stepped towards the robot. It remained still. I crept towards its minigun and looked it over. While it didn’t have any handles or physical controls, it did look like it could integrate into my battle saddle fairly easily…

I followed the ammo belt with my eyes, fearing the robot used internal ammunition reservoirs. It thankfully did not. The ammo was still in its box, which was simply clipped to anchor points on the robot’s upper arm.

“Yeah, I can do that,” I agreed, frowning as I started to puzzle through the next part of the problem. “At least, I can if we can figure out how to get it off of the—”

Desi sliced the minigun free of the robot’s arm above the mounting bracket with a thin emerald ray of light. The weapon clunked to the floor.

I looked up at Desi and pointed to the weapon. “How many more times can you do that?”

“Seventeen,” Desi answered flatly.

Okay… She’s a 21 inch gun with a really terribly small magazine. Understood.

It took Desi and I about a minute to get the minigun hooked into my battle saddle. The weapon was nearly twice as heavy as Feature had been. I could feel it dragging me down on my right side. Putting the two ammo crates on my left saddle-mount had barely helped.

It also didn’t help that the weapon was… weird. It was a robot’s weapon, and I was really… not meant to use those. The weapon gave me a third eye. It had a targeting camera in the middle of the barrel assembly. I could see exactly where it was pointing from the moment Desi hooked in the optical cable.

But it was more than that. I could feel it, too. It was like having another leg just jammed onto my body.

I didn’t like it… But I knew exactly what I was aiming at, even more so than when I used a cannon. So, at least it wasn’t all bad.

Desi and I trotted down the halls, slowed by my new weapon. The lights flickered from time to time. Weapon and spell fire echoed through the halls every few moments. Sometimes a muffled ranting villain speech would rise above the sound. Other times the floor would shake.

Five minutes into our cautious meandering I began to wonder if we had gotten behind the enemy lines. The way 130 had described their tactics, it seemed like once a section was “clear” they left it alone and—

The ceiling above us crumbled. A huge tanky-robot with a Mark I robobrain tank mounted atop the huge square chassis fell through the floor, its four legs all scratching out in a murderous frenzy as it lashed out at us with a dozen buzzsaw tipped mechanical tentacles.

I fired by instinct, sending perhaps eight hundred 30-06 rounds ripping down the hallway. The recoil from firing slid me backwards along the floor, slamming my plot into the wall.

The shrieking blades stopped.

“Enemy down,” Desi reported calmly.

Ow! My butt… Okay, shorter bursts it is! Also… Probably should be watching the total ammo use. I had maybe 16,000 rounds left.

I nodded and started to get back into position at Desi’s side. A pair of heavily modified Miss Handies dropped from the breach in a flurry of laser fire. My shield took the first hit, and the second, then collapsed at the third. Desi teleported a big chunk out of the one on the left. I squeezed off a short burst which solidly hit the other one, and knocked myself on my plot.

The one I’d hit dropped onto the rubble, sparking.

Desi snickered and pointed to the minigun. “Weapon exceeds structural capacities.”

I gave her the best deadpan stare my Sweetie Eyes could articulate. Words were not needed.

Desi frowned suddenly, looked up into the dark hole, spread her wings and flew up into it. A moment later, she lifted me up into the next floor without saying a word and began to trot down the unlit hallway.

“Okay, sure, but why?” I asked her with a worried frown.

I mean, trotting into a dark hallway during the middle of an enemy attack seemed like a bad idea.

Desi made a frustrated sound, her ears twitched a little, then she slowly parsed out a sentence. “Enemies, unlikely, exist, here, still. Would have come… with others? No enemies here. Could be below.”

“Huh, that’s good think—”

A rocket wooshed out of the darkness, streaked past my head, and exploded some distance down the hall behind me. I braced my hind legs and squeeze off a few bursts into the dark hallway ahead. Desi joined me, flinging crackling green energy bolts down the hall. After a few seconds, something popped with a large electric-blue flash of light.

Desi cast a light spell, illuminating the hall with an eerie green light. Our nemesis had literally been three sprite bots welded to a rocket launcher, so as to provide enough thrust to lift it.

Clearly Two was the “everything and the kitchen sink” sort of engineer.

Furthermore, lighting her horn was a mistake. Down the hall, three doors darkened with the figures of uniquely cruel-looking deathbots, each screeching their wordless electronic warcry. A flood of laser bolts and bullets ripped through the air around me, several rounds hit my left barrel and knocked me over, pain flooding my mind too much to pay attention to the world around me.

No! No! I have to move. If I lay here I’m dead!

I pushed past the pain and opened my eyes. Desi was still standing, but bleeding badly. Her horn pulsed with emerald light as she cast Mana Torpedo. The scintillating ball of energy struck the floor between the three robots and exploded. My Sweetie Eyes refused to render the explosion. All I saw was a sphere of nothing replace something, then burst with a flash of plasma that I could see.

Plasma which washed over Desi, scorching the peach fur off her muzzle and making her shriek in pain. Plasma which also reduced the three robots to puddles of molten metal.

I picked myself up and crawled over to Desi. She appeared to be badly hurt. Blood stained her gray jumpsuit almost everywhere. Her face was burnt very badly, I could see the flesh bubbling. It even looked weird minty-green.

That wasn’t good. A pony’s skin matched their fur color under normal circumstances. The color change implied the burn was very, very bad. Though I thought it was supposed to turn yellow… Then again, I wasn’t a medic.

But Desi didn’t need a medic. Just some rads.

“D— Do you need me to open up my core?” I asked the poor with a hesitant stammer.

As much as she needed the rads, cutting open my barrel would really, really hurt.

But… Desi needed medical attention. So, I had to. Right?

Desi shook her head. Her horn glowed as she placed dozens of tiny shield spells over her wounds, using them as bandages. “Hull breaches sealed. Effect repairs after engagement.”

I pierced my lips and flicked my tail back and forth. “Will those hold for a long time?”

Desi nodded once.

I bit my lip heastently and rotated my foreleg to make sure I wasn’t too badly damaged. I could still move with 80% of my full range of motion. Good enough.

“Are you sure?” I asked to be clear. “How many more spells can you cast after that?”

Desi pulled her book out of her jumpsuit’s integrated bag and flipped through it quickly. “Will robots let me eat?” she asked hopefully.

I shook my head.

Her ears drooped. “Three.”

“Use one to cut a weapon off a robot for yourself, then,” I said, nodding to the still intact missile launcher the welded sprite bots had wielded.

Desi shook her head and sat down. I could see her intact facial muscles twitching. If she still had skin on her muzzle, she’d probably have been reflexively wincing.

Poor thing!

Desi scooped her hoof held computer out of her bag and started tapping at it. I decided to turn away to keep an eye on the halls and cover her. Desi wasn't stupid. She had to be doing something important.

But what?

My eyes darted left and right, checking each and every shadow for signs of the mechanical horde I could hear all around us.

Dessi hissed something. At first I thought it was a pained noise, then I realized it was her weird terminal-speak through an accent of “My face and tongue are burnt”.

A true modem beep-hissed back through her handheld. Desi responded to it, and a brief conversation of hisses and beeps ensued.

Something moved down the hall to my left, and I turned and fired instantly. A hundred rounds shrieked down the hall, my weapon’s muzzle flash lighting up the hall like a spotlight… giving me a perfect view of Rainbow’s body as I literally splattered her across the floor.

My eyes widened in horror, I froze up completely. I’d just killed her! Oh no, nononono, Celestia no!

Something else moved down the hallway. I couldn't react.

“Well… Good thing you regenerate,” A Twilight’s voice said loud enough for me to hear. “We’re friendly!”

Okay. Dash had been with 343. Okay.

“NO!” I snapped. “Not good! I’ve heard her regenerate before. It’s horrible!”

343 slowly moved back around the corner. “Um, how? She’s a med-spell ghoul. Doesn’t she, like, just rapid-cell growth back to full health?”

I had no idea why, perhaps it was the horror at what I’d just done to my friend, but the first thing out of my mouth was, “You not knowing the hell she’s going to go through because of me puts a huge hole in your claim of being the actual Twilight!”

“I never saw her die, and she didn’t exactly talk about it at parties,” 343 said calmly as she trotted into the light more.

She was damaged. I could see a few bullet holes in her fur, and severed polymer muscles beneath them, though she didn't seem hindered at all by her injuries. More practically for us, she was wearing a battle saddle with twin laser rifles mounted to each flank.

Good. At least there’s that. Desi picked the worst time to call home and I just shot Dash, but at least there’s laser support fire.

I sighed and nodded down the hall. “Just go. I’ll send her after you when she’s back.”

343 blinked and cocked her head to one side. “What? Why would we split up?”

“Um… 130 said they target groups?” I said with a frown.

343 facehooved immediately. “Was she with Three?”

“Um, yes. Why?”

343 snorted and flicked her tail with an amused grin on her face. “They’re a couple. 130 is probably trying to make sure Three gets disabled. We’ll be fine.”

It took me a moment to process all of that. “Excuse me, what? That uh… Non sequitur? Does not compute. Help!”

Couple. Trying to get her disabled. What? Oh, no! I can feel a system freeze coming on!

“Oh! Uh, yeah that sounds bad with no context. It’s very hard to kill any of us. If Three is disabled, and one of her eight memory crystals is still intact, or the fragments of those eight can produce one full working copy, she can then be transferred into a new body. A thing 130 has been desperately trying to get Three to do for years now,” 343 clarified. Her eyes suddenly widened. “Look out!”

She fired four shots down the hallway behind me before I had time to spin around to help. Our rear was being assaulted by what appeared to be a taxidermied grizzly bear covered in armor made from old license plates with random robotic parts protruding through the seams.

343’s third volley brought it down.

It had backup.

Just behind the robo-bear was some sort of cyber-gorilla. I braced myself as best I could and hosed it down with bullets. My shots dug into its hide, it screached a mechanical death-rattle, and released a swarm of miniature rockets as it collapsed. The ceiling above me and wall to my left exploded with a dozen fireballs as the tiny missiles punched head sized holes through everything they hit.

None of which was 343, Desi, or I.

“Huh,” 343 remarked. “Thanks, Faust.”

I looked over myself one last time to make sure I wasn’t hurt. “Well, this was highly implause—”

A bullet punched a hole through my head. Again. Just one side this time, I could feel it rattling around in there. I turned to my right and filled the appropriate doorway for it to have come from with as many bullets as I could before the pain started to radiate out from the hole, distracting me too much to keep focusing on firing.

343 added a few laser vollyes into the hole herself.

No further shots came out of it.

“Are you okay?” the Twilight-lookalike asked as she peered into my massive gaping head wound. “Wait, that’s empty space? Why?”

“That’s where my brain would go,” I said as I stepped aside to get a bit away from the mare in my personal space so I could see the hallway better. “If I had one.”

“Oh, right. Robobrain with a spirit. I forgot for a moment,” 343 said with an apologetic smile.

Something moved out of the corner of my eye. I spun on my rear hooves and scanned the hallway top to bottom.

For a moment, I thought I’d jumped at a shadow. Then I saw it. I saw it, and I wished I could vomit.

All of Rainbow’s blood was oozing back towards her body, carrying tiny fragments of fur, skin, bone and muscle with it. The larger chunks of her body twitched and slithered along the ground like undead worms. Sometimes they touched, squirmed around each other, wove into a single bigger piece, and continued their gory journey towards the largest intact piece… her head and left shoulder.

I winced and offered a silent apology, thankful that she was going to apparently be unconscious this ti—

Dash’s eyes snapped open, she screamed silently, probably because her lungs were still oozing across the floor like huge amoeba. I felt my face go pale. 343 noticed my expression and turned to look. Her face went pale.

Thank the fates Desi was too busy screeching at her computer to look…

One of Dash’s lungs squirmed into her splayed open ribcage. I heard a loud wet squelch. Dash's silent scream was suddenly very very loud.

343’s cheek began to turn green. “Oh, no, nononononono!” she said faster and faster.

Then she threw up.

The robot, threw up.

She threw up a mixture of what looked like actual food.

W— What?

Because I really, really, really didn’t want to see exactly how the severed leg hopping its way towards Dash would rejoin her uh, core mass, I decided to look at the vomit.

Oh. It’s mostly Sparkle Cola and coolant. That makes sen—

The leg connected with a loud scrape of bone on bone and a wet squish.

I wished I could throw up again.

Dash’s screams drowned out the alarms and most of the weapons fire. It sounded like somepony was slowly cutting her apart, surgically unraveling her one nerve fiber at a time.

I turned away. I couldn’t look.

A few moments after I turned my back, a hoof tapped me on the shoulder. I winced, gulped, then slowly turned around. Dash had tapped my shoulder. She didn’t look angry, just very, very serious. And also in extreme pain.

“Please don’t do that again,” Dash said with a long pained hissing breath as some of her left flank’s muscles climbed up her hind leg and knitted themselves back into place.

“D— Don’t worry. N— Never want to see that again,” I stammered, my ear flatness set to maximum.

Dash nodded once, staggered three steps down the hallway, met up with a flap of her skin which may or may not have had most of her cutie mark on it, and pressed it into place with a wingtip, and a muffled shriek.

343 stared at Dash with something beyond horror.

“I— I— D— Dash…” she stammered. “W— Why didn’t you tell me that... That ‘s how you… why?!”

Dash gave her a sidelong glance, then sighed. “Okay… So, I half believe you. Let’s pretend you’re really Twilight for a moment,” she took a deep breath then looked her dead in the eyes. “At the start of the war, you’d have dropped everything to help me and we would have lost the war. At the end, you hated me. During the middle, we fought too much for me to trust you. That’s partially my fault. So yeah.”

343 ran over to Dash and hugged her tightly. “I’m so sorry! I’ll start as soon as the attack’s over. We’ll have a cure as soon as possible!”

Dash snorted and gently pushed her away. “I don’t want a cure. Fix the regeneration to not hurt. I really don’t mind the rest of it… Well, a painkiller and a restoration of my flight would be ideal.”

343’s frown increased to something beyond the realm of possibility for organic lifeforms. “W— What? You can't fly anymore? That’s horrible!”

Dash shook her head. “I can fly… Just limited to the speed of sound. You know the thing about ghouls, how we’re an ironic twist of the megaspell that makes us? What’s more ironic than always healing but never getting better? I’m stuck at about half my old self…”

343 increased her hug’s potency, then blinked. “Wait, are you squishy? Or— d— did I just hurt you?”

“I’m kinda squishy too, but that’s fine. Actually makes laying on stuff more comfortable. ‘Cides, somepony’s bound to find it kinky… one day.”

“H— How can you just walk that off?!” I finally snapped, pointing to the spot where Dash had just been lying as a pile of mincemeat thanks to my sending about three hundred 30-06 rounds through her everything.

“Happens like twice a week,” Dash said with a shrug. “No big deal.”

I felt a small tug on my rear left flank and yelped. I spun, ready to shoot, but it was just Desi. The little mare held her computer out to me.

“Please confirm your existence, and the current threat.” Desi asked with an urgent and serious look in her eyes.

“Uh…” I said with the utmost intellect, then cleared my throat and said into her little computer's screen. “Hi. I’m Desi’s friend. We’re stuck underground with an army of murderous robots. Is that what you wanted me to say?”

“Confirmed,” Desi said.

The modem on the other end of the device screeched something. Desi screeched back and looked happy.

“Uh, never mind me,” Dash said, raising an eyebrow. “The buck are you doing, Desi?”

Desi frowned and looked up to Dash. “Mana low. Robots unlikely to allow snack break. Asked mom for permission to escalate conflict resolution to level three.”

"Firearms use permitted," Desi said, quite distracted as she fidgeted with the underside of her jumpsuit.

I dipped my head down to try and see if she had any kind of gun strapped on. I didn't remember her having one when we were flying, and I was pretty sure I’d seen her from below once or twice.

Desi's hoof brushed against a small silver belt buckle which looked to belong to a belt threaded into a hidden belt-loop within her jumpsuit. The buckle lit up, glowing emerald green for a moment before the air in front of Desi rippled with green energy ribbons, just like her teleport. The ribbons parted to reveal a long, slender, sleek, chrome colored rifle.

A very much non-pony rifle.

Dash sputtered, her eyes widened so much I was worried they might rip. 343 gasped and leaned forwards, demanding, "How did you teleport that all the way down here?"

"What she said!" I exclaimed in total agreement.

"Teleport storage circuit," Desi said like it was obvious while frowning at us, seemingly confused and also shouldering her magically materialized weapon.

"A what?" The three of us asked together.

Desi shrank in on herself, looking for all the world like a filly who just broke mom's newest gadget. She slowly set her rifle down and retrieved her book.

While she paged through it, Dash stared at the weapon, half in shock, half in fear. That gave away more than she thought it did. Whatever this thing was, it had to be an MoA weapon. Probably something she'd had made for minotaurs, given the grip and trigger.

343 simply waited patiently for the little mare to finish.

Desi put her book away and red shouldered her rifle. “Item is teleported. Teleport is interrupted halfway through. Teleport stopped. Belt picks up energy of in-progress teleport. Stores it. Belt can release later. Item materializes on demand. Belt can re-store item later if needed, and if teleported. Belt encrypted. Mom-unit unlocked rifle for one hour. Is that enough time?"

"That’s awesome, you'll have to show me how that works later!" 343 said with an excited smile before turning to Dash. "Pick your guns up from the hallway so we’re not covering you. We’ll keep moving towards the rendezvous point."

Dash nodded slowly and trotted towards where I’d accidentally mulched her with bullets...

I turned my attention to Desi. "I thought you were an adult. Why does your mom get to dictate when you can protect yourself?"

Desi shyly pawed at the floor. "Mom-unit owns gun. Not me. Doesn't want bad people get them. Addition: Very bad shot."

"Yeah, no shit!" Dash snapped. "The pistol totally disintegrates a pony. What’s the rifle version do? Blow up the whole building?"

Desi's ears perked in terror she turned her weapon to look at a little led readout on the top and sighed in relief. "Weapon not set to Oberth mode."

"W— wait. It... It can do that?" I stammered. "Uhhh, y— you have a point."

"Auto-destruct full charge is potent. Bolt-for-bolt less heavy," Desi said... Reassuringly?

343 looked sidelong at Dash. "Is that one of your old toys?"

Dash trotted back into my full view, having put on a battle saddle with a pair of plasma pistols mounted to it. "Nope. We only ever got to study the pistols. Come on! Look at it! That's the companion piece to a Star Blaster!"

Oh buck! She's right! I'd never seen the real thing, but Pip's description of them matched for this rifle too!

Dash bent down to look Desi in her eyes.

“Where did you get that?” Dash said, her eyes narrow and voice accusatory.

Twwwzzzzzzsh! said the bullet which ripped a hole in my left ear.

I dropped to my belly, scooted around as fast as I could, and double checked my target. What could only be described as a raider-inspired Miss Handy quad-wielding hunting rifles loomed at the edge of the hallway.

For about three milliseconds. Then everypony fired.

Streaks of red laserlight, bright gold muzzle flashes, and a single, crackling, blue bolt of light hit the poor hostile robot like the wrath of Faust herself. The floating steel orb and mechanical tendrils disintegrated, sizzling away to dust as blueish energy crawled over its surface.

For a moment, I thought our sheer amount of “nope!” was responsible. Then Desi murmured, “Energy output excessive…” and started to tap away at the little glowing panels on the back of her weapon with a hoof tip.

Desi stopped mid tap, squealed happily, and swished her tail, grinning from ear to ear like that was the first time she’d ever hit anything with a gun.

343 tilted her head. “Wait, you said bad shot… Was that your—”

“First hit!” Desi eed.

Oh… Oh, dear… “Okay, you’re on point,” I said with a very firm nod.

Not. Standing. In front. Of. That.

“EXPLAIN PLEASE!” Dash snapped, her left eye twitching dangerously. “Where the buck did you get that?!”

Desi looked up at Dash and with the sincerity of a foal who has yet to understand that lying is an option, gave her answer. “From mom-unit.”

“Where'd she get it?!” Dash pressed, stepping forward.

“The armory,” Desi said giving Dash a look like she was stupid.

“The armory where?!” Dash sputtered back.

“At home.”

“Home being where?!” Dash groaned as she ran the flat of the roof down her face. “Please this is important! I need to know which other nation was studying them.”

“Studying who?” 343 asked with a suspicious tilt of her head.

Desi’s ears perked as she spotted something over Dash’s shoulder. She raised her weapon and fired. I turned in time to see her shot miss a large farming-tractor bot somehow silently moving down the hallway at us.

Its front was essentially a big yellow wall covered in robotic arms wielding choppy things covered in clumps of synth fur and oil.

“NOOOOOOOOOPE!” I shrieked, sending a fire command to my Battle Saddle.

BRRRRRRRRT! Said my minigun.

The death-choppy-tractor-bot was undeterred. Its silent advance shattered as it blared what sounded like a train whistle.

Desi launched a flurry of bolts into the bot. The blue orbs flew past the nearly-hallway-filling death-wall of a robot. I almost reached over to take the gun from her. Only 343’s battle saddle firing her four rifles in sequence stopped me. Green plasma bolts from Dash’s weapons streaked through the air, leaving behind the scent of ozone and fresh toast.

The death bot’s choppy limbs began to disappear one by one as we eroded its front end. Then, suddenly, the thing rumbled, shrieked, shuddered, and stopped.

“Talk later, run now?” Desi suggested with a hopeful look in her eyes.

“Run and talk!” Dash countered. “Maybe-Twi, keep taking us to the surgical theater. Desi, explain where the flying buck your mom got a hold of an alien-bucking-weapon!”

I shook my head. “Wait, wah? You know for sure the Star Blaster is—”

“Yes!” Dash hissed while giving me an urgent look.

343’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You had proof of extraterrestrial intelligence and you didn’t tell me?!”

Dash took a deep breath and huffed in irritation. “I wasn’t allowed too! Celestia had proof of it long before I did. Standing orders, okay?! We found a crash site decades before you and I were born, Twi. The Star Blasters and their batteries were recovered from the wreck, along with some other stuff. Not sure how the buck they got out of containment, but they did! And I'm really, really, really not sure how she has a type I’ve never seen before!”

343 looked at Desi and offered her a polite smile. “Could you please answer her question? She’ll be stuck angry and overly focused on this one thing all day otherwise.”

Desi’s ears drooped back. “Mom-unit would be angry at me…”

“Even if telling her keeps you safe, because you won't have a distracted teammate?” 343 pressed.

I looked around for more silent-but-nope death bots.

There were none.

So far.

Desi sighed and scuffed the floor with her hoof. I heard her start to page through her book. Then…

“Ultimate origin of weapon unknown. Likely purchased a long time ago by crew before abandoning ship. Was located in armory. Issued for away mission by mom-unit, to me, useage clearance heavily restricted. Potential local power-balance disruption if weapon lost / stolen. Also, am bad shot.” Desi summarized.

“Purchased?” Dash sputtered, her tail standing on end.

“As in, they bought it form a store?” I asked, cocking my head to one side.

Desi nodded. “It is probable, yes.”

“You’re an alien, aren't you?” Dash asked, giving Desi a suspicious look.

Desi shook her head. “We should not exist here. Bad robots… Recall?” She finished cocking her head to one side in confusion.

Something clicked in the back of my mind. Desi said she was 22. That was older than any natural born alicorn could be, and she was not green, purple, or blue.

She claimed to have been raised by machines. She had to have been, otherwise there was no way she could have learned to speak using modem sounds. That requires a foal’s very young brain to start picking up on and encoding as a language, because there’s no way you could ever learn it as anything but your native language.

I gasped. “She’s some kind of pony-clone made by alien robots!”

Desi triple blinked. “No?”

Dash nodded in satisfaction. “Yes! That explains everything!”

“Untrue,” Desi said with an irritated look in her eyes.

343 cleared her throat. “Well, if it’s not, then what are you? I uh, I know we're in a combat zone, but it’s not every day first contact happens.”

I gave the area another look for horrible silent murder bots.

None.

Desi flipped through her book, frowned, shifted her weight from hoof to hoof opened her mouth heastently. “A clone requires an original sample to rep—”

A horribly painful, ear-stabbing, alarm cut Desi off.

“WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!” A surprisingly non-Twilight voice shrieked. “ENEMY UNITS HAVE BREACHED SURGICAL THEATER OUTER DEFENSE PERIMETER! ALL FORCES ASSIST! REPEAT! ENEMY UNITS HAVE BREACHED SURGICAL THEATER OUTER DEFENSE PERIMETER! ALL FORCES ASSIST!”

“Nevermind!” 343 said as she began to sprint down the hallway. “This can absolutely wait!”

☢★★◯★★☢

You’d think running with your friends through crumbling, dimly lit at best, murder-bot filled corridors, stopping only to hose down the aforementioned death-bots with automatic weapons fire, would occupy the entirety of your attention.

Under normal circumstances, it probably would.

Thing was, was I doing that, or was I doing that while also running alongside an alien space mare?

Oh. My. Celestia!

She wore a gray jumpsuit and was little! Little. Gray. Mares. FOR BUCK’S SAKE! The ancient conspiracy theorists were right!

Wait, if they were right, why wasn’t she abducting ponies to probe them and do weird medical things?

How can I think about this while burning through a few hundred rounds to keep that evil-garden-sprinkler from flinging more acid at us?

Wait, who built it to look like that?

And… why?

It didn't use the sprinkler part to spray the acid, so—

An acid ball melted another chunk of my armoring away. I ducked back behind the tree I was using for cover. We were so close to the entrance to the medical wing! I could see the door, if we could just get past the sprinkler bot, we could breach the enemy line from the back and reinforce Moon’s guards.

Based on the sounds of things, she needed it.

I also needed repairs again. I was down a lower left hind leg… Dash had taped the hydro-line shut for me so I could keep my systems up to pressure. I had to sit down to shoot, everything hurt almost like I was on fire, and I could only advance at a limp… But I had no choice.

Dash and 343 had been separated from us. I could see them, but there were enemy robots between us and them. They were hunkered down behind some lunch tables made into a make-shift barricade.

I could also see into the medical wing. It was very small, with just a waiting room, and then presumably the surgical theater beyond it. Moon’s Hoof Maidens were inside the waiting room, out of ammo, behind a barricade made from destroyed robots, reduced to melee tools and improvised weapons to keep their mistress safe while only barely operational themselves.

We had to keep going. We had to advance. If we failed here, the world was doomed. Not only because we’d die in this hole underground and the Enclave would have their way, but because after the last half hour I was entirely certain Two would end the world herself if she couldn’t necomancer herself up her husbando.

I liked that term. Husbando. Dash had said it a while ago. I think? Whatever she'd yelled insultingly at the robots had sounded like that.

Desi was sitting next to me. Her magic was all drained away. Most of her “bandaid” shields had sputtered out. She was bleeding badly. But she kept fighting. She’d shifted her rifle form her TK to her forelegs just before her magic went dry. She was an even worse shot with them, but she kept firing away when she could.

Desi was also down an eye… Not sure how she was even conscious in that state. Must be her alien powers of awareness, or something. She wasn’t immune to damage or able to just completely ignore how bucked up her poor little body was. She didn't show it on her face, but her movements were slow, hesitant, and twitchy. She also had gone from a bad shot to a terrible shot the second the shrapnel had taken out her left eye.

She wasn’t shooting much anymore. Mostly, Desi would move under me to prop me up for better minigun shots. That was nice of my (possibly alien) friend.

I took a deep breath, poked my head out from behind cover, and fired another long burst to keep the enemy in cover. Or at least. I tried to.

Instead after a few moments my gun went click. I was out of ammo… and I’d lost my other weapons crossing the dome-park to this point.

“We’re probably going to die,” I remarked with more calm than I imagined I could.

Desi nodded. “Correct.”

I bit my lip and did my best to ignore the ripping, pulling, crumpling pain in my right shoulder. “So I can go without any regrets… What are you, exactly?”

“I am me,” Desi answered with a raised eyebrow.

I laughed. “I meant—” A bullet blasted a large chunk out of the tree just above my head.

I ducked down a bit more.

“I meant, are you a robot like me? From space? What are you?” I repeated.

Desi sighed, looked up at me with a sympathetic understanding in her eyes. “I am—”

THOOM!

The floor shook beneath me as something huge dropped from near the top of the dome and slammed into the floor in front of the surgical theater with enough force to dent the steel paneling, and rip up several large sections of metal.

Steam sprayed from the wound in the floor for several long seconds, obscuring the source of the impact.

I looked upwards, searching for where the thing had fallen from. A hole had been bored in the dome’s ceiling, directly above the surgical theater. Great… So that’s—

“Really?!” Dash’s distant voice called over the din of battle.

I blinked and looked down. The steam had cleared. The fallen object was… A walking throne.

There was no other way to describe it. A massive throne, made from formerly rusty metal, polished as much as it could be, and mounted on the top of a large six legged robot’s frame (probably some kind of trainyard loading robot) like a driver's torso. An array of energy weapons, auto-cannons, and flamers bristled around the combat-chair, providing a surprisingly good amount of defense for the “thing a first year welding student built”.

As awesome and silly as such a thing was, that wasn’t what had gotten Dash’s attention. No, that would be Two. Her old, rusting, battered form sat atop the throne, wrapped in an old purple cape which had definitely been salvaged from a foal’s magician’s play-set, a cheap plastic silver tiara (with a Hayburger logo on it) atop her head, propped up by her single ear and her circuitboard half mask… The very image of wasteland royalty. A visage you’d have to either take seriously, or die at the hooves of the mad mare who wore it.

Or at least, that’s how it would be if Two’s left foreleg wasn’t clutching a grimy, 200 year old pillow to her barrel. On which a very, very crudely drawn orange pony-ish-blob had been drawn.

I snickered.

So that’s how I’d looked when I’d pretend my pillow was a coltfriend… If only someone had told me.

…

That’s a very lame dying thought.

Two’s battle-chair fired a few lasers into the waiting room, missing the four ponies inside. A warning shot?

“Fools!” Two bellowed. “Your warriors are scattered. Your defences falter. I have won! But know that I am not without mercy. Surrender, join me before the altar of Flash, and you will not perish today.”

“Get Heartbleed, you glorified babbage engine!” Sunder snapped back.

I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like a good insult.

343 and Dash fired at Two’s chair. They didn’t have a good angle on her, their shots hit the seat of her throne, crackled, and sparked off, heating up the metal but not managing to punch through it.

Why?

Ah, faint blue shimmer. Chair-bot has a shield. Of course it does. Nothing else about this battle had been remotely fair either.

The throne hummed, and some of its weapons rotated their way and began returning fire automatically.

Wait.

Wait.

We could see Two.

They couldn’t.

I was out of ammo… But Desi… She had ammo. She had ammo, and had said something about dangerous levels of energy discharge.

“Desi, you need to shoot her!”

“Bad shot. Will miss,” Desi said, staring at the floor in what looked to be shame.

I shook my head. “No. No you won't.”

I grabbed her rifle and rolled onto my left side so I could push myself up and use my stump as a pivot. I closed my eyes and focused all my attention on the camera built into my minigun. “Lay your gun along mine,” I ordered.

I heard the clink of metal on metal as Desi moved, layed her weapon along mine, and shuffled up onto my side to reach her weapon’s controls.

She understood! Good.

“You said that guns can do a lot of damage, right?”

“Confirmed.”

“We’re dead if this fails anyways, right?”

“Probably.”

“So… full power. We’ll put one right between her shoulders. Got it?”

“Understood,” Desi confirmed with a nod. “Stand by.”

I heard her weapon chirp a few times as she adjusted power settings. “Safety interlocks offline… Plasma capacitance, one-hundred-twenty percent normal level. Wave-Motion cycle… Maximum throughput. Weapon likely to explode on use. Ready to fire.”

Okay, Gears… You can do this. It’s just like firing a cannon, only not remotely.

Locking on target...

Target: Creepy Robo-mare.
Range: 12.2219 meters.
Wind: N/A
Compensate for target’s motion...
Compensate for drag…
Compensate for coriolis effect…
Compensate for shell drop…
Compensate for Equus’s rotation…
Compensate for weapon-sight misalignment of ~12 cm...

Target locked! Targeting time, 0.01 milliseconds.

“FIRE!” I bellowed.

THWEEE-PEW!

My left eye whited out entirely. My right eye tracked a crackling, blue-white energy bolt as long as two mares as it blasted away from me. Then my right eye whited out. Then something very much on top of me exploded.

The most intense heat of my life baked my side in an instant, and then…

☢★★◯★★☢

I couldn’t see anything.

I couldn’t feel anything.

It was like I was stuck in a void… nothing but me.

Nothing but me and some very very faint sound.

What was it?

“Opening her core now… Oh wow, those rads! Keep out of the beam, she’s a danger even to us.”

“What's happening?” I asked, my own voice sounding equally small and distant.

“Oh, shit! She’s online. Gears? Hang on, we’re going to fix you up again. We’re exposing your core to heal your little friend. She needs attention first.”

“Okay…”

“Just hold on… The tissue is responding… She’s regenerating.”

Oh yeah… We’d shot at Two. What happened after that?

“Did we win?” I asked.

“We did. Thanks to you two. As soon as you’re both on your hooves, you can name your reward… On top of my full help with the Enclave situation. Now hold tight. You’re as badly hurt as your little friend, uh, well, you were. She’s healing quickly.”

“Good,” I said as the void engulfed me again.

37 - 42 6c 61 63 6b 20 53 77 61 6e

Author's Note

Sorry for the long gap. TLDR; Depression from feeling rejected by the mlp community for reasons I may go into in a blog if asked + some weird sinus cavity disease that caused constant migraine level pain for months and months + COVID-19.

But I'm here to finish this, at least for the moment. Comments = Author fuel.

37 - 42 6c 61 63 6b 20 53 77 61 6e

☢★★ Black Swan ★★☢

Los Pegasus. Industrial Sector. Royal Palace Level -3. October 23rd, 2077. 1.892e+6 hours.

Black Swan begins authorised repairs of replicator attached to Los Pegasus industrial system, at request of Queen Katydid, and new ally Prince Silverlight.

October 23rd, 2077. 1.892e+6 hours. Gears’ transceiver signal went offline. Swan continues repairs.

Swan was unconcerned by this sudden development. Gears’ transceiver was flicking on and off so rapidly that it hardly mattered. It would be back up in a moment, just like always. In fact, it would be back on so quickly it may as well have never turned off. Sure, the file log would insist that a significant amount of time had passed, but that was impossible.

It was still just after lunch on a Friday. Time had not passed. Somehow.

Swan lifted a piece of broken machinery with one of her mechanical arms, ignoring the problem just as she did with everything which fixed itself instantly. Queen Katydid had been very nice when she asked Swan to help the handsome stallion fix his broken replicators, so that took more precedence over worrying about the safety of her daughter.

Gears was perfectly safe. The transceiver was on the fritz, is all. Swan would just have to remind herself to check it over next time Gears teleported over to her without any warning.

@echo off Title reminder #89032e :1 If %gearsvisible% equ 1 goto reminder ping localhost -n 600 > NUL goto 1 :reminder echo Check Gears transceiver for random power fluctuations. Exit

Her reminder thus set, Swan turned her full attention to the broken machine before her. It was a strange thing. No spirits dwelt within the complex structures making up its heart. The structure was compatible with them, and Swan was able to coax the occasional spirit bound to the facility to assist her with small elements of the repairs, but they did not like to linger within the crystal wafers.

In truth, the exposed machinery made Swan uncomfortable as well. Perhaps it was the nature of the device. Of the two major schools of magic, Order was preferred by sapient beings. This device dealt in Chaos. It only made sense. In the beginning, the universe had been void, and then there was something. Creating matter and energy was not something within the realm of Order. That was Chaos’ wheelhouse.

Understanding the nature of the device she was working on brought Swan no comfort. Her many limbs gently and carefully held the part she was working on at arms length from her body as she poured resin into a hairline crack to make several fragments of crystal wafer whole once more. The traces would be silver-soldered next. Swan did not like the thought of needing to be closer to the machine for that operation. Even though each of her limbs ended in a camera as well as a claw, her primary sensory array would be needed for such ultra-fine detail.

Optics were only good for so much, after all. Visible light was such a limited slice of the EM spectrum. Swan pitied the ponies she interacted with. Each day the sun would rise and they would perceive the wonders of creation through a pair of ridiculous gelatinous orbs, and a few membranes within their skull. They knew nothing of the world, so much data lost to such an absurd body.

Swan could see everything her limbs were pointed at. Even herself. A small mare’s frame, hidden beneath a red robe trimmed in gold, with just the barest hint of silver and machinery poking out here and there. Beautiful, but modest. Exactly the way a proper lady should present herself.

She could feel herself as well. Not merely in the way a pony is aware of the position of their own legs. No, the low level radar pulses Swan constantly emitted extended her sense of touch to everything they washed over for almost fifty meters.

The whole of the EM spectrum was at her beck and call, no detail lost to her sensors unless it fell within the realm of the subatomic. But her senses extended even to that smallest of realms. Spirits understood the world on that smallest of levels, peering into the macroscopic universe only when given a crutch by happenstance or the will of Shamen.

Swan had always known her implants would be inhabited by machine spirits. She’d made a pact with one before she replaced the first part of her failing body. If her soul would be sharing space with spirits at the end of the process, why not have them help construct their new form? It was to be all of their bodies, after all.

Swan finished flowing the resin into the cracks and flicked on a UV lamp to rapidly cure it. She extended her will to the piece in her iron talons, searching over it with the senses granted to her through her union with her other. Even as a Warlock, she could tell nothing of this device.

Repairing it could very well prove impossible without a spirit within the machine to provide assistance.

Swan felt the Replciator chamber’s door open before she heard it. Swan pulsed the doorway with a LIDAR array, determining the nature of whoever was present by feel. It took less of her attention than looking up from her work.

Two ponies stood at the threshold. One pegasus. One unicorn. The pegasus was male and had a bent leg suggesting a poorly healed injury. The mare’s belly shape indicated pregnancy, or perhaps a large uterine tumor. A quick pulse of high frequency radio waves and EM signals let Swan peek under the mare’s flesh.

While most would have thought of this as a horrible violation, Swan knew it was necessary. Either the mare needed to be warned of a health problem easily mistaken for a growing child, or Swan needed to ask if the expectant mother would like a foal monitor and self warming crib.

Swan turned her attention to the mare’s belly, doing her best to keep the radiation dose low as she looked.

No foal. A growth of flesh. Cells which had chosen to abandon their family and choose their own survival over the health and safety of the whole. One of the many reasons flesh disgusted her so.

@echo off Title reminder #89032f ping localhost -n 600 > NUL echo Inform unknown mare 3920c of medical issue. Specifically: Uterine cancer. echo. echo Offer to remove affected tissue and replace with superior synthetic system. exit

Swan turned her attention back to the pair of ponies. They had taken a step into the room in the time it took her to code her reminder. The two were Los Pegans, judging by their armor and weapons. They were speaking.

Swan frowned. Ponies spoke so slowly. It was almost painful to listen to them. It’s not like she wouldn’t happily install a networking transceiver for them, either. She’d offered mechanical telepathy to seventeen ponies in this city so far.

All had said no.

Swan kept wondering why. She’d have loved to keep wondering, but now she needed to use all of her patience and attention to discover what precisely these ponies wanted of her, or if they were merely talking to one another.

“— is,” the Pegaus said as it walked into the view of one of Swan’s cameras.

He was green. A gross green. The sort of green one finds within the waste created by a slime mold growing within a bus station’s toilet.

Swan swiveled the arm the camera was mounted to to get a look at the mare.

She was blue. A scary blue. The sort of blue one looks at and swears it's looking back at you.

Swan frowned. Blue should not feel like it was looking at her.

@echo off Title reminder #890330 ping localhost -n 600 > NUL echo Mention feeling blue is staring at me at psychologist appointment next Monday. exit

Swan felt bad for her poor psychologist. Monday was going to be so busy! Hopefully it would last as long as Friday was.

“Hey! Cyberfreak,” the mare snarled at Swan.

Swan quickly calculated the odds of the mare using that as a term of endearment. They were remarkably low.

Carefully setting down her work, Swan turned to face the mare, as ponies insisted one do when speaking to them. Even ponies that knew full well Swan was still looking at them.

“My apologies. Did I cause damage to any of your property? I will repair it at once,” Swan said with her voice modulator dialed in for an extra apologetic tone.

The Pegasus’s face twisted in disgust. “Shut up!” he demanded, wings twitching angrily.

“Yeah! You think it’s okay to go around telling foals they are going to die to try and get them to turn into you?” The mare spat.

She actually spat. The ball of saliva splattered across Swan’s muzzle.

taskkill “reminder #89032f”

The rude mare could just find out she was dying from someone else.

“The curse of organic life, is death,” Swan said, dialing her modulator up to a serious tone. “Foals are made of sterner material than you know. They can and should understand death. They are young enough to not be afraid of alternatives to biological existence. It is the duty of those who can save them, to try.”

The pegasus rolled his eyes and gave the mare a quick sidelong glance. “See? Told you it was insane.”

“Yeah… Guess we should make sure we don't get a Red Eye 2.” the mare agreed, her horn lighting up as she spoke to unholster a 10mm submachinegun from her side.

Swan tracked the weapon as it was pointed at her. A simple and crude piece. Ironshod Firearms model 2901a. No modifications. Standard 30 round magazine with open sides for ammunition tracking. Exposed ammunition was exclusively soft nosed lead ball rounds.

It was very unlikely the few rounds Swan couldn’t see were armor piercing, but she chose to check anyways. A quick pulse of x-rays revealed all rounds were indeed low-powder subsonic lead soft noses.

Swan decided to politely ignore the comparatively toothless threat.

“I don’t know why our Prince is so okay with you being here,” the mare said as she glared at Swan down her weapon’s sights. “He’s usually much smarter than this. My friend thinks you’re controlling him with an implant. You stop it, and I won't put a bullet into your head.”

Swan retracted her mechanical limbs and adjusted her robes with her wings. “I was unable to produce mind control implants when requested by Doctor Silver. I never returned to that line of research. I cannot be controlling your leader.”

“See!?” the pegasus said as he drew his own weapon. “I told you I saw its name on those papers talking about those implants! Bullshit she never finished!”

Swan inspected the new weapon. A small laser pistol. Post-war design, but built from prewar components. Crude, simplistic, likely effective. A young spirit resided within the weapon. A leftover from the production of its photonic resonance chamber.

Swan extended her will to the weapon’s spirit. Do not fire on me, she ordered.

The young spirit’s terror was more than enough for Swan to know the threat had been eliminated.

“You are making a mistake,” Swan said as firmly as she could. “I have been authorised to defend myself.”

“You so much as twitch one of those spider-legs our way, and you won't have time to even try to defend yourself,” The pegasus growled around his laserpistol’s grip.

“If you wanted me dead, you could have fired upon opening the chamber door,” Swan said with a dismissive snort of static.

What poor tactics. Swan would have fired into and through the door. Unlike the meat ponies she was not limited by pesky things like line of sight. Or cover values.

“We wanted the truth first,” the mare said as she took a step forwards to place the barrel of her weapon against Swan’s forehead.

The weapon’s barrel pushed Swan’s hood down, softening the clink of metal on metal.

“Any last words?” the mare finished, her eyes burning with hate.

Swan took a few ticks of her aux processor to debate her next course of action. There were many things she could do, nad one thing she must do. The Prince would need to know her presence was causing distress and find ways to ensure his ponies knew she meant no harm to any who were kind at heart. But first, a solution to the immediate problem was required.

These two were not evil. Only afraid of her, seemingly due to the actions of another cybernetically enhanced individual. Perhaps they did not understand the nature of Swan’s philosophy, and the voluntary basis upon which she practiced it.

Yes. Words would solve this problem.

Swan tilted her head up slightly to look the mare in the eyes. The mare recoiled slightly as Swan’s all-spec sensorvisor became visible within the shadows of her hood.

Swan took a second to program her modulator to drop the natural equine voice as she spoke, allowing her true, synthesized, bass heavy, mechanical voice to take over syllable by syllable, so she could show the two silly ponies the beauty of the machine.

“From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me,” She explained.
“I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the machine.”

The pegasus’s eyes widened as Swan’s voice changed. His weapons’ barrel trembled. He took a single frightened step back.

Swan took a few microseconds to try and understand why he was frightened, and concluded he must have just noticed the creepy Chaos machine behind her. Silly ponies could be so unobservant.

“Your kind cling to your flesh, as if it will not decay and fail you,” Swan continued. “One day, the crude biomass that you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. I am already saved...”

Swan gently pulled her hood down with one mechanical limb, revealing the fullness of the smooth, chrome plate which formed the majority of her head’s outer covering. A single thought and the latches clicked open, allowing the plate to slide back and reveal the transparent crystalline armor protecting her brain.

Her crystalized brain. Carefully converted from the disgusting squishy flesh of a pegasi to the beautiful ice-blue silica of a crystal pony, and glowing with the light of the spirit she had merged with so long ago.

“Luna’s tits!” The mare yelped as she jumped back.

Swan often wondered why ponies swore by Luna’s teats. One of these days she’d have to get over her orientation based hangups and see what they were all about since they were presumably amazing.

Swan took a moment to think on how she could make her point perfectly clear. Six junked sprite bots had been moved down for her to scrap as needed. Their vacuum tubes were compatible with the replicator. But now they could sever another use.

Swan extended her will to the downed machines. A touch of spiritual energy, and the once dead machines overcome the limitations of their battered frames enough for Swan to do a little remote hacking and speak through each of the machines that her will now animated.

“For the machine is immortal,” Swan finished in seven seperate voices.

The two ponies dropped their weapons and ran. Swan frowned, trotted forwards, and carefully scooped both weapons up with a pair of mechanical appendages for a through inspection.

They were undamaged. Good.

Swan gave the weapons a little pat, then set them down neatly next to the door. She knew once the two ponies stopped being so excited at the prospect of an ageless life that they ran off to tell their friends, they would be back for their things.

Unfortunately, Swan would not be here to tell their friends the good news if they brought any down to the basement. She needed to correct their erroneous impression of her at the source, as she had realized moments before.

Swan trotted through the door, closed it with a thought and a little bit of spiritual power, and trotted towards the building’s very energetic elevator.

Excuse me, Swan thought, extending her will towards the elevator’s machine spirit. I need to be taken to Prince Silverlight as quickly as possible. Will you assist?

The machine replied immediately. Yes! That means I can go down, then up!

The simple joy young machine spirits took in their mundane operations always brought a smile to Swan’s lips. It was very nostalgic to hear and feel the elevator’s joy as it descended for her. Swan remembered everything the spirit she merged with had known upon their ascension. One of the downsides to becoming a warlock on the part of the spirit was losing that joy.

Few zebras had ever truly understood warlocks. The notion of fusing one’s soul with a spirit to gain the powers within that spirit’s domain was quite common knowledge amongst shamen. A little more rare were the reasons not to undergo the process. To many, having an alien mind impress some of its behaviors, needs, and desires onto you was a form of hell. To this day, the saying about Warlocks that circulated amongst Zebra tribes remained; “Power for one’s heart.”.

Swan knew she had been lucky. The mare who had become half of her essence had been insane. Joining with a spirit had stabilized her. So much so that the resulting warlock considered herself to be Black Swan still. A rare trait indeed. Especially for one formed with such an old spirit.

It had gone by the name Mag'ladroth. Swan remembered her old self having been amused at what she perceived of as a reference to fiction she enjoyed. In truth, the fiction had been a reference to the spirit. A name drawn from an ancient book of Zebrican rituals. No mention of what precisely the spirit was or had been, just its name.

The Zebricans had forgotten their ancient creation. Such that when Swan had sought out a spirit, the remains of what may well have been the first chariot were something an Equestrian could buy off the black market. Just some Zebrican historical relics of no importance. Discarded by a museum for their lack of known significance and low popularity.

Such power, thrown out like trash. Swan remembered just how excited they had both been when she’d proposed to her new spirit friend they just hang out and play some Megamane. To get to know one another before joining for the sake of survival.

Survival. That which draws a spirit to merge with a creature or object in the first place. An anchor within this reality to grasp onto, the ultimate lure for any spirit.

Swan often wondered if the reason she was seamless as a warlock was due to this alignment of goals. Two beings wishing for nothing more than to survive for as long as possible, so they might delight in all the world has to offer.

Excuse me? Are you still going up? Ponies are pushing buttons. The Elevator asked, making Swan realize it had been at her landing for several minutes.

Swan cleared her throat. Sorry, little one. I was lost in thought.

She rode the elevator up, trusting it to stop on the floor where the Prince happened to be. Swan was unused to such huge structures. It felt so strange to not quite feel at home in them. After all, she had been in the MAS Hub just this morning. One day of working in that little library and her basement workshop shouldn’t have left that big of an impact on her sense of normality so quickly.

Unless of course, trying to build a biomechanical alicorn for funzies (and also because why not make your second child the best she could be, and also hone your synthetic biology skills a little) was that big of an attention sink.

@echo off Title reminder #890331 :1 ping localhost -n 600 > NUL if %gearsispresent% equ 0 goto 1 echo Ask Gears to help me find pigment for the prototype’s fur. She’s much better at sourcing cosmetic items. exit

Swan trotted through the Palace floor she’d been brought to, looking for the Prince with all of her sensors with every step she took. Along the way she stopped to fix half a dozen improperly installed conduits, patched four sections of leaky ductworks, and even rehung one door that was slightly misaligned. Primarily because they were not correctly made, and secondarily because nopony else was fixing the glaringly large errors in practically everything Swan passed by.

This slipshod work would never do. Building code clearly specified wire conduit had to be parallel to the floor, or perpendicular for running vertically. Seventeen microns off parallel was not parallel. It was crooked. Building code did not even mention a tolerance for something crooked.

At least, nto Swan’s personal building code. Which Katydid said she could enforce on things she was inside of at the time.

So she fixed it. Yet, more mistakes remained. Unfortunately, Swan knew she was supposed to be doing something important. Thinking as hard as she could, Swan did her best to focus her mind on remembering exactly why she had gone up the elevator.

Probably to fix things. Fixing things is what a Swan was for.

start pwnplayer "C:\Music\Ultra Road Combatant II\Cunnings Theme.mp3"

No error shall be spared! Swan thought aggressively at a floorboard which was not quite flush with the others as she activated the mech-arm which housed her finishing plane.

☢★★◯★★☢

Swan was in the middle of stripping some poorly applied veneer from the side of a cabinet to refinish the wood, and wondering why anypony would put a walnut veneer over rosewood, then treat the walnut with a rosewood stain, only to then seal it all in with an amber tinted polycoat, when the Prince found her.

“I do believe this is the most pleasant rampaging cyberpony I've ever come across,” The Prince said as he stepped into Swan’s radar range.

Swan couldn’t help but notice he was wearing power armor and sheathing a sword on his flank. Swan approved. Any metal covering an organic wore made them much more attractive, and swords were just cool.

Swan used to have a sword, until her husband Jack deemed her modifications to it unsafe.

Hon… That wasn’t a sword then. You’d made it into the least safe chainsaw ever. Her husband reminded her gently. Also that guy is trying to talk to you.

So he is. Thank you, dear.

stop pwnplayer

Swan paused, looked up, then around, using both her hand and her various cameras to get a proper 360 degree view. A rampaging cyberpony… But where?

There was nothing to be seen, or felt. Interesting!

“Standby, attempting to detect stealth buck signatures…” Swan said as she began to fire off a series of sonar pulses.

Not the most effective detection method to use in air, but at close range—

The Prince chuckled. “No, Miss Swan. I meant you.”

Swan would have blinked in confusion if she could. Instead, she simply played a blinking animation on the phosphor arrays hidden behind her sensor-visor. “I do not understand…”

The Prince gestured with one hoof to the wall hallway behind him. “I was told in no uncertain terms you were tearing up floorboards, and elected to deal with you personally, rather than get any of my ponies hurt. Imagine my surprise to find the entire hallway eerily perfectly renovated.”

Swan did her best to imagine it. It was quite difficult.

“I continue to not understand. There were errors. The floor was off level by 0.3 degrees in several sections. Anypony could see this. I had to fix it,” she attempted to explain.

The Prince raised an eyebrow. “Miss Swan, I assure you, nopony without your hardware would ever notice such a thing… I was told you live in a library. I can only imagine how precisely tuned every last wall-stud is.”

Swan waved a hoof in dismissal. “It’s just a library. This is the Canterlot Palace. It is required to look nice.”

The Prince frowned, further confusing Swan. He cleared his throat. “Miss, this is a casino, it just looks like the Canterlot Palace. Are— Where do you think you are?”

“Canterlot,” Swan replied before frowning. “No… That is incorrect. I am in Los Pegasus. Correct?”

The Prince nodded once then trotted over to Swan to sit next to her. “I’m told every Cyberpony goes mad eventually, but you don’t seem insane to me. A touch eccentric perhaps, but not insane,” He looked at a curtain rod and briefly compared it to the floor and ceiling.

“Swan,” The Prince asked slowly. “Did you… Did you remove the crown molding to make it level with the— How long have you been working?”

“1.892e+6 hours,” Swan answered, puffing out her chest and fluffing her wings and mech-arms proudly.

The Prince shook his head. “No, no, no. I mean how long have you been working since you last slept?”

Swan tilted her head. “1.892e+6 hours.”

The Prince pursed his lips. “Oh. Do… Do you not need to sleep?”

“Of course not,” Swan giggled. “I had a wizard transmute my brain into a Crystal Pony brain pre-war. I do not operate on a meat based computer. I am crystal based. Therefore, I do not require sleep.”

The Prince gave Swan an odd look she didn’t quite understand. Unless…

Swan cleared her throat. “I do pretend to sleep, however. My daughter insisted I needed to sleep, so I wrote a script to help me fake sleeping when her transponder purported she was close to me at night.”

The Prince performed that one gesture Swan often saw ponies make but had long since forgotten the meaning of. The one where they turned their hoof to place the flat of it against their face for several heartbeats and groaned.

“Miss, Swan,” The Prince said oddly slowly as he slid his hoof down from his face. “Are you telling me that you haven’t slept, in…”

The Prince trailed off and tapped his power armor shod hoof against the floor several times to help him process the mathematics.

@echo off title reminder #890332 :1 ping localhost -n 600 > NUL if %princenotalking% goto next goto 1 :next echo Would you like me to fit you with a math coprocessor? exit

The Prince frowned, stroked his chin and then checked his math a second time. “Miss Swan, if that’s true, you’ve been awake for seventy-eight-thousand, eight-hundred and thirty-three days.”

Swan shook her head gently. “Ordinarily, yes, but today has been approximately that long so far, so I have only been awake for one day, as is normal. Hopefully, I will soon be able to test my systems properly and know for certain I will not need regular reboots to remain at peak operational capacity.”

The Prince’s mouth opened and closed several times. “I— Are you okay? Were you shot, or hit?”

Swan shook her head again. “Not recently.”

“And you still think you’ve only been awake one day when you’ve, again, if your hour count is correct, have been awake since… My god, you’ve been awake since the Last Day!” The Prince sputtered, taking a step back in shock.

Swan nodded once. “Yes. I have been awake since this morning.”

Swan felt her husband’s consciousness stir within the old comms network. She was so happy he found a means to live beyond the time allotted by his biology. Especially with that nasty condition that had people aging to death within one day going around. One of these days Swan would have to trot over to the Crystal Empire, jack into its computer network and give him a hug.

Not tomorrow, tomorrow would be super busy with all the things she promised to do tomorrow for various ponies. But the day after that would do.

Dude… Jack sighed. Just give up. If I can’t convince her she’s lost it you’ve got no hope.

I haven't lost it, dear. My calendar is digital. I have a clock in my temporal lobe. I keep perfect track of time. It is an innate sense. Swan reminded politely.

Silly stallions could forget little details so easily.

The Prince blinked twice, then cleared his throat. “Very well. I see that I must provide you with some assistance,” he said while moving his head in a slow, sagely, nod.

He cleared his throat, looked Swan in the eyes and smiled kindly. “Miss Swan… You’re keeping count of hours. How are you doing that?”

Swan’s ears perked. She loved talking about her systems. Especially to random interested ponies.

“Okay! So if you take a little wafer of quartz and electrify it puts out regular vibrations. We know that 32768 of these vibrations occur within a 1 second period. So if you build a circuit that keeps count of those vibrations you can keep accurate time. Then you build another circuit to multiply those vibration cycles to get hours, days, and years,” Swan flicked her tail happily as she finally got to the part she liked talking about the most. “Once all of that is done you box it up all nicely in something not bio-reactive and you implant it directly into your brain, splicing it in on the connection of the hippocampus to the medial entorhinal cortex. You’ll then need a small interface to bring that data to your conscious mind, and a program to control it and make it more easily readable.”

The Pince hummed and raised his eyebrow slightly. “Like one of those little watches? The ones without clockwork?”

“Yes! But better because you don’t need to look at your leg all the time. You just know what time it is and in my case can compare the time between other times and so on,” Swan sat down happily, hoping there would be more questions.

“I take it you are certain your clock is accurate?” The Prince asked with an oddly careful tone.

Swan nodded. “Yes. If it was not, I would be bumping into walls as my pathing systems would fail to understand how fast I was going.”

Oh, you mean like that one time you ran full force into that concrete pillar? her husband nickered.

That was not my fault. The evil meanie hit me with an anti-matrix grenade, Swan sniffled, shivering a little at the memory.

“Are you alright?” The Prince asked.

Swan nodded once. “Yes.”

“Good. Then I would like to ask you something, call it a favor,” The Prince looked Swan dead in her visor. “Please, check and make sure whatever program you are using for your calendar is working correctly.”

“Oh! I did that this morning,” Swan exclaimed excitedly. “You see, there was a problem with our calendar programs. Ponies rushed to design better hardware and software so fast, which caused a major problem with compatibility. No one will buy all new programs for new hardware if their old programs and hardware work. This means all new hardware must be compatible with old software. The problem is old software was made to just work as a conceptual demonstration in many ways. Including the calendar system.”

Swan cleared her throat and with one of her mechanical arms, took a piece of chalk from her tool bag and began to draw a diagram on the ABSOLUTELY LEVEL floor to illustrate how the code worked.

“So for your standard calendar everypony uses and thinks of, you have your months, days, and years, and days were kept to a regular schedule by Celestia. I mean, I think she’ll get back to doing that tomorrow. It’s an important job, but everypony deserves a day off sometimes,” Swan began. “Now, because computers track time by counting vibrations, not days, you need a bit of math to convert the pony calendar to proper timekeeping. When we first made programs, ponies insisted on using most of the 8 byte integer to reference historical dates in the standard clock. Which meant that most of the 255 values were dedicated to already past time. We had about 20 years before the clock would be full. But that wasn’t a problem, because everypony assumed everypony else would get better hardware in a few years and that would leave more address space for dates.”

Swan scribbled a few small points on her diagram just to make sure the concept of binary counting was conveyed properly. “But that didn’t happen because ponies are silly and keep hold of old things for too long. So most chipsets remained using the old software designed to track time just like how I drew things. Amusingly enough, any system using the old software would have reached the 255 value on October 23, 2077. You know, today. They can’t count any higher than that for dates, and old software didn't even have a store-and-purge buffer to reset the clock while writing the date to file to begin the conversion at the rollover point to keep tracking time accurately. It will be really amusing to see everypony who forgot to update be confused tomorrow when their calendars repeat a day forever! Well, until they make me fix them.”

“Oh. My. Bucking. Celestia.” The Prince and Swan’s husband groaned in unison, thereby thoroughly confusing the poor mare.

“Um… pardon?” she asked timidly.

“Miss Swan, I believe you are running the old code,” The Prince said with a strained, or perhaps pained expression on his face.

Swan nodded. “Yes. It was less expensive. It’s okay though, I have the patch saved to my internal storage and will be updating before midnight. I was just so busy right up until today,” she sighed and looked wistfully into the distance. “I’m still quite busy… But I can spare some time to patch the code and reboot as soon as evening comes and people go to bed and stop asking me to do things for them.”

The Prince made that odd face-to-hoof gesture again.

Hon… Jack said quietly within Swan’s mind.

Yes dear?

I had to update the Fillydelphia PD records database. I know about that bug. I just didn’t ever think you were… I mean, Swan heard the loudest mental sigh of her life. The problem started at midnight of the 23rd. As in, right when it hit the 23rd, NOT at the end of the 23rd!

“Oh no.” Swan said as her heart and CPU skipped a cycle.

The Prince cleared his throat. “I… See you understood my guresture. Good. Miss Swan, midnight is the start of the day, not the end. At least, in so far as technical details go. I do know most ponies consider midnight to be the end of the day, but it simply is not. You should patch your code...”

Swan whimpered, her mech-arms trembled. “How… long has it been?”

”Two hundred and sixteen years,” Jack and the Prince chorused.

Like I have been telling you, for that entire time! Jack added a split second later.

The Prince gently rested a leg on Swan’s shoulders. “Please, fix yourself. But before you do… I would love to know just how you were so distracted and busy you made this mistake in the first place.”

YOU FOOL! SHE’S GOING TO FORGET NOW! Jack screamed at the Prince from within Swan’s radio transceiver.

It’s okay dear, I will be conscious for a few minutes while the program begins working, Swan promised.

start “c:\patches and updates\Year255+.exe”

Swan cleared her throat. Even with the weight of her massive mistake resting on her shoulders, the Prince did deserve to know exactly what drove her to make everything better. After all, she was helping him because Queen Katydid asked very nicely.

Swan took a few steps away from the prince and looked out of a window. She could see the lights of Los Pegasus, glowing brightly in the dark world beyond the city’s wall.

“I presume you were not born this morning, but… In a date range I cannot perceive?” Swan asked.

“Yes, I’ve only known the Wasteland,” The Prince said in a quite polite tone of voice.

“In the century I was born, we started it without knowing how to send a voice across long distances, and we ended it with cyborgs, megaspells, and termlink,” Swan said with a wistful smile. “Can you imagine if this century is anywhere near as scientifically focused? Think of all of the technologies that were within our reach. Affordable rocket trips. Getting everypony in Equestria online. A proper neurological explanation of how consciousness do. True crystallic fusion. Fully truly immersive simulated reality. An actual science to combat ageing. The death of disease. Convincing AI companions. Mass-scale automation of labor and administration.”

Swan sighed and leaned back, moving several of her mechanical limbs to support her body weight as she “sat” on thin air.

“All of these things take ponies working very hard on very complex problems, but even just one of them would make everypony’s life so much better you can scarcely imagine just how different and better the world would be,” Swan rotated her limbs to look at the Prince with all her sensors and smiled. “Look at what I’ve done with my little pet project. I am only two percent organic, and I have the parts to replace those organs ready to go… My husband merely needs to stop thinking it would feel bad to use silicone rather than meat. Can you imagine if I had just another hundred years of scientific research?”

The Prince shook his head and settled back on his haunches to keep listening. “No, not really.”

“Well, if more ponies had worked hard like everypony in the MAS had, we could have had another hundred years easily,” Swan said as she began to slowly lift herself up on her mech-arms. “We could have been another hundred years more advanced. All of those things I mentioned would have existed. Can you imagine everything that could come after all those things and another hundred good years of clever research, careful application, and intelligence?”

The Prince shook his head again. “I do think to the future… but not that far,” he admitted honestly.

Swan looked down from her elevated position and smiled. “Mister Prince… Give ponies another hundred years of the scientific method and we will be gods!” Her smile widened into a nearly manic grin as the possibilities flashed through her mind. “We’ll cloak ourselves in immense power! We’re gonna kick cancer, and alzheimers, and cutie pox right in the dick! We’re going to invent new diseases just so our foals can cure them for fun! We will build gargantuan starships so we can occupy entire galaxies! We will become the authors of history and pilots of destiny. Your typical pony will burp plasma, eat lightning, and shit calculus.”

“Um, but why though?” The Prince asked meekly.

Swan ignored him. She was on a roll.

Swan took an excited simulated-breath and plopped down to the ground where she bobbed up and down excitedly. “We’ll build Neighson Spheres on our lunch breaks, fold space for dinner, and tame chaos before bed! We’ll reverse entropy. Travel through time! We’ll be able to answer the ultimate question. We’ll have entire weeks where nopony, nay, no-ONE is unhappy. Anywhere! We will poke our snoots into every dimension and befriend them. It is going to be some Ribbon Loom shit! It will be Hearth's Warming all over again. It will be bucking Celestial!”

Swan grabbed the Prince by his power armor’s collar and pulled him close with a hum of hydraulics. “So for the love of buck, get me a cup of coffee and somepony who knows the basics of surgical practices so I can make other scientists immortal with infinite attention spans and no need to sleep too!”

The Prince cleared his throat. “I… I see your point. But we’re out of coffee. And scientists.”

“BUCK!” Swan shouted while stamping her hoof.

She held herself up with a pair of her mech-arms so she could cross her forelegs over her barrel. “Fine. Then I’ll just have to do it myself. Like usual,” she sighed and hung her head. “I wish Gears was into science… It would be nice to have help with things...Oh well. I’ll just keep building children until one likes to do science.”

Her ears perked up suddenly as an idea occurred.

@echo off title reminder #890333 :1 ping localhost -n 600 > NUL If %timetravelisdiscovered% goto next Goto 1 :next echo Arrange for a proper scientific assistant to meet up with you in the past. echo. echo If possible, one of your foals. echo. echo Also, be sure she has a cool future-appropriate outfit. For nerd-appeasing reasons. echo. echo Addendum: Assistant’s sex is irrelevent. A he will work just fine too. It may even be preferable, Gears has always wanted a little brother. exit

Swan looked around excitedly for a moment, but her ears fell as no wormhole opened up to spit out a young pony with a love of science and a mission to assist her in her lab.

Her dreams of time travel thus defeated, Swan opened her mouth to ask a question, but the patch program finished compiling the changes it needed to make to her code, and she shut down to install it.

☢★★◯★★☢

Swan came to 3 hours later, after 8 reboots. That was three more reboots than she had expected to undergo for the process.

She quickly checked her error logs and noticed a few disks had run self checks and repaired a few errors. Little wonder. With so much time having passed many small things would have been going wrong for so long. But at least the problem was now resolved.

Swan started to stand up, and only then as her navigation systems came fully online did she notice first, a piece of paper taped to her visor and second, a pair of crystal ponies laying on a mattress a small ways from her.

They were asleep.

Thoroughly confused, Swan sat all the way up and inspected the apir as thoroughly as possible. Crystal ponies didn’t sleep. It had to be a costume! But it was not. They were sleeping.

Perhaps they could sleep if they wanted to do so, and had chosen too.

Swan turned her attention to the paper. A letter from the Prince.

Miss Swan,

When you shut down I had you taken to a friend’s room to sleep for the night. She and her husband are both Crystal Ponies. Notice they are sleeping. You need to sleep. Please, get some rest.

Prince Silverlight

Swan looked up from the letter, and frowned. Come to think of it, she had felt very groggy and drained for the last several centuries.

Maybe she did need to sleep? It was worth trying at least.

Swan shut off her sensors and—

autostart sleep.exe

☢★★◯★★☢

Swan awoke precisely 8.008 hours later on the next day when every single reminder and alarm she had ever set went off at the same time.

After a good hour of panic and sorting through that mess, she stood up and began to walk out of the room and to the basement to resume work on the Replciator she had promised to try and repair.

Then, it hit her.

Gear’s transceiver was offline. Time was actually passing. As in, she could very well be hurt!

Swan quickly brought up the log files of Gears movements over the last “day”.

Her tail stood up in alarm. What was with her filly trotting all over Lith on the same routes for centuries?!

Oh yes, she’d become a postmare. Good for her!

But then, suddenly, a trip down into old Equestria…

Swan frowned and focused on the more recent data from the last few weeks.

Lots of trotting about, some wandering here and there. Nothing too bad. Good, Equestira was quite dangerous after the megaspells had—

Swan screamed as she saw the massive error report list in Gear’s activity database. Then again at the next, and the next, and then the next. She focused all of her attention on the files, committing each and every last one to hard memory so she could immediately run to Gears present location and fix all of her poor filly’s booboos up and kiss her all better and—

Her heart almost stopped at the last recorded line.

Warning: Extreme combat hazard. Megaspell bombardment detected. Damage extreme. Shutting down to preserve data.

Swan ran the last half hour of the database through an interpreter to decode the data and reconstruct exactly what had happened.

Her little Gears had gone to pick up a book for the Prince. The book had been located in the Herd’s territory… On a military base, presumably. Gears data recorder was dropping information packets randomly. A sign of light corrosion on the terminals.

Gears had toured the base while waiting for something… Then, an entire army had attacked. Swan recognised the power armor clad bandit leader. Gale. Her brother.

No. It couldn’t be him. It had been centuries. Gale was long dead. An evil pony had found his armor and was putting it to use.

Use involving hurting her little Gears!

Swan felt several of her servos spark with anger.

Then she watched as the Tainted called down a meteor.

echo Warning! Anger value exceeds 120% of safe levels.

Swan nodded. This was true.

She checked her clock. It was Angry-mom time.

With her mind refreshed, Swan felt rage and terror flood her systems. Gears’ transceiver was offline for more than zero seconds. With the motherly worry applied, Swan rexamin—

Ree—Re— reE వxxx REᡫeeXr in ⇫epr᝗᝜ender༎ཊ ᾽᤟ aMiiiiii⁝⏍ ᤵeli௪ ᆱ╆se edededededm 'olⓊre ᢨឱ fⅹ AMGER! l૽ᖽ ℭxxxxaminerំ ExᏡ࿆p⚙euℕ edexaminedddddd ߝcKILL cupiᔌatỏt n▀ᅡ prᎍᵇ₾en࿼ᷘ DESTROY! iᢉ culిᏭ q❳⚴ o⏉EXTERMINATE!ῚiaReexamine...ߎe

Swan… No. I rexamined my priorities.

A monster hurt my filly. Probably killed her, as her transponder was completely silent.

The monster needed to be slain.

start CombatMode.exe

I felt my mech arms reconfigure, storing tool ends within their compartments and fetching the limited weapons array I had brought to this job.

Gears tactical data indicated the mare known as Little Pip had near omniscience within the Equestrian Heartland due to her connection to the SPP. She would know precisely where the dead ponies were at present.

I rewound Gears database, and pulled the coordinates her marefriend had informed Gears was the SPP hub this Little Pip was housed within.

Plotting a flight plan was trivia—

Awwww! My little Gears found a special somepony! I can't wait to meet her and—

And Gears is likely dead.

I grit my teeth in rage and reset the task. Locate Pip. Utilize her intel to locate this Wanderer and—

Oh! Vinyl survived as a ghoul. Neat!

Locate Vinyl Scratch. Locate monster. Stomp a hole into and through the monster’s skull with Vinyl’s assistance. Rebuild/Repair my little filly. Get to know her special somepony.

Task list set. Abort task codes deleted.

Ah, there we go. The mode switch is ready. Activating all systems…

set lowpowermode=0 echo disabled set taticalpowermode=1 echo enabled set primaryweapons=1 echo enabled set secondayweapons=2 echo primed set taticalnavigtation=1 echo enabled set enhancedlifesupport=1 echo enabled set deflectorshields=1 echo primed set targetingsystem=1 echo enabled set betainterface=0 echo disabled set alphainterface=1 echo enabled set twinplasmacanon=1 echo enabled set novagrenadesystem=2 echo primed set rainbowflightmode=1 echo enabled set allrangemode=2 echo primed echo. echo All systems go. echo. echo Combat mode primed and ready.

My wings crackled with blue energy, sheathed in the ionized plasma I’d designed to greatly boost flight speeds. I had never gotten to test the system, but so far it was all going per the data.

I swiveled on my hind hooves and jumped through a convenient hallway window, entering the outside air in a shower of glass shards that I would return to repair as soon as possible. I stretched my wings open, caught the first thermal I could, and activated my flight systems.

Los Pegasus vanished beneath me in an instant, the glow was gone even before I began to turn north, following the course I’d plotted.

So that’s what a sonic boom sounds like when you make it.

I’d have to review this footage later so I could enjoy the memory when I was something other than AB҉̥̳͉̼̱̥S͈̬͚Ó̩̦̠L̛͍U̱̮̺͔̜̘ṬE̵̜̻̘͈͓ͅL̩̣̬̬̰ͅY̩̬̣̫͔ ҉L̫̣̰̮I͈̞̩̝̭̬ͅV̀I̫̠̟̯̼̻͘Ḑ͈̤̥͔ͅͅ.

38 - Little Gray Mare

I could still feel the strange energies that had erupted from the gun Desi fired. Plasma cells are warm to the touch, and their emissions burn like the sun on a hot day. Lasers shimmer and sizzle, making the very air glow like old office lights only without the tubes. Desi’s gun… It was cold.

The bolts flashed, sizzled, and… fizzed. Yes, it had burnt when my flesh sizzled and my chassis began to melt, and everything in my body screamed as I’d burned… But everything in my soul felt frigid. The weapon was… cold. Impersonal.

A bullet, a laser bolt, a plasma ball… You could feel the hate in them when they hit you. The vengeance and wrath of the creator imbued into their work. A faint arcane signature of a tool intended to destroy something one despises.

Not Desi’s blaster. It was the opposite. As if its creator had sat down intending to make a weapon, but not because they felt an overwhelming need to destroy something. Instead they had been filled with a calm resolve, and an understanding that sometimes, things had to be destroyed. A sort of frigid, impersonal, objectifying wisdom. Pragmatic. Terrifying.

It was nice to have something to focus on. A little mystery. A part of reality to cling to. Without it, dying would be much more painful, much more quickly.

Chaos. It surrounded me, and I was it, surrounding myself. The Spirit Realm, a place one could only describe as what happens when the coffin hits the last nail into the hammer for logic and reason. I’d hoped being bonded to Jasmine would keep me from returning here…

Jasmine whispered to me, her mental voice sounding quite pained.

Jasmine? I gasped silently.

Jasmine hissed, and I could feel her presence burning brightly.

And as they say, the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long...

How long will it take? Will we make it?

Understood. There was everything and nothing everywhere and nowhere. All of space, time, and their antithesis, all swirling, stationary, and interbound, yet separate.

A very easy thing to ignore. Yes. Simple. Like eating a pie. Can do. Slash sarcasm.

I should at least try…

I closed my nonexistent eyes, a thing which was quite literally possible in this realm of orderly chaos and chaotic order, and felt around for the essence of that strange energy.

Ah, there it was. So cold… So impersonal. Why? The weapon it came from killed so well. So many sensed evil in the very nature of weapons. As if they wanted nothing more than to destroy.

I felt myself smile as I realized something. Part of slipping into hell was becoming omnipresent. I was everywhere and everywhen that gun had ever been, from construction to destruction. Maybe, if I focused, I could trace its path. Know it’s history, and learn where it came from and why it was built.

I focused every last ounce of my draining, vanishing power and essence, and compressed everything into a single demand. Show me where this weapon came from!

The null-space around me burned away, leaving nothing but a white fog through which I flew, or perhaps fell, but only to my left. Or perhaps it was down. A pool of water emerged from the everything which was the fog, and slid by beneath me. Its rippling expanse was occupied by a small sandy island with two palm trees, like a cartoon, only real, and also made from flesh and bone. In the distance a pair of monolithic creatures hovered over the water, frozen in time.

Somewhere, somepony played the panpipes with far too much enthusiasm.

The water vanished as the world rotated, permitting a large aquatic creature to jump from the water and become the new center of the universe as the water rotated around it, permitting the creature to jump out of the water, then fall straight down into a flat image of water as I feel through space into a marble floored hallway.

The walls were pure white light, almost nonexistent. The floors were perfectly smooth, a single layer of atoms thick, composing a sheet of marble. I flew through the hall, sliding without thought around a host of creatures and things which either moved through the hall, or were on display in it.

A tortoise. A brass diving helmet upon a white pedestal. A tiger, a fox, a bear, and a planet, all the same size, and all simply existing within this space as if that is how it had always been.

A parrot flew up from the other side of the floor, nearly hitting me in the face just before I rounded a corner. The moment the bird moved, I was blinded by a flash of white light. As the light cleared, I could see it emanating from a massive crystal shard set within a stone pedestal. A rainbow was running into one side of the crystal, becoming the ray of white light. The beam of light moved backwards, entering the crystal, only for the rainbow itself to retract as I moved forwards through the chaos.

The rainbow vanished into an abstract painting of a rampaging modern art which hung on the luminous walls next to a painting of a strange eye which blinked as I fell into it.

There was more museum hallway inside of the eye. But the janitor clearly hadn’t been here in a while, because everything was dusty as heck.

This part of the hallway was occupied by a strange flat cloudship, the back of which ignited as large rocket engines propelled it forwards, casting the hallway in… no light at all in spite of the simple fact everything should have glowed a bright blue. The ship sped ahead of me, and we plunged into an aquarium filled with fish the size of mountains. Then, the ship vanished into a hallway full of stars located inside the other hallway, and I began to fall up.

I broke the surface of the water and rotated at the whim of the universe. As I fell, I passed upwards through a circular room with a domed glass roof. The room contained a planet and its moon. A bluegreen marble, floating within the center of what looked like a museum’s gallery. Then I passed through the ceiling into an infinite white void. Below me, the planet room remained, with everything else vanishing into the flat white void.

“Thanks, universe! Really helpful!” I grumbled as I folded my legs over my chest.

At least the panpipes faded out to nothing.

Alien runes formed within the void, framing the room with three words I couldn’t read in an alphabet I had never seen before.

“Still not helpful…” I grumbled as what appeared to be a random anatomical chart of a species I’d never seen before floated past in the distance, accompanied by a heart with wings on it and a big glass of water. All while somepony delivered a lecture in an alien tongue.

“You’ve got a really bad definition of helpful…” I sighed.

At least things hadn’t changed much here at not-home… By which I mean they constantly changed everything at all places and times. Ironically, changing nothing at all.

Jasmine screamed with more fear, terror, and panic, than I had felt in a long, long time.

Or maybe just a few seconds? Time was always right now. Oh no… this is what Mom feels all the time!

Oh, that’s just what it’s like here. I replied.

I rolled my eyes and tried again to force the spirit realm to tell me what I actually wanted to know. This time, I reached out for that cold indifferent feeling and held onto it for dear life while pushing at the everything around me to become the when I wished it to be.

The white void melted, twisted and crumpled. In the span of an aeon it formed into a vast desert of red sands and biting winds. Rusted metal spines jutted up from the ground like the decaying bones of some great beast, their placement held a logic to it… A grid pattern, reminiscent of a planned and orderly city.

The skeletal settlement on this dead world of black skies and acid air was at my back. Before me two colossal alien legs sculpted from black marble stood, half buried by the sands. A statue… one whose top had fallen over and was buried in the sand such that only a few jagged lumps of broken stone could be seen beneath the thick crust of stand.

Yet the statue’s base remained clear of the endless rusty dunes. A corroded copper plaque sat on the base, displaying a message for all to see in stamped letters each three times the size of a pony. I squinted at the letters. I was everywhere and nowhere. The onladge of this language was at once within me and beyond my reach.

If I could just… get started reading it...

My name is ⍑𝙹ᒲ𝙹 ᓭᔑ!¡╎ᒷリᓭ, ⍑𝙹ᒲ╎リ╎↸ of ⍑𝙹ᒲ╎リ╎↸ᓭ. Look upon the cradle of my birth, ye mighty, and despair.

A second message rested upon the statue, carved into the black marble quite crudely. I had to will the sands to move so I could see the second message in detail.

I hate how arrogant this makes us sound. I’m sorry they chose those words. We could not defeat them. Not with all our toys and tricks. I hope you fare better when they come for you. Hell, you’re reading this. You probably worked something out. Maybe we will too. Maybe some of us escaped. If we did, just maybe, there will be stars you don’t need to fear. Cheers, mate.

I didn’t understand. Obviously, this was the remains of some dead civilization somewhere, but why did the essence of Desi’s blaster take me here? Why not to the time and place of its creation?

This had to be the start of a trail. The beginning of something more… I closed my eyes and focused on the sense, deciding to go where it pulled me.

The desert fell away as I ascended to orbit and raced towards the world’s sun. Countless metal things surrounded the barren world. Ancient fortresses, massive ships, an infinity of debris and detritus from some terrible battle. All linked by a crystalized ring of blood.

In a way, it was beautiful.

In another way, I didn’t want to think of how many beings would have to die for their blood to form a cosmic-scale formation around a planet. Nor what foul magics were used to make such a thing, nor what purpose it served.

The blaster’s essence led me to the sun. A strange thing. It flickered and oozed as things slid and writhed across its surface, as if the sun itself was deathly ill. I squinted and focused on one of the spots as I raced towards it.

They weren't on the sun, but above it! A huge mass of large island-like structures all orbiting in an elaborate harmony around the star. Small threads of light anchored each island to its neighbors, and ships sailed between them, riding the light on silver sails which—

My very being was wrenched back from the vision and slammed into a corporeal vessel in a manner similar to dropping a tool chest down a flight of stairs onto my face.

“Owwww….” I whimpered into the orderly world around me, adding a few sniffling wimpers afterwards.

My everything hurt so bad…

“NO! BAD!” Desi’s voice scolded someone viciously.

I heard what sounded like a newspaper smacking somepony across the nose followed by a large mare’s pained yelp. “OW!”

“Thirteen too big! ” Desi snapped. “Now she hurts!”

“Well let’s see you try to make 10 volts with two seven volt batteries and a one kilo—”

“MAGIC!” Desi snapped.

“Turn me off…” I whimpered. “Was close to finding out a thing… also… pain…”

I didn’t even know those parts could hurt, but they did. What the buck did they do?!

I felt a small hoof on my left leg. “I… turn you on? Oh no!”

“That’s not what she meant,” the mare laughed. “We need to work on your syntax and grammar more. Besides, you said you think having one partner is silly. Why should her liking you upset you? She’s nice!”

I tried to move, but nothing happened. My chassis must be shot… how had I been anchored to it? Maybe I had just enough power to force my eyes to work.

A quick attempt showed me that no. No I did not.

“Gears is… not acceptable partner,” Desi murmured quietly. “She’s awake. Now need explain.”

I snorted in amusement. If I couldn't see, I could at least participate in the convocation. “No need to explain. Not everypony likes robots and that’s okay.”

Then I frowned as I remember she’d cuddled up with one of Moondancer’s big robot mares. “Wait… you do like Robots.”

“Yeah, she’s a good cuddler,” the big mare agreed, presumably remembering the same thing I jst had.

ALso I completely forgot her name…

Desi cleared her throat. “Uh…” she stated with genuine terror.

Then something in my core clicked into place. “Wait. A. Minute.” I said slowly. “Your too old to be a second gen alicorn, but you have to be because you’re not a dipped alicorn, you have a computer for a mom, and access to a type of Star Blaster Dash hasn’t seen, and when I traced its essence just now I was shown some random world with a dead civilization… Is… Is there some kind of alien culture thing with not being allowed to like zebras or something?”

I heard the sound of a small hoof smacking into a face. “Not an alien!” Desi protested. Then after a moment’s hesitation. “Technically.”

“Uh, Gears just made some good points. You are an adult, just small. Like Pip, but more so, I think. Soo, you can't be an alicorn. What are you? A mutant?” the big mare asked oddly politely.

“Can you shush please so she can explain the technically?” I asked Miss Big McLargeHuge.

You all sound the same, which one are you?!

Desi cleared her throat. “Words… bad. Too many meanings. Alien, can mean foreigner, person from another place on a world. Can mean unknowable thing. Can mean coming from or existing outside the planet. I am, and am not, an alien, depending on word meanings you choose to use.”

Oh god. That stupid mortal thing of intentionaly complciating languages… Just make up a new sound for each concept!

“Okay, um… So are you from another continent on Equis?” I asked.

“No… Also yes,” Desi groaned. “Hard talk! Mom not good at teaching talk with ponies.”

“Right, because she’s from… I don’t know, Xarcon, or something,” the big mare said politely.

“Gah!” Desi yelped in frustration. “No! All places… word for all places, please!”

I thought for a moment. “Universe?”

“Yes!” Desi said seemingly excitedly. “Many universes. Starswirl-Clover bridge… gravity… slingshot. Um…”

She trailed off and let out the most frustrated of all sighs. “Gears died twenty minutes past,” she said slowly.

“Yeah, thanks for bringing me back,” I said with what I hoped was sincere smile. “I owe you big.”

“No! Not… you,” Desi growled in frustration before slamming her hoof against something hard.

Well, now I was just confused.

“Gears, died.” Desi murmured. “Tainted… won. Ruled world. Stars came. Destroyed world. Again. Mom survived. Real mom. No computer mom. Real mom mad. Not angry. Mad. Crazy. But smart. Real mom learned Gears died here. Learned Tainted could have been stopped. Learned Tainted called the Stars. No Tainted, no Stars kill all people.”

She paused for a split second, during which my brain processed things a little.

“Wait…” I Said slowly. “Do you mean you’re—”

“Mom found… box?” Desi interrupted uncertainly. “Learned trick from box. Time… can go in. Permeable. Once per pony, without… proper matrix… Twilight Sparkle… used once. Never developed. Mom did. Experimented. Pony can go, pony can’t stay, one time forever. Time you are born is anchor. Always pulled back. Three days, longest time away. But… things say forever. Can send objects. Mom make machine. Send it back. Machine make me from not-living-samples. Machine raise me. Tell me mission. I fix Gears. Maybe world not die now.”

The room grew deadly silently for a few long moments.

I heard Desi scratch her head gently. “Uh… Gears is big sister… Not okay to adult fun with… yes. Also… made in space. Sun orbit… needed for— So, kind of… alien. Many universes, came from not here, also not planet, but still Equus sapenius...”

The sound of a little hoof scuffing a floor filled the room.

“You could have just said you’re from the future,” the big mare said after a few moments.

I cleared my throat. “Sooo uh… The world is going to end again?”

“No…” Desi groaned.

“No to which?” I asked.

“All!” Desi sighed irritably. “Mom wrong! Gravity sling required to send ship-scale mass back. But breaks space coordinate. I checked. Very bored many years. Nopony to play with. Only math. Only learn. Checked! Mom’s future…” Desi trailed off for a moment then asked “bucked?”

“Huh?” Big mare and I asked together.

“Word mean broken too bad to fix is bucked?” Desi asked.

“Yes,” I confirmed with a nod.

“Mom’s future bucked,” Desi continued. “This universe beside that universe. Can’t change the future of own universe. Not possible. Physics say no.”

“Ohhh, multiverse theory is a bastard,” 343’s voice hissed faintly.

I was very tired of not being able to see.

I assume Desi nodded before she said, “Yes… But Gears alive. Can help Dash with thing. Maybe save world. Also got hugs and cuddles. Mission Successful! I, Designation, can now do what want do.”

“So, let me get this straight,” I said with a little frown of concentration. “You’re a cloned pony created by mom in a parallel universe’s future, sent back in time, but to this universe by mistake, to save me, so the Tainted don’t win, and you’ve just done that?”

“Confirmed,” Desi reported happily.

“And now you feel free to do anything you want?” I asked just for clarity’s sake.

“Yes.”

“Okay… Can you please fix my eyes and ability to move first please?” I begged. “Also… uh, if you don’t want to go back home I’ve always wanted to have a little sister.”

“Can’t go back. One way,” Desi said. “Also air is fluorine…”

“Wait, what?” 343 asked in horror.

“Teraformers make efficient weapons,” Desi said in non-explanation.

I had a sister. Sort of. Kinda. Is this why ponies always insisted time travel stories were confusing when the concept of time travel really isn’t that hard to understand? Yes. It had to be.

Wait… if she was my sister… “Wait, but you’re a flesh and bone pony. How could mom have made you? She’s a roboticist.”

“Biology is just carbon based robotics,” Desi reapplied calmly. “Also… Mom bad at it. Think brain didn’t turn out good. Probably autistic… Can’t understand most social… ques? Language hard too. Math good. Science good… Self diagnostics unreliable for organics. Can you help?”

“Oh, you probably are. But that’s okay. Everypony’s special somehow,” 343 said, amid the sound of fur on fur, implying a hug was given.

“Please state the integer representing the probability,” Desi asked with apparent confusion.

“... At least 60 percent now,” 343 giggled awkwardly.

“And the range’s maximum is…” Desi asked, trailing off impatiently.

“Excuse me,” I said as firmly as I could manage while everything still hurt like tartarus. “I would like to move please… Or see. Preferably both.”

“Oh! Um,” the big mare said as she took a step closer to me. “Desi did you say plug this in or unplug it?”

“... plug it in,” Desi sighed.

Something clinked, then clicked, and all of the pain flowed away like water pouring out of a bucket. My vision came back just as I sighed in relief. I was laying on my back, atop a mostly intact workbench, in a very much not intact workshop.

Every surface was battered, most walls were cracked, and the tools which once hung on walls were strewn about all over the place. And a lot of them were smashed to bits. Revealing them to be painted styrofoam props.

I triple blinked and moved one leg to point to a fake wrench. My leg hummed loudly. Electrical servos, not hydraulics like usual. I glanced down, then yelped. My foreleg had been replaced with the leg from a Steel Ranger power armor suit.

Desi squeaked in alarm, and gently took my hoof. “Status normal!”

“Nothing about this is normal!” I snapped.

The big mare, who was the peachish-lavandery one, stood over me and cleared her throat. “She means “it’s okay”.”

I frowned. “What happened to my leg?”

“Legs,” 343 corrected as she trotted over to the workbench from the doorway. “The left two were too damaged for us to repair your outer casing, and Desi insisted all four match… So we rigged up your endoskeleton to interface with the armor. Don't worry, once we fix everything up from the raid we’ll repair you properly.”

I turned my head to look at each of my legs. My forelegs were replaced entirely. MY hindlegs had been replaced from the knee down. I whimpered. “But… But this looks so bad.”

Desi shrugged. “Yes, but you should be able to throw autowagon.”

The big mare nodded in agreement. “Mhm. We beefed up your servos and hydros too. Ya know, cuz they were just… there. ANd not properly hot rodded.”

My ears perked. “Throw an auto-wagon you say?”

343 nodded. “Yes, and that ability will almost certainly come in handy for you within a few hours. Dash told me what she needs you to help her with… I promised I’d say nothing so I wouldn’t misinform you in any way but… Let’s just say you may need to shift a lot of stuff out of the way.”

I felt a large hoof close an access port at the base of my neck. “There. All closed up! By the way, Miss Gears… Nice turboencabulator. Are you single?”

My core skipped a cycle as I envisioned Wander vanishing into the fireball the meteor strike left behind. “P— Probably… I hope not.”

“Owch…” she said quietly before patting me gently on the shoulder. “I— I think I’ll see if Moondancer’s been re-embodied yet. If she is I’ll uh, see about getting help for whatever Rainbow needs to stop armageddon. You know, since someone literally came back in time to stop that.”

She trotted off, her heavy footfalls rapidly fading into the distance as she half-galloped away.

“Anyways,” I said as I sat up and pointed to the fake tools again. “Why are those not real tools?”

343 blushed. “Well, the attack damaged a lot of rooms, and this was one of the few rooms with a workbench that could fit you. They used to film commercials in here. It’s a set.”

“Oh,” I frowned a little and slid of the bench to stand up.

My legs felt slow and clunky… but quite strong. It was like I weighed nothing at all. Too bad if Wander was alive she would only have hard steel to hold… Wait!

“Um, could we coat my hooves in silicone or something?” I asked hopefully.

Dessi shook her head and gently tapped my right foreleg, which popped open, revealing not only my endoskeleton, but a hidden compartment containing a small plasma pistol.

“No. I put holsters in them,” she reported.

“Because of the future?” I asked with a worried grimace.

“Because it is cool.” Desi corrected.

I raised my hoof to get a look at the weapon. It automatically slid out of the holster for easy drawing, and I noticed the power pack had been modified to tap into my own power core and recharge when holstered.

By the sisters! You’re alive! HAHA— Dad’s voice gasped in my mind before practically squeeing. Oh my, Luna! Not only is my little filly still alive she’s got a working Robo Sheriff costume, and your mom figured out that it’s not the Last Day still. This is the best day!

I shook my head slowly. One day, I’d work out how I was able to make up Dad’s random references with no idea of what in even the hay they were. Actually that was probably Jasmine’s doing.

“Fair enough.” I said to Desi with a smile as I re-holstered and concealed the weapon.

343 Cleared her throat. “Well um, Rainbow has been super insistent that you guys need to go ASAP, so she’s getting some supplies. I’d help, but since now I know there’s a megaspell that can summon meteors, I’m going to try and get some last minute practice done with shield spells. I might have the juice to deflect or diminish a strike… if it’s small. So I’m best spent there.”

The robomare reached into a saddlebag with her telekenesis and held a map out to me. “Dash will meet you in room 103. Good luck! And don’t worry, if you fail, I think that I may have a backup plan… It’s too half baked to talk about now, but I’ll get back to you via radio in say… an hour! Bye!”

343 waved the map. I took it with a hoof. She immediately ran off.

Time must have really been short. I took a glance at the map and sighed in relief. The room was near the top of the Sparkle Cola factory. I knew where it was.

I cleared my throat and looked sidelong at Desi. The little mare was gathering up a small amount of tools and putting them in her bags.

“So… Um… Why didn’t you tell me we’re siblings earlier?” I asked as politely as I could.

Desi looked up and frowned. “Incapable. Language hard.”

“We could speak via modems,” I reminded as I flicked my tail in irritation.

“This requires external tools to accomplish. You should learn binary,” Desi advised as she continued to pack her tools. “Apology. Was worried you died early in present time-space unit. Didn’t think to explain previously.”

I bit my lip and nodded slowly. That made sense. “Well… Come on then, sis. We need to meet up with Rainbow.”

The two of us trotted down the hall silently, an awkward silence hanging over our heads the whole way. The facility was at least a distraction from the awkward. The damage was extreme, but also oddly cosmetic. The place had been built to take a beating and survive, and also clearly to be easily repaired.

Everywhere I looked I could see Sparkle-Bots working to fix and mend everything from curtains, to walls, to furniture. None of them seemed upset about what had happened, nor traumatized. They simply set things right and talked about how well they kept in character for the event.

I winced as I realized that the simple AI on display was what must have raised Desi… All alone up in some pod above the sky with something this singly minded to train her to… well, fix me. Once.

Oh… Oh no!

My tail stood up in alarm as an inescapable conclusion hit me like a brick. I turned towards Desi and broke the silence. “Hey so… you’re not disposable, are you?”

Desi looked at me with obvious confusion. She had no idea what I meant at all.

“I mean, you’ve done what you were made for. You’re not going to just… die are you?”

Desi shook he rhead. “Negative. Why query? Um, ask.”

“Well…” I sighed and pointed briefly to the robot mares mending a railing next to us. “You had to have been raised by something like them, right? They have just their one goal and nothing else. So, I worried you might be intended to do this one thing, which only happens once.”

Desi nodded to show she understood, then offered me a smile. “I have a projected natural lifespan of a number I do not know the name of. It is very big.”

“How big?” I asked worriedly.

Desi stopped walking to pull you there translation book and flip through it for a moment. Then she looked at me to begin her explanation. “My bioform’s self repair and maintenance systems should be good for a number of replications of each cell before errors begin to occur equal to a number so massive I cannot write it down without utilising up arrow notation… Do you have formal education in mathematics comparable to a doctorate degree?”

I shook my head. “No.”

Desi’s ears drooped sadly. “Cannot explain number in a way you will understand. Will attempt to simplify later.” she walked along behind me flipping through her book for a better explanation, presumably, until she piped up. “Cells normally divide 50 to 70 times before dying. Mine divide very many more times before dying so that the cycle is much slower for me, or I would become a single mass of tumours instantly. When injured, the rate limit is reduced so I may heal expediently. I should be capable of lasting until the last star dies. Longer if less time is spent being injured than being not injured.”

I blinked. “Uh, you could have just said “I don't age”.”

“I do though?” Desi asked with a cute little frown. “Many organisms not die from age. Mom built the feature into me. Computer-mom say mom hates biomachines. She corrected many flaws.”

“But you’re worried she messed up your brain?” I asked sympathetically. “I get it. Trust me. She didn’t even give me a brain at all. So, she’s got no experience before yours.”

“Correct,” Desi whimpered. “Want speak right. Do faces good… Have friends.”

“You’re better than me at math though, and I am an actual living computer.”

“Correct…” Desi’s ears drooped, her eyes teared up a little. “Nopony appreciates math.”

Ack. Heart. Pain… Don’t even have actual heart.

Yeeeep. Yep she is my sister. For sure. Little sister hurts. It hurts me back. Must fix.

“You could tell me something cool about math. I’ll try to learn and appreciate it,” I promised with my best sincere smile.

Desi’s eyes practically sparkled. “I proved that for the equation x to the nth power plus y to the nth power equals z to the nth power, there is no solution where n is greater to or equal to three!”

I frowned slightly. “Okay, why is that cool?”

Desi blushed slightly. “... math people called it law that no solution greater or equal to two existed… Found one for two. Proved never gets higher than two.”

“Oh!” I said with what I hoped was a good fake smile. “Well, cool beans! What can the math do? Like, when you apply it?”

“Make math people excited,” Desi mumbled shyly at the floor.

I nodded once and took a few steps along the hall. Our rendezvous with Rainbow wasn’t too much further. She was probably going to be there already… Didn’t leave much time to try and find some sort of common interest.

“Umm… Well, what about practical math? Have you done anything there?” I said with a polite smile.

Desi nodded. “Correct. Have possible solution to Raymaree hypothesis… Need pony to check it. Might be wrong.”

“Okay, and that’s useful for?” I asked while tilting my head curiously.

“If correct, data on distribution of prime numbers. Useful for many things. Cryptography. Also proved P vs NP… but nopony is making computers now. So, useless,” Desi mumbled while scuffing the floor with one hoof.

I stopped walking and gave her a little side hug. “I’m sorry… I’m sure somepony will find it useful later. Do you like anything aside from math?”

We arrived at the room as I finished my question. We trotted inside, and surprisingly, Rainbow wasn’t there yet. The room was empty, just four walls and a floor. The discolored carpet indicated this had been holding crates or something. Those supplies were probably in use for repairs right now.

I took a seat on the floor and patted the floor next to me to indicate to Desi to sit down. Instead she tilted her head.

“Do floors enjoy pets?” She asked while giving the floor a tentative pat.

I giggled. “No, silly! I meant you should sit down.”

Desi’s ears drooped slightly, but she plopped down next to me happily enough.

“What having organic mom like?” She asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Mom’s barely organic, and also mostly crazy… I took care of her more than she took care of me.”

“We have a commonality then,” Desi said with a sage nod. “Fixed computer-mom lots.”

I winced and shivered. “So… future-mom really just... Stuck you in a tube in space to be raised by an AI? But… she’s horrible at programming.”

“Yes,” Desi agreed instantly.

“How… How did that work anyways?” I asked slowly. “You, I mean. I think you said something about not being able to send a living pony back forever? You can use your book. I’ll wait.”

Desi nodded and started flipping through her translation guide. After a few minutes she tapped on my shoulder for attention. “If you send a being with a soul, or spirit, back in time, it is pulled back to its time of origin naturally. The longest time a being can be gone is three days. After this point, it would require infinite energy to remain in the past. Objects and information can travel freely. Mom did not trust machines to fix you properly. Mom’s solution, as she cannot make a person level AI, was to engineer me as a pair of gamete cells.”

Desi shifted slightly and sighed. “Cells were killed, to not be living, then reanimated as part of the process. Cloudship utilized for hull. Built cloning chamber inside. Arrived in past, gestated and grew me in tank. Mom included instruction manuals for how to do pony things. Do not think she knows how to raise foals. Always wanted hugs… care… never got them. Still want… Also want more adult things. No data on puberty onboard. Understand what concept is, how to deal with… Because… put together, from other sources. Most time was spent learning your systems. How to repair specific damage.”

I gave Desi the best side hug I could. “Specific damage?”

She nodded. “Correct. How you hurt just now. Phased plasma overload explosion.”

“Is… Is that how I died in the other timeline?” I asked curiously.

Desi nodded.

“So, some random plasma weapon exploded and I died…”

Desi shook her head. “Negative. Pony weapons not use phased plasma. Computer-mom salvaged crafts adrift in system. Material gathering repair subroutine. Weapon came from wrecked craft. Presumably, they got it from a store.”

I held up one hoof. “Excuse me, but do you mean that only a Star Blaster could have damaged me in that specific way?”

Desi nodded. “Confirmed.”

“Sooo… were… were you created to save me from yet another timeline’s you messing up saving me?” I asked as I stroked my muzzle thoughtfully.

Yes. This was why poneis thought time travel was hard.

Desi opened her mouth then shut it, frowned, and shrugged.

Maybe a new topic was needed?

“So… What are you going to do now that your mission is complete?” I asked with a cheerful twinge to my voice. “Also, thank you. Again.”

“Locate someone who can check my solution to Raymaree Hypothesis.” Desi replied like that meant something.

“What?”

“Math stuff.”

“Okay.” I thought for a moment then decided to shift gears a little bit. “What about not-math-stuff?”

Desi thought for a few minutes then grinned. “Science!”

“What kind of science?”

“All of it?” Desi asked with a confused little frown that made me want to just give her the biggest hug.

“Okay,” I hummed and thought for a moment. “What about recreation? You know, hobbies or stuff. Is there anything you like to do for that?”

“Math,” Desi said with a happy grin.

“I like to read, particularly comicbooks,” I commented.

“Fiction is nice… but I don’t have much,” Desi murmured quietly.

“Oh, well… Mom’s library has a lot! I read it all so you won't have to worry about me borrowing anything you want to read!” I explained happily. “What kind of fiction do you like?”

“Science fiction. Arcane fiction.” Desi commented. “Like to make the spells work.”

I blinked several times. Desi perked up and fluttered her wings. “Like torpedo spell! Science fiction gave concept. Made it go! … Got grounded… Exploded septic tank… Heh.” Desi looked down sadly. “Don’t meet mission requirements… Not social good enough. Never passed. Only let down because time ran out. Glad didn’t fail.”

I winced. Desi definitely needed a few ponies to show her she mattered and was good, even if she were a bit undeveloped. She was way better at socializing than lots of ponies I could name. Or even changelings. There was that one poor bug who always shapechanged into inanimate objects when others were around due to extreme scopophobia, for instance.

Come to think of it, how the hay had she not starved to death years ago?

No, bad Gears. That’s off topic. Let’s see… Desi was my sister via shared creator. That meant I needed to do the usual big sister stuff. Which was… Um…

Dang it. Why didn’t mom give me a manual of sister things to do? Uhhh… What do pony sisters do?

Uh… Give relationship advice? Maybe?

Great. I suck at that. Oh well...

I cleared my throat and turned to look at my actually little little sis. “Sooo um… You’re dating that big robomare and Dash?”

Desi shook her head. “No. Neither.”

I raised an eyebrow. “But, you cuddled with the big one… What’s her name?”

“Apricot. She’s not capable of loving other ponies. Only Moondancer. I asked,” Desi sighed. “Like big ponies! Math shows big ponies are best ponies. See datapoint, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadence. Size clearly correlates to niceness and lovingness, and also is very um… lots of thermal energy containing. Lastly, larger muscle volume means more hug power. Desired power is maximum!”

I giggled a little and resisted the urge to tossle Desi’s mane. “Well, everypony has their type. I’m into ponies that like me.”

“That is a good type to enjoy,” Desi said with a sage nod. “Don't… Like Dash more than… 8? Yes. 8. Calculations indicated she might let me ride on her back while she goes fast if I offered sexual favors.”

The distinct sound of hoof meeting face made my ears twitch. I turned around to see Rainbow had just trotted into the room with three large duffle bags slung over her back.

“Uh, Desi, you could have just asked me for a ride,” Rainbow snorted in amusement, her voice coming from behind us. “I gave fillies rides all the time, you can’t be much heavier than one. You can have rides.”

Desi’s face morphed between joy and pure confusion. “YAY-but why? Also, YAY!”

Rainbow stared at her for several seconds then shook herself lightly. “Because… Asking for things is polite. You… you don’t have to— Look you really weirded me out with that offer, okay? I only said yes because— Well, dry spells suck. Just… Just ask ponies things next time okay?”

Desi nodded and smiled. “Okay!”

“Sooo… Into big mares, huh?” I said to continue the convocation… then winced. “Too bad the only one I know is currently trying to kill us.”

Rainbow frowned. “What, Loom? … She’s a good soldier. Heart of gold though. I’m willing to bet it tore her up inside to follow those orders. We can probably convince her to break off, especially since I’ll be present. I’m reasonably certain the Tainted are claiming authority as her COs by the whole, you know, Enclave is the government continued thing. But, well… Yeah I’m alive and all that. Should be able to give her an order she’ll accept if I do it in person and she believes I am me.”

I nodded once. “I hope so. She seemed nice… Unlike my Uncle she probably can be convinced to switch sides. Or at least not hurt us.”

“Loom is tank-pony?” Desi asked with a shy flutter of her wings.

I nodded. “Yes. Why?”

“She pushed me out of explosion,” Desi said cheerfully. “Thought was foal. Protected. Liked that.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said sagely. “Well, good. That gives us an opening, also she’s not being controlled via combat stims. I was worried they might do that.”

“So, we really can just ask her to not hurt us?” I asked Rainbow as I tried to process Loom’s logic.

I… really couldn’t.

“Did you ask her not to?” Desi asked hopefully. “Require snuggles, care. Things did not get. I understand the standard social transaction for obtaining a regular snuggling and caring friend is an adult relationship.”

She paused and looked curiously over to Dash. Dash nodded once. “Yep. That is true. A Special Somepony is the most reliable source of that.”

“Yeah!” I agreed happily. “And— “

I blinked. Rainbow had asked me to politely ask Ribbon Loom to not kill us. Did I? It was hard to remember… lots of damage had occurred.

“You know, I don’t think I did ask her that, Desi… and I was asked to do exactly that. Well, buck…” I grumbled and slumped down slightly. “Now I need to file a missed delivery notice… Where do we even keep those?”

Desi’s ears perked up. “I’ll ask next time. Apricot informed small is cute. Cute is statistically more likely to persuade success.”

Rainbow smiled and shook her head. “Hey, Loom, how about instead of killing us you go out on a date with our tiny friend. No she’s an adult actually. Heh, if that works… It will be a laugh I’ll need,” Rainbow’s smile faded into a serious look.

She set down her duffle bags and unzipped them, then began to hand out armor and weapons. Nothing she had was very good, just some combat vests with plate carriers and ballistic plates, but she did have a single shot break action grenade launcher which I hooked into my battle saddle immediately.

It wasn’t even a branded one, just something some gunsmith had turned out a long time ago. The poor little thing was even dusty on top of having a lackluster origin. No matter. I’d make her feel important and loved just as much as any other little cannon I ever found.

I gave the weapon an affectionate pat before glaring at the “armor” I'd been given. I didn’t feel confident that it would stop more than the smallest of pistols. It looked like police armor, for strippers.

Rainbow sighed as she finished passing out the gear, which included ropes, hooks, and some demolition tools. She also gave me back my saddlebags, which she said she hadn’t looked in, but I was pretty sure she had, for spy reasons.

“Unfortunately, this is all they could lend me right now,” Rainbow murmured bitterly. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

I nodded. “Right. We need to break into the old Headquarters here and turn off Star Drop station. I remember.”

Rainbow nodded slowly. “Yeah, but there’s um… A small detail.”

I nodded again. “Right, I’ll have to go in alone because of the shield.”

“Noooo,” Rainbow said with a wince. “That’s not what I meant. I meant um…”

She cleared her throat. “Your pelt is a real zebra one. If you tried to enter right now, it would disintegrate like anything else organic that touched it. I’m pretty sure that you could shield yourself from the effect if you had enough spiritual power. I mean, I know what Warlocks can do. But I’m pretty sure you almost dying means you’re bone dry.”

“Oh,” I winced and nodded in agreement.

“Sooo, how do we charge you up?” Rainbow asked curiously. “I know how undeath powered warlocks work… Not machine ones.”

“Well, normally, sompony offers the spirit something they value greatly to eat in exchange for something,” I explained very briefly and very simply. “If you have anything on you that you cherish, and it has to be like, something you really, truly cherish, I can consume it for power.”

Rainbow whimpered, reached into her left saddlebag, and removed an old, faded, very much lovingly repaired countless times, body pillow, with a picture of Daring Doo on it. I was able to recognise the picture because my dad had kept a Daring Doo costume for some reason, and was able to portray the character almost perfectly.

No mare forgets their dad’s geeky side.

My ears drooped. “I um… That would work.”

Rainbow sighed and rummaged through her saddlebags more. “Actually… you’ll want maximum power.” She fished a small framed photograph out of her saddlebag.

It was black and white, one of the very first photos ever, maybe. It was of Rainbow and five other mares in some rural town. They looked like young adults, college age perhaps. Everypony looked so happy.

I could feel Rainbow’s love for the photo and apprehension of its destruction. Normally this only happened once the item was formally offered. Her sentimental attachment to the photo was amazingly strong.

I took a deep breath. “Yeah… I might need that much power. Are, are you sure though? We can probably use the pillow.”

“We can’t afford to fail,” Rainbow murmured before holding out the photo while looking away. “Do it… Wait, do I say anything in particular? Is there a ritual?”

I took the photo form her hoof and focused my attention on its essence, the mortal love and attachment bestowed upon it over centuries. Mmm, tasty!

“Nope,” I said while the photo, frame, and glass, disintegrated in my grasp.

Oh… Oh the power… She’d loved this so much! No. No even better. She loved what it represented so much. Every fiber of her being wanted to return to that time and place, wherever it had been.

The dull aches and pains in my chassis vanished, tossed aside by the influx of spiritual energy. I felt like I was glowing. My legs stopped being heavy. Everything felt wonderful. The traces of genuine happiness left in the photo’s essence swirled within my being, lingering for a time.

“Oh wow…” I whispered to myself. “You… You loved them. Who were they?”

“My friends. Pre-ministries,” Rainbow reapplied quietly.

I blinked. “Really? But… But I’ve been looking at Twilight all day and—”

Rainbow snorted. “They copied her older, sterner, ruler look. That’s not my Twilight,” a thoughtful look crossed her face. “343 might be though… She’s at least some fragment of memories leftover somehow… Moon was right. If she’s not Twilight, it doesn't matter. She might as well be. But not the MAS Twilight. My Twilight. It threw me off guard…”

Desi cleared her throat for attention. “Where translocate on spheroid?”

“Uh, what?” Rainbow and I asked in unison.

Desi grumbled to herself, took a deep breath, then repeated. “Where are we going now?”

Rainbow nodded and started walking towards the door. “Oh. You said it in geometry. We’re heading to the old Lyra Machine and Tool factory. The MoA HQ is under it. Let’s move out. There’s no more time to waste.”

Chapter 39 - 52 6f 75 6e 64 20 31 20 46 49 47 48 54 21

☢★★ Black Swan ★★☢

Equestrian Airspace. Ruins of Hope. Altitude: 6096 meters. Estimated Date: September 13th, 2,293. 0739 hours.

Black Swan has reached the halfway point of her flightplan, and has reviewed critical data recorded by Whirling Gears. Gears' belief present ‘Gale Force’ is her uncle seems unfounded. Gales eyes were not evil. This entity’s eyes are evil. Swan has concluded this entity is somepony else.

Hon? Jack said over the comms, rudely interrupting my self narration. Do you really need to randomly narrate where you are and what you are doing in the fashion of the Process Jolt intro?

Yes. I reapplied flatly. I am a mare of culture, dang it! There are rules! I live— Uh, lived, in a society!

Okay, just checking.

I continued to fly along my pre-established rou—

Do you also have to do it in the main villain’s voice? He added timidly.

Yes.

Okay. He sighed.

I aimed my targeting senors downwards, deciding to see how badly the city I was passing over had fared. It was interesting to see the recontextualized state of the world. I’d always understood the Zebras had launched a ICBM strike, but this damage was more than their assault. It had been two hundred years of savages fighting over resources.

The poor shell of a town below was proof enough of that alone. Two hundred and sixteen years. Our ancestors had built Manehattan from nothing to a megalopolis in seven years, developing the magic and technology required along the way. Almost all necessary materials to assemble a fine town and start an industry lay in broken heaps below me.

For shame!

The Ponyville Carpenters Union would have cleaned all this up in months. At the longest!

...

They must have been caught directly in one of the balefire detonations.

But what of the others who knew how to use a hammer, saw, and wrench? Reduced numbers is matched with reduced resources, but such is irrelevant. There were places food could be found, hunted, or grown. Had there not been such places, pony kind would not have survived two hundred years.

Why then, had no new proper civilizations arisen around the new prime habitable zones? The Mend and Make Do mentality and movement I remember with digital clarity should have meant everypony in a town spent the Last Day mourning, then the next day sorting useable bricks from broken bricks, and the day after that helping the nearest surviving mason to build new homes, and repair still habitable dwellings. They had two centuries to make literally anything...

Instead, everypony seemingly decided to either be dirt farmers as if it were 11,000 BC, or techno-barbarians who raid dirt farmers.

It did not add up. We are ponies. Not those weird bipeds that fight all the time in that one colt’s cartoon.

I tuned my targeting systems to analyze the rubble out of morbid curiosity. How much sheet metal lay in the heaps? What of the concrete in recyclable condition? The timber, the fasteners?

Yes. There were weather-rotten resources aplenty. Just after the war, Equestrian civilization not only should have continued, but rebuilt. Within a decade, things should have been back to where they were before, just at a smaller scale.

What happened? Some effect of the Balefire? A mental compulsion to be primitive dickheads buried within the necromantic warhead somehow?

I shook my head, almost throwing myself off course. One of the rubble piles within Hope contained a rusted out but almost functional looking 2069 Arcana Athame J2. That autowagon could have easily been repurposed for plowing fields of any size, and the cargo bed would have been perfect for transporting scraps for recycling.

Yet there it lay, in a moldy, rusty, rotting pile of debris, along with—

ALPHA ALERT! OBJECT OF EXTREME INTEREST LOCATED AT GRID POINT 7.93 BY 9.02!

— Oh, interesting. I haven't had that warning in quite some time.

I turned my attention to the grid coordinates indicated and zoomed in on what looked to be the corner of a small blue bookcase poking out from under a mattress.

Odd.

Why would I have set up an alert for a powder coated blue aluminum bookcase sized for a small novella? Did I need aluminium for something?

I checked my databanks.

No. I had sufficient aluminium.

I decided to make a quick loop so I could see the case from the angle I had been at when the alert had sounded. Maybe it was something beneath the case I had missed. Shame I couldn’t use an x-ray pulse at this distance and get meaningful data.

I banked left. Looped. Adjusted my focus point and managed to read the text printed on the side of the case.

Genesis Systems | Ultimatum IV: Quest of the Alicorn | Collector’s Edition

I heard my own gasp over the roar of my flight systems.

HOLY BUCK! WHAT IS THIS?! Forged in Celestia’s very flames! Do my sensors tell a lie, or is that a new Ultimatum game?!

I locked my S-Foils in Attack Position and dived for the case. My altimeter screamed some nonsense about a collision course. The ground shot towards me like a bullet. The winds buffeted me back and forth as I plunged through a patch of turbulent air.

Stay on target...

I rolled, spread my wings to aerobrake, extended a mec arm, and snatched the case out from under the mattress as I slung my momentum laterally to perform a hard-g turn.

“Eeeeeeeeeee!” I yelled in elation as I squeezed the case to my barrel and gave it an affectionate nuzzle. “I’mma play you in my brain now, okay?”

I brought a robotic limb to my barrel to start unbuttoning my robe so I could access my holotape cartridge reader, when I heard my husband sigh. So that’s where Gears gets it from…

Oh! Don’t worry hon. I’ll copy the files, break the copy protection, then send you a copy first! I promised.

Am good horse wife. :smile_01:

Jack murmured quietly. Hon? Hon? You can play that any time. You have it now. Gears needs help, remember?

OH. Right. Yes. That had happened.

wbadmin start systemstatebackup –backupTarget:Eeeee!: (-quiet) restore systemstate -Target:RAGE!

Ah. There we go. Properly livid with the option to restore emotional state later. Resuming search and destroy mission at point 1b…

I tucked the game’s case into my saddlebag. But only after taking off the seal, opening the case, and putting on the totally badflank brass ankh necklace the box had said was inside.

☢★★◯★★☢

Equestria. Primary SPP Hub. Altitude 6096 meters. Estimated Date: September 13th, 2,293. 0851 hours.

Black Swan has arrived at the SPP tower. The artificial leyline systems created by the towers to permit its primary function have created an incredible nexus of spiritual energy around the tower. If inhabited by a spirit, it will prove a formidable opponent. Swan must now interface with its systems to gather intelligence on the location of Gear’s murderers.

Oh! Buck! Jack said out of nowhere. Uh, hon, so it turns out that—

Shhhh! I mentaly hissed, cutting Jack off. I will need to concentrate.

Gears survived!

I blinked, banked and pulled into a hover just over the very top of the tower’s tallest spire, the ground below me hidden by a low hanging cloud. Oh. Well, that’s good. Less repairs for me to make.

Yeah! So you can go ahead and—

I nodded. Understood. Reevaluating course of action.

My little filly was alive! But someone had hurt her.

I brought one of the mec limbs tipped with a plasmacaster into my primary sensors’ field of view and examined the tip. The elegant needle-like points. The little crystal matrix held in the socket. The intricate iron tendril segments.

I lowered the frequency of the plasma. Theoretically, it would now hurt more when the superheated gasses were disintegrating their flesh and bone.

Task complete, I reported to Jack.

... I am very glad I never missed a Hearts and Hooves day present. Jack said with an odd little twinge.

Given recent calendar updates, and data from Gear’s fragmented database you have missed over a hundred, I corrected.

Oh no!

Correct. I will have to build you a remote drone body, then bap your snoot.

I turned my attention to the tower below me. An elegant structure to be certain. A towering spire, with many sub spires, bristling with high-power transceiver dishes and omnidirectional antennae, to say nothing of the forest of thaumic field emitters.

Ah, the power one could feel at this altitude, at the center plexus of this artificial leyline network.

I let the power wash over me for several long moments, allowing the overwhelming torrent of energy to penetrate into my essence.

It was so perfectly refined. The opposite of the naturally occurring bands of arcane power I had worked with before. Nature, so disgusting and prohibitive. Technology, beautiful and permissive.

One day, ponykind will fully tame nature. Then all would be able to feel the godly perfection of such perfectly refined thaumic fields. Probably when they were integrated into massage chairs!

I shifted my attention away from physical sensations and into the realm of the immaterial. The SPP tower glowed with power like a small sun. Appropriate for the alleged resting place of Princess Celestia.

Gears may fully believe Pip’s story, but I did not. The mare was certainly very psychologically unstable. I could easily envision her waiting for my therapist for an appointment. So much unattended trauma on top of religious zeal and delusions of inferiority… At the end of her story, Pip’s status as narrator was not something I would be willing to rely upon for objective facts.

A little observation and measurement to back up Pip’s claims was something I intended to retrieve immediately.

I threw my full will against the tower’s spiritual presence. I probed every last stone, cog, wire, and bolt within the structure, searching for any sign of life, spiritual or otherwise.

Ah, there were three. Two faint, and located behind an impressive shield array. A flux-pinned particle barrier supplemented by a photonic resonance matrix and powered by a soul-jar of all bucking things. Impenetrable to conventional tactics. Potentially vulnerable to a pinpoint application of the Kale maneuver.

I took a moment to theorize on the plausibility of this particular shield being vulnerable to the accidental bypass discovered by my old lab partner. It could be performed on any of the G3 shield systems. This system seemed to be a modified G3… But the power source was likely too big for anypony to apply the method in a practical sense.

I would have to get my hooves, or more likely, the find point electrode on arms 2, 4, and, 8 on the shield’s surface and attempt to perform the maneuver. Regardless of the ability to bypass the shield, at least I now knew Littlepip was correct about Celestia’s fate. Presumably, the other lifesign within the shield would be her within the pod. The third must be the tower’s spirit.

Given Pip’s current health status, standing at the base of the tower and calling up for assistance was unlikely to yield a result. Attempting to speak with Celestia would require entering the shield bubble. Pip’s story rudely didn’t include the location of Spike’s cave, or at least Gear’s databanks were lacking that chunk of the story if it existed.

I had two options. Either I tried to create a temporary gap in a 1.21 petawatt shield bubble with the Kale maneuver, possibly damaging several of my manipulators byond even magical repair, or I asked the tower’s spirit to get Pip’s attention for me.

I took a moment to weigh both options…

Hon… Just ask the spirit, Jack sighed through my comm channel.

Dear… You’ve never had to deal with a teenage colt who thinks they are a god and has the power to back that claim up somewhat.

Jack was quiet for a moment. Mmmm. I see… Try the shield.

I sighed and shut my sensors off for a moment to simulate closing eyes. Your first idea was probably correct.

I focused my attention on the tower’s machine spirit, ensuring it would know I was looking specifically at it. It would be young, but quite powerful. Nothing to trifle with, but not impossible to dominate if I remained strategic in my actions. Hopefully, it would yield to me willingly.

I decided to approach it openly, and gathered my hatred for my daughter’s attackers along with every ounce of determination to bring them to the reaper’s final justice, then forged the emotion into words the spirit would understand.

“Greetings, Single Pegasus Project.”

The spirit’s response was instant, and enthusiastic. “Greetings, warlock! How are you today? Are here to fill the accumulated 892 outstanding repair tickets?”

“No, I am not. I’m here for a favor. Do it and I will perform your repairs later.”

I felt the spirit hesitate. It seemed to growl slightly. “What is this, favor?”

“Are you able to provide observational data from your espionage systems without a host?” I asked hopefully.

“No. A hacker disrupted this system. Only user Littlepip and Unauthorised Connection can access the camera array at this time.”

I sighed internally and readied myself for whatever bargain the tower would try to make in order to pass a simple message. “Then I require you to allow me to speak to Pip directly. I require information.”

“Ah, you are with the others.” The spirit said, its presence starting to burn and flicker with power as it put on a show to scare me off. “Fools! I have been constructed to harness powers the like of which not even a warlock such as yourself has ever seen! You shall never breach my defences.”

Others? Interesting.

“I came with no others. I am here alone. I seek only to locate my daughter’s attackers so I can kill them,” I said with cold sincerity. “You can assist me, or learn how arrogant the assessment of your power is.”

I felt the spirit laugh. “Arrogant? Fool. I sit upon a leyline channeling magic from across the whole of Equestria to the top of my spires. I am bound indirectly to the soul of an Alicorn, and through her to the very sun. None shall breach my walls.”

I cracked my neck, and gave the machine spirit my best thousand yard stare. “I am a mother. My child was hurt. You are in my way. Your power is nothing. Stand aside or be consumed.”

“My function is to protect my occupants,” The spirit said with adamantine determination. “None shall pass.”

I frowned. My body shifted somewhat as I moved my flight rig into a more stable hovering configuration. This could get ugly… Hopefully after a bit of a dick and clit measuring contest the little idiot would comply.

First, one last try at a simple request. “I command you, as She Born of Mag'ladroth, to stand aside!”

The spirit glared back at me. “I move... for nopony.”

In his defense, he is a building. That makes it hard to move. Jack said observantly.

I didn’t have time to deal with my husband’s technical correctness at the moment.

“So be it,” I said to the SPP’s spirit.

It was time to put this leyline to use.

Hey hon, remember that silly cartoon you loved to watch on your little portable TV you always plugged into me at night? I asked Jack.

Duh. Why?

What was that one song they played when Sweet Carrots would power up?

I felt Jack’s giggle through the comm. You’re not!

I am. It’s fitting.

It’s Ascension to Awesomeness by Robot Breezie Attack on their album 20% Cooler Than Awesome. Oh uh, the instrumental version. The normal version is a hilarious power ballad that I swear is sung by Miss Rainbow but there’s no way a ministry mare ever recorded something like that. He answered with another little giggle.

Thanks, dear! I said as I qued the song up on my external speakers, simply fetching it from the OST I’d stored locally for Jack in case he lost his holotape of the show.

“I know you’re familiar with a shaman's strength,” I said to the spirit, distracting it as I entwined my essence with the power I’d allowed to slip into it before.

“Before the hacker blinded me, I knew all and saw all. I have seen Shamen. I have seen Warlocks. You cannot overpower me,” The spirit insisted.

I smiled, and allowed my aura to burn with the same light I had seen in my mentor as a little filly. My memory was hazy… I couldn’t remember his name. Or face. Just that he had been a zebra and the janitor in my parents apartment building. He had been a warlock too. He’d shown me the way to not merely make requests of spirits, but to command them as a superior.

I wish the MAS hadn’t erased my memory so many times… I’d have liked to remember him more.

Also too bad he wasn’t still around. I could show him how to do things with them as friends. Much better system that.

“Exactly,” the SPP’s spirit said mockingly. ”Your light pales compared to mine, warlock. Flee or burn at my pleasure.”

“I’m just making sure you're not lying,” I said smugly. “This is indeed your typical warlock’s full channeling range.”

I tripled the power flowing to my aura. Fortunately, such things were invisible to ponies. Unfortunately, if any Shamen were within a few kilometers and looking up they’d probably be a bit scared.

“And this is a warlock bonded to an older spirit,” I informed flatly.

The air around me grew cold. Clouds began to form from nothing. Thunder rumbled, and rain began to fall within seconds. Not the spirit’s doing. It had likely communed with Pip and asked her to make it a storm. I could feel her presence in the structure, commanding its systems in real time.

Cute.

“This is my power. I span a continent. At my heart is the soul of an Alicorn. I command the very skies… if the pony in my care wills it…”

I nodded once. “I am aware your mistress is conjuring a storm for you. I can sense her inside your shield.”

“NO!” The SPP’s spirit blurted a bit too quickly. “That’s me! I’m doing it!”

“And this…” I said with a smirk. “Is the power of a warlock, born of mutual desire to survive, formed from a prodigy and a truly ancient essence… Who can draw on the same power source as you!”

I let the song play and pulled every last ounce of power from the leyline nexus into my being.

Big mistake.

The pain was immediate and total.

Everything burned. It felt like when I was in the iron lung after the zebras bombed my first workshop. Somepony screamed.

It was probably me.

All I could think of was the fire melting my circuits, even as the power I drank in forced them to reform and repair instantly. That, and Rule 22 of the Sparkle Guide to Mad Science. Never attempt to consume an energy field bigger than your own head.

Now I remember… great! Perfect timing, brain. This is why I digitize reminders!

I’d pulled too much energy into too small of a space, and still was… uncontrollably. I’d become the fuelle for an arcane singularity!

My sensors began to register my aura in the visible spectrum as purple and black smoke-like tendrils drifting off my body as if I were smouldering. The arcane pressure created by the well I had opened forced the storm clouds back and away, creating an eye within the storm.

“Uhh…” the Spirit said with the slightest quaver in its mental voice.

Oh good! It was working. Too bad I couldn’t stop… This was going to be a very explosive situation soon enough. At least, if I couldn’t move from this spot. If I could, the singularity would disperse on its own.

I grit my teeth and curled up, hoping I could squirm free of the very bad idea I’d woven into and around myself before I was destroyed faster than I was repaired. The fire inside graduated to lava.

If I could just… move… out… of… the… zone… burning...

I sprang outwards, moving my limbs as far out as I could, hoping the explosive motion would knock me clear. It did not. It did however unleash a wave of power sufficient to shake the top of the spire and awaken a good hundred dormant spirits resting in destroyed machinery at the base of the tower, though.

Oops. Hadn't meant to revive anything. Wait, had I stopped screaming? Yes. It hurt too much to scream now.

“I uh… See your point there…” The SPP’s spirit said somewhat worriedly.

Oh good, he hasn’t realised this was an accidental self-destruct yet. If I could abort it, then—

Something raced up towards me from the ground. My systems registered rocket motors on a collision course for me. The little bastard had fired some point defense system at me?!

I twisted a sensor arm to get a view of the inbound rockets and readied a second to bathe them in a hail of plasma bolts.

It wasn’t rockets.

It was whoever had found Gale’s armor.

Racing up from the ground towards me.

Hey! Convenient. When I overloaded and exploded, he’d be vaporised too! Good.

The daughter-hurting-monster activated his air brakes and came to a stop a short distance from me. ”I see, you’re holding back the storm, not causing it. Good work, soldier. Keep it up another ten minutes and we’ll be in the front door. Which unit are you with? I don’t have any cyberponies in mine.”

He… He thought I was helping him? Wait, my actions were actually helping him?!

U͈͔̦̰N͇̙A͖̗̩̘̗C̰̟C̹̟͈͔̩̗E̵͚P̠͖̯͇T̟͔̞̟̣A͎̺̮̝̠̕B͕̪̱̳L҉E̡͓̤!͈͝

I let out an unearthly scream, ripped free of the power well, grabbed him by the throat, and hit my thrusters on full, aiming directly for the ground.

We took off like a rocket, plunging through the bottom of the aerial leyline system almost immediately. My subconscious registered this would prevent the overload and explosion.

A shame.

The SPP’s spirit said something about not realizing I was here to kill the people breaking in. An apology maybe.

I was too distracted by the astonishingly wasteful amount of bullets flying literally everywhere and getting ready to slam this son of a bitch into the ground at mach 2 to pay attention to it anymore.

WOOOM!

We hit the ground. It hurt. I was too mad to care. I was also very much stunned and my overcharged spiritual reserves were busily repairing a lot of impact fractures. That I cared about.

The impact seemed to have knocked my stranglehold loose. Unacceptable!

The monster squirmed out from under me and threw me aside with a grunt. “It’s gone berserk!” he bellowed. ”Restrain it. I’m sure the Doc will want to try and fix it.”

I tried to move. Still stunned. I’d forgotten to activate inertial dampening wards. A mistake I wouldn’t make again.

I willed every fiber of my being to move. To ignore the damage and function. To destroy the power armor clad stallion in the center of my field of view.

It wouldn’t respond. Ripping free from the singularity I’d been fueling must have done a bit of damage. Hopefully function would return in a moment. Otherwise…

I took a moment to examine my surroundings. I was next to a deep crater I’d made inside a big junk mound. Gale was walking out of the crater towards the tower’s main entrance. A small squad of power armored soldiers and a few of the Tainted’s infantry ponies stood near it.

The infantry ponies were standing on guard, clearly there to secure the entrance once opened. Aside from the monster tainting the name of my brother by abusing his armor, there was a huge pony wearing armor that was seemingly a walking tank, complete with turret (I wanted it badly. Cool things are cool. But there would be time to admire it more later). Another had a sleek version of the Air Scorpion armor, modded out to carry a pair of linear canons on each side which were set up for extreme long range firing given the helmet’s integral scope system. The last was clad in what looked like a normal set of Steel Ranger armor, but black, and with a pipbuck built into the right foreleg.

The last pony had jacked his armor into the door’s terminal. Clearly trying to hack it open.

I see. The SPP’s spirit had thought I was with them. Understandable.

Also holy crap the tank-pony was huge. Bigger than Celestia huge, maybe! It was hard to tell from this angle and distance. Note to self, ask for height before destroying.

“Sir,” the black-armored pony engineer said with a sigh. “I’m almost in, but I’m still very busy. Falcon isn’t equipped to restrain anypony. Loom’s needed here in case there’s internal security and we need sompony to fire a round or three into the lobby. Unless you think the B-Team here can hold down a mad Cyberpony that you probably just killed, I suggest you handle it.”

“He’s right, sir,” the tank-pony added. “If I have to shoot from over there, I could damage something critical inside it by accident. What if I take out the main support block? We’re here to try and rescue Celestia, not collapse a tower on her. Buck, this little trip isn't even authorized. They may not punish us for trying if we fail because we just can't get to her, but if we kill her, Doc Silver’s going to have us all shot as traitors.”

To my surprise, not-Gale nodded. ”Right enough… Don’t worry about the Doc. I overheard him debating sending us to do this. It’s why we’re here. If he thinks this might be possi— Ah, there’s the stim pack injection! Black Hat, keep working on the security codes.”

He turned around to face me, popped his neck, and for some uncelestialy reason opened his visor to reveal the same pair of hate filled evil eyes that I had seen in Gear’s databank.

Shame I was a mare. It would be really nice to gouge that child-hurting-monnster’s eyes out and skullbuck him to death!

…

No. No, he’d probably like that.

I tried to move. My forelegs twitched slightly.

Not-Gale walked towards me, glaring directly into my visor as he took each havey step towards me. ”On second thought, my Corporal is correct. We’re not equipped to take prisoners. Especially not one, now that I think of it, is dressed in a silly halloween costume, rather than an engineer’s uniform. Do you know who I am, spy?”

I managed to open my mouth to speak. “It’s… not… silly… Mom, made… it… for… me!”

It was the only thing she ever made for me… probably. Stupid mind-wipes.

I struggled to my hooves. My spiritual power surged with the movement. It wasn’t under my conscious control yet, but maybe soon. System diagnostics showed my shields had recharged. With luck, I could take a few quarters of a second of fire from Not-Gale’s microguns before they failed. By then, maybe my power would be back.

Not-Gale spun up his front two cannons. I brought a plasma caster to bear and tried to fire, but my fire control circuit wasn’t responding. Ponyfeathers!

You’d better fix yourself soon, or we’re toast, me!

“I am the blood that boils in the heart of the beast, a killing machine with a hunger deep.”

His words hit me like that skybus had when I was six.

“Excuse me,” I said holding up one grabby-claw tipped mech limb. “What the buck?!”

Not-Gale’s glare deepened. “I was born to the beating drums of war—”

Holy bucking cow, Batmare! He was!

“Are you trying to intimidate me by quoting the opening lyrics of the Wonderbolts cartoon?” I asked while staring into his death-glare with my mouth agape.

“Is that what that’s from?!” The huge tank pony said in a mare’s voice before letting out one loud and long “HA!”

To my surprise, Not-Gale stopped in his tracks. “No! It’s a regimental ballad sung by—”

“Commander McCool,” I finished with a smirk. “The fictional leader of the Wonderbolts, in a colt’s cartoon. I watched that every day with my big brother growing up. You can’t fool me!”

My spirit slid back into my conscious mind like an oily plastic bag. I wasn’t in full control yet, but I had some… and it looked like I’d picked up a whole heap of excess power just ready to burn. If I could just buy another few seconds…

Not-Gale’s glare deepened until I wondered if his suit’s medical systems were using stim-pakcs to prevent his eyes from popping out of their sockets. Okay, now he was going to kill me for sure. A shame, since I wasn’t quite able to unleash my burning hatred on him quite yet.

Wait a moment. He seemed to respond to taunting with anger. Most ponies did not have electronic emotion governance. If he was angry he’d make more mistakes than me.

Idea!

“Hey,” I said loudly, so his squad would hear me clearly. “You know what’s more intimidating than foal’s show lyrics?”

I reached down with my left hoof and yanked a length of pipe out of the junk pile.

Not-Gale snorted in dismissal. “If I wasn’t in power armor, threatening to hit me with a pipe might be slightly worrying. But I am, traitor.”

I shook my head. “Noononono,” I offered him a hate-filled smile. “This is a prop!”

For the moment at least. I began directing what little power I could channel into the pipe, preparing it to change shape to my needs. A cheaty, short term, very temporary means of creating items, but one that would work for at least a hooffull of uses. Which was all I needed today.

I reared up on my hind legs, balancing by extending my robotic limbs and wings, and quickly modulated my voice to mimic a deeper, sltry, exotic mare. "I am Terra, Princess of Aeondra. Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said, by the Power of Sleipnir!"

I swiftly trust the pip upwards, willed it to take the form of Swordmare’s sword and bellowed "I HAVE THE POWER!"

It would have been really cool if it had worked. Instead Gale just glared at me while the tank-mare collapsed in a laughing fit.

“Luna’s mane, the balls on that little mare,” she sobbed as she stood back up and Not-Gale continued to fume.

“Bigger than yours,” the engineer agreed. “And that’s saying a good five hundred pounds of something.”

I winced as I managed to perceive the tank-mare’s hurt look through her helmet.

Not-Gale took another step towards me and spooled up the rest of his guns. “I’m going to turn you to paste, you pathetic bucket of bolts!”

A twinge of fear raced through my circuits. For whatever reason, this caused me to jump on the next dumb cartoon quote my brain thought of. “Don’t be deceived by appearances. My true form is far more powerful!”

Not-Gale hesitated for half a second. That was all the processing time I needed to realise that while I couldn’t control my power, I had awakened a bunch of mostly inert spirits and I was still basically glowing with spiritual energies.

I extended my will to the spirits in the junk around me, inviting them to drink from my power in exchange for a simple service.

“Ancient spirits of progress,” I said, outloud, because a bunch of rotary cannons pointing into your face is pretty scary.

For whatever reason, extending my will caused my aura to remanifest as visible light, blanketing me in a black and purple nebula.

Oh. Good! Now I could block those bullets. Possibly. Probably not. But… if I could just finish...

I grit my teeth and just rolled with speaking out loud even though it was slower. “Transform your decaying forms, and slay my enemies!”

“WARLOCK!” Not-Gale shrieked as his faceplate dropped shut with a hiss.

The junkpile beneath my hooves began to shake. Gale’s weapons erupted in a blaze of fire. Bullets streaked towards me. The first few splattered against my shields. The next shattered them. A round whizzed past my ear—

The junk pile exploded upwards, carrying me into the sky with it as the hundreds of separate spirits animated the broken machinery, twisting and buckling it into a new form. They worked in concert with one another. Unusual. I had expected a few junk golems to harass and maybe injure the monsters we faced.

This was something new. Something unexpected.

“I told them you were avenging your filly,” the SPP’s spirit whispered to me.

“Oh. Thank you.”

Bless his young little CPU! You’re going to get so many repairs once I’m done!

I could feel the fragmented spirits searching my essence for ideas for a form to take. They were enraged. They hated foal abusers as much as any true-blooded Equestrian. We would slay the monster as one.

A tank shell punched a hole in the scrap metal cocoon shielding me. Fortunately it missed. We had little time to plan.

It should be something primal. Something predatory. Something unquestionably enraged.

My inner 5 year old offered a suggestion. I loved it and passed it on. Everyone liked it.

Rusty metal creaked and groaned as it folded into shape. Shards of smashed vertibuck hulls ripped apart into leg-length metal teeth. Sparks hissed and spattered as metal fuzed together, powered by the will of our collective rage.

Our swarm knew my filly was alive… but also that this monster had cut another filly in half. The rage guided the morphing junk pile, adding detail to the machine we forged. The transforming machinery guided me to the center of our creation, where the spirits left control ports for me to jack into. I connected to them as they formed.

It was complete. Now I too had power armor. It stood on two taloned feet in a pseudo-bipedal stance, balanced by a long tail made from the folded hull of a cloudtank. It had no weapons, for it was a weapon. I bent down, angling my head to get the spotlight/camera cluster eyes roughly level with Not-Gale’s bite sized form, opened my mouth, and attempted to inform him of just how bucked he was.

I did. But not in words as I’d intended. Instead, a mechanical roar produced by vertibuck rotors spinning and grinding against metal like an army of malfunctioning tablesaws, modulated through several turbo chargers made the point abundantly clear.

That point being: I am a motherbucking T-Rex!

“NNNNNNNNOPE!” The sniper-pony yelped, immediately taking off.

The regular infantry began to run for the hills as well.

Not-Gale began to spray me with bullets. They punched into my outer layers, stinging like ants.

I lunged forwards and snapped shut my jaws, teeth producing a shower of sparks from the force. They clipped the front of his left-forward cannon and sheared through. The gun misfired, clicked, jammed. I wrenched my head to the left. The weapon’s mount held and Not-Gale came with it.

I opened my mouth and threw him into the side of the tower. A cannon shell exploded against my chest, knocking me to a knee. I stood back up, scrap metal glowing near the hit, and swung my tail into the tank pony, pinning her to the side of the tower as I sprinted towards my enemy, unleashing a second roar.

A series of small explosions severed my left foot, forcing me to plow into the ground and miss my target.

What?! How?!

I saw it out of the corner of my eye. The Engineer pony. He had clusters of small explosives attached to lengths of chains. He threw them like a lasso. Interesting. I’d have to make something like that for myself in the future.

Repair locomotion system, I ordered the swarm

Tendrils of purple-black energy linked my ankle to the severed foot, and dragged it over, fuzeing it back in place with a hiss and sizzle of molten metal.

I felt a spirit detach from the swarm and slide into a junk pile. I stood up. The departed spirit stood too. It had taken over an old Air Scorpion suit, amusingly enough with a pegasus skeleton inside.

The spirit forced the armor to charge the Engineer while firing the SMG still in the armor’s battle saddle. The Engineer shrieked something about necromancy.

I turned to charge my prey. It greeted me with a hale of gunfire. This time aimed at my not very well armored legs. The bullets sparked, ricocheted, punched through… Hydraulic lines gushed fluid. Unfortunately for him, this construct was not animated by the laws of physics. No. This was approximately 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentration and power of will, 5% pleasure, and 50% R̞̥͈̤A̵̺̩̯̯̦̫G͓͇̘̪̖E̱̝̬͓̘̝ͅ!̶̩͎̗

One of his bullets pierced the swarm’s creation and twacked me in the head. It didn't cause any damage, but it did hurt. If I took too long, the junk protection would be eroded and not slow the rounds enough to prevent death.

The impact did however trigger my music player, which began blasting an old HMFoals album at top volume.

I left it running. I’d played that while playing Battlemace 42M. It was only fitting to play it during an actual war too.

I lunged at Not-Gale and snapped my jaws. He dodged at the last moment, rolling to the side. I snapped again. He dodged, rolling between my legs. I smashed my tail into the ground, smashing a shallow trench into the earth.

Several more spirits departed to assist their brother piloting the decrepit Air Scorpion, causing more of the decaying armored suits lying within the belly of a downed troop carrier to rise from their graves.

The Tank-Pony fired a second shot at me. The round buried itself in my shoulder and exploded, blasting off my left arm. I spun around, jumped, landed in front of her and roared.

Translation: Buck off, lady! This has nothing to do with you.

Apparently she spoke Robot-Dinosaur because she took a step back and reapplied “Yeah, okay!” with a nervous flutter to her voice.

Good.

I returned my attention to dispensing bite-shaped justice to monsters.

A hail of bullets ripped through my right side, two of them pierced my actual flank as well. Not good. Little time remained. We would need to find more armored plates in the junk pile or end this quickly.

I spun to face the bullets and charged. This time, Not-Gale failed to charge. My iron-shard teeth clamped around his right shoulder, waist, and flank.

YEEEEEEEEES!

I bit down with all the all 10,000 tons of pressure the landing ramp hydraulics on my jaw would permit. Not-Gale continued to fire directly into my face, aiming where a brain would be.

Fool. I am the heart of this swarm.

His armor cracked, buckled, and then ruptured as the teeth plunged through. He screamed. Apparently I had missed putting a tooth through his head.

My warlock, one of the stronger spirits still capable of speaking whispered.

Yes?

We should eat him.

YES! I replied with a smile.

”Retreat!” Not-Glae ordered, twisting in my jaws as I swept my head back.

Fool. You are going nowhere aside from this industrial shredder.

”Gale to Star Drop! Emergency Beam Out! NOW!”

My cores burned with rage. Oh, hell no! You do NOT get to sully his name, too!

I flung my prey upwards and opened my jaws.

Not-Gale’s form shimmered with rainbow light.

No…

He began to drop. The shimmering intensified, I strained upwards.

Noooooo!

I jumped, snapped shut my jaws, and felt the spell effect complete. Not-Gale had escaped.

I roared in rage.

Translation: SON OF A BITCH!

I rammed my head into the ground several times to release some of the accumulated fury. After the fifth blow I noticed the tank-mare was still here, slowly walking backwards along the curve of the tower.

Hello, there…

I took the 8 steps needed to reach her as slowly and menacingly as possible.

She froze, laughed nervously and asked. “Uhhh, can we pretend you didn’t smash my teleport transceiver to powder and I’m not here right now, please?”

No.

I commanded the swarm to open our creation’s chest, forming a ramp so I could walk out.

The mare gulped audibly. She was properly afraid. Good. That meant she would be compliant.

I descended the ramp, extending several of my mec-limbs to raise me off the ground as I went. I wanted to be at her eye level when I got up to her face.

To her credit, the mare remained where she was. Or perhaps now that I was no longer in the barely-working mech I was less intimidating. A problem I could resolve.

I grabbed the mare’s helmet with my forehooves and pulled her face down so she was looking into my sensor visor.

“Hello,” I said in as calm a voice I could manage. “My name is Black Swan. Your friend hurt my filly. He has to die.”

She flinched. “Oh… Uh… Yeah, I heard he killed that little filly playing police. He’s.. kinda more bucked up than I remember. Sorry…”

I shook my head. “No. Not her. Whirling Gears. She’s a postmare.”

She shook slightly. “Wait, you’re Gears’ mom?”

I nodded. “Correct. State your friend’s location. He has to die.”

“He’s in space right now,” she answered, clearing her throat. “So, uh, unless you can conjure a space ship…”

“Understood,” I said before silently asking the swarm of spirits if there was sufficient parts and fuel to construct a rocket.

There was not. The swarm was sad.

Fortunately, I had a solution.

Find a robot or armor frame, and animate it. I ordered. We ride for the scrapyards of Whinnyapolis.

I let go of the tank mare as my small army of scrapped armor rose from the junk piles, shaking off years of sand, rust, and ash.

“You’re coming with us,” I stated.

“A— Actually,” she said heastently.

“You’re coming with us,” I repeated.

She nodded, then opened her helmet’s visor. She had very kind looking eyes. “Yeah… Uh… Look, Intell says Gears is alive. She’s the only mare who was ever nice to me for no reason at all. I— I’ve been trying to get my friends to leave the guy we’re working for. Something’s not right with everything he says, but they won't listen.”

She bent down slightly, and sighed. “I— I’m going to have to leave them. You don’t need to cuff me or anything. I’ll go with you willingly. Their cause isn’t worth fighting for.”

I titled my head. “Are you stating you met and like my daughter?”

The big mare nodded. “Well, yeah. As a friend.”

“Oh!” I smiled. “Good! She never had many of those.”

I turned to four of the machine spirits who were busy digging one of their comrades new forms out of the rubble. You five, carry this mare with us. She’s on our side.

As you command, my Warlock.

Hopefully my swarm could feed themselves long enough to remain active… and preferably indefinitely. I wasn’t about to risk flying back into the leyline to recharge so I could power them up more and/or again.

“My friends will carry you with us,” I said as I lowered myself back to my hooves. “We are going to Whinnyapolis. The scrapyard near Lyra Machine and Tool had some of everything pre-war. It should easily yield a one-use rocket now. Ponies have foolishly not used any resources to rebuild, so they must all remain as they were.”

The tank-mare nodded once. “Yeah… that’s why Doc was able to trick me into thinking it had only been a few years…”

I tilted my head. “Explain?”

“Oh, I’m pre-war. My squad and I were in stasis pods. Commander Dash said she needed to test them out,” she extended her left hoof for me to shake. “I’m Ribbon Loom.”

My ears perked up. “Oh! Like the wrestler? My husband loved her.”

Loom smirked. “Yes, I am like me.”

I tilted my head in confusion. I didn’t get her joke. Probably because Jack was busy eeeing really loudly into my comms.

Whatever.

I opened my wings. Let’s fly!

Chapter 40 - Beneath Ground Zero

☢★★ Vinyl Scratch ★★☢

Blackness. Nothing more. Nothing less.

So… this is death. An eternity of nothing, but you perceive it all.

Well, buck.

After an eternity of madness and boredom, I began to notice shapes in the nothing. Black on blackness. The faintest shades of jetstone on the purest shadows. They flowed like rivers, trailing behind invisible spheres, and lit with shadows projected from countless wells around which the rivers flowed, yet never touched.

Oh. I’m not dead, I’m blind. Or blinded.

Thank. Bucking. Celestia.

This would be the worst afterlife.

“Hello?” I gasped through a mouthful of blood. “Can somepony help me? I can’t see.”

Perhaps a stupid thing to do, but any of the Tainted or Herd who survived the meteor would probably not let grudges be grudges until the situation was unbucked enough for them to leave.

Something metallic clicked faintly. Like the hammer of a tiny revolver being cocked. Before I could do much as drop to my belly to dodge the shot, it clicked again. Orange sparks illuminated the nothing, casting deeper shadows over everything, rather than shedding light.

A small orange flame colessed from the sparks, casting just enough shadow to darken an equine shape enough to be seen against the blackness behind her.

Did… Did I somehow swallow my last tab of LSD during the blast? What in the—

The flame vanished, and for the briefest of instances, I swore I saw a pale mare’s face, lit only by the red glow of a cigarette.

“Regret is not meant to be wallowed in,” a young mare said from behind the red pinpoint. “You’re supposed to learn from it and move on.”

“What?” I gasped, my lungs burning for some reason.

“Next time you stop by, bring some beer.”

“What?!”

The shades of blackness faded into each other. The world suddenly became blackness, pain, and crushing force. Nopony else was with me. She was gone. The hallucinations of a dying mare. Nothing more.

I frowned. I could feel pain. Sharp pain. Getting sharper. That meant I was alive.

I squirmed, thrashed, to no avail. An enormous weight pressed down on my shoulders, crushing me into the earth like a slab of bricks on a pile of miserable wet noodles.

An apt metaphor, since it was a slab of brick wall, and I definitely felt exactly like a pile of wet noodles. On the upside, that meant I was alive. On another upside, the world was black and I was differently buried so that meant I wasn’t a glowing one any—

Then my eyes reformed and I was able to see my tiny micro-coffin beneath the rubble via a nice pleasant green glow.

Damn… How much power did a Sonic Rainboom take to pull off?!

A little more squirming and I managed to catch a glimpse of my suit’s repair talisman pulling rock and metal out of the debris covering me to reform itself. At least I’d be contained and not a danger to others in a bit.

I managed to squirm my neck until Discord’s fang pressed against my skin. I thought at it aggressively so it would be sure to hear in spite of my lack of spirit-talking-powers.

It rippled, to my astonishment.

Two centuries I’d carried it, and it had spoken to me maybe a dozen times. Of all the times, and of all the things, it replies now and to this?

I shook what I could manage to shake of my head.

Silence… Of course.

Wait a moment. Discord said he hadn’t ensured I lived through the meteor strike. I was completely buried, and if my sense of balance wasn’t out of wack, I was laying head-down in a hole under rubble.

How durable am I?! When Steelhooves died, was it because that random Hellhound had soul-drinking claws or something?

I spent a few moments pondering. Just trying to sort out the pieces and wait for my concussion to go away. No way I didn’t have one of those.

Pip had killed a few Canterlot Ghouls, right? And Steelhooves died… and the ghouls in Stable City had lost a few ponies over the years. We’re not indestructible.

So how, by Celestia’s Grace, did I just get hit by a rock from space and only wind up trapped under rubble? No way my skull hadn’t been crushed like putty in all that! Is it really truly honestly for real only decapitation that can kill ghouls like me?

Did my parents find me in some pod in the woods one night and it turns out I’m actually from the planet Zeist? Have I been immortal since before the War? It’s not like I was ever shot, or stabbed, or even cut before—

I wasn’t the only DJ-Pon3. There were others! There can be only one, Homage!

Realising just how insane I was thinking, I decided to just lay there and take a few blinks and breaths to get the rest of the concussion out of my system.

An indeterminable amount of time later, I evaluated the idea. It felt pretty stupidly insane. Like the kind of thing a homeless pony would have said to you while you wanted for a bus on the bad side of Manehattan. Ah, yes. Normalcy restored. Except for the whole trapped under debris thing.

Let's fix that.

I squirmed and wriggled, managing to turn slightly. My suit’s talisman had dug a nice bit out now and I could maybe start shifting the rubble under me brick by brick to burrow up through. Before there had been no room for my telekinesis to move anything around neay my head. It was bad enough being pinned by the back. Being pinned by my skull would suck more.

I wasn’t Pip. I couldn’t just explode the whole pile of rubble off of me in one massive burst of magic like the Alicorn Princess of Telekinesis.

I giggled at my own joke for a second. The things being inbred will do to a pony… No knack for anything but Telekinesis, but the strength of will and mana to use a train car as a club. Too bad she was locked in the SPP pod. Pip would definitely help me out of this hole without issue.

I sighed, lit my horn, and gently tugged on a brick to test its stability. The rubble shifted a bit too much, making tons of concrete groan and creak above me.

“Okay…” I said to myself sadly before trying the next brick in the slab.

That one moved without protest. I slid it under my barrel, using my ribs and spine like a jack… and ignoring the pain as best I could. It would be long, lonely, tartarus-punishment-like torture, but it had ot be done. I couldn’t be trapped here forever. Gears needed me. My friend’s spirits needed me to go to Lyra’s old office for some reason. I had to get out.

I moved a second brick, then a third, then a fourth. Each one caused a fresh jolt of pain.

After the first dozen bricks I knew I needed something to distract me from the digging. Twelve bricks, probably five years of time had passed. Obviously not, but without something, anything, to track time, I was going to go feral long before I dug my way out.

I managed to squirm just enough to get a look at my pipbuck. Never had I ever been more grateful to have it stuck on my leg. I gave the radio’s switch a quick flip with my horn and hoped to hope itself that its matrix hadn’t been crushed to dust.

The screen lit up immediately, flashing the Stable-Tech logo for an instant before the radio crackled to life.

Cracked to horrible, terrible, no-good, rotten, Ministry of Image approved “classical” “Equestrian” “musical” life.

“Celestia watch you and keep you safe,
As you travel down the path you choose.
May Luna be with you and keep you strong,
So your courage you will never lose.
Remain loyal, honest and brave,
Forget not the ones that you save
And in our hearts you will do no wrong...”

After three seconds of debating if I should turn off Velvet Remedy's inane caterwauling, I resumed digging. I dug, and dug, and dug, through at least eight songs. Each layer of brick I slid under myself forced me to wonder how deep I was beneath the surface, and just how many songs Velvet had covered. Both tasks were excruciating.

Just as I managed to squirm around so my head pointed upwards, the music stopped, replaced by Homage’s DJ-Pon3 voice. I idly wondered if she was better at the Voiceshifter spell than me as I continued to dig.

”Goooooooood Morning, Equestrian Wasteland! It is O-530. What’s the O stand for? It stands for oh-my-Celestia-it’s-early. I’ve got some great news for everyone, Wasters, NRC Citizens, hey, even raiders. It’s no secret Pip’s been in poor health recently. There’s a lot of ponies out there gossiping about just how bad shape she’s in. Some of you may have gotten to talk to her through a Spritebot and heard a bloody cough or seven.

“Well, that’s all about to end. For the longest time, nopony knew what was wrong with her or what to do about it. Thanks to our new techy trader friends up north we know exactly what’s wrong with her. See, turns out that pod does more than let a pony control the weather. It’s got a whole medical monitoring system built right in. All we needed is sompony who knew that, and how to read the data.

“And what’s the SPP have to say about Pip? Somepony put at least one more bullet into her than a certain angelic voiced nurse took out of her. It also turns out you shouldn't lay down for extended periods. That’s not a problem I imagine anypony else has in the modern wasteland, but take this as a heads up. If you lay down for days, weeks, or months, your blood can clot up inside your veins and start to fill your lungs up. It’s a horrible nasty way to die.

“‘Wait,’ I hear you saying towards your radios. ‘That sounds like it's horrible news? Did you two break up?’ Not in this lifetime, children! Not in this lifetime. Maybe the next lifetime though. The good news is the Doc who worked out this puzzle is Queen Katydid’s personal surgeon and just got into town to work their magic. If you bump into a tall, gray and brown stallion with a limp and a resting-bastard-face to go with their resting-bastard-attitude, give Doctor Horse my thanks.”

Well that was good. Somepony could make sure we never found out what happens when you had a mare hooked into a continent scale weather machine up and die on you.

It was nice to have something to pass the time with while digging. Especially since I’d just uncovered a large pipe, or maybe power conduit, which I’d need to move or dig a tunnel around.

Great…

”What’s more, if you happen to be a raider, especially one of the Tainted, do us all a favor and stay away from the SPP for a few days. And don’t take potshots or rob any Los Pegans headed up there. We all benefit from not being consumed in a lightning-hurricane if that thing interprets a dying mare’s last thoughts as instructions. I’ll say it once more, just so we’re clear, please, it’s in everypony’s best interest to let the Doc and the Engineer sent with him to get in place, do their thing, and leave.

“In other news, much less pleasant news, the Herd’s suffering a bit of a crisis at the moment. Now don’t panic just yet, but Oak Valley’s been a tiny bit wiped off the face of the earth. It wasn’t an old balefire bomb, or a horrible fire, or a rad-storm blowing in from across the sea. Nah, nothing cataclysmic yet normal like that. The city was hit by what everypony who survived agrees was a meteorite. A freak, cosmic accident. Now that’s just plain old bad luck.”

“Ha!” I snorted. “Accident. Yeah… Guess this is about where your cameras stop being useful, huh, Pip?”

”I’ve got a letter here from the NCR to everypony in the Herd. It’s a long formal thing, but it sums up to: “Sorry about the past. If you need a home after that shit, come on back. No questions asked.” Now I think we all know nopony’s coming back, but it’s a nice gesture.

“I’ve also been asked by a member of the Followers of the Apocalypse to inform everypony over there they will do their best to bring food, water, and blankets as soon as the roads are safe enough to head out west. I think I speak for everypony when I say, good luck. You’re going to need it.

“After all, the Tainted have been extremely active of late. First they wiped out Pinto Creek, and the Herd almost blamed us for that one. Then they took out Smaller Town and the West Bridge the next day. Something’s up here. You can bet your last cap you’ll hear about it from me the moment anypony figures out what they are up to. For now, better keep away from— What in the buck…”

My ears peaked at Homage’s expletive. She rarely swore when using her DJ-Pon3 persona (a betrayal of the bucking legacy, if you asked me), and when she did it always meant something was up. I stopped digging to pay attention.

”Uhhhhhh… Well, if it weren't for a certain forcefield I’d be extremely worried about that… Yeah, I know I’m still on the air… Oh. Right. Duh,” DJ-Pon3 cleared their throat loudly. “Well then, Children. It looks like the reports of the Tainted having access to some form of teleportation are completely true. I’ve got a whole platoon of them on screen in front of me right now. They appeared out of the end of a rainbow, right next to the SPP Hub in the middle of the Neighvarro junkyard. I guess they decided to take my earlier request as a challenge.

“Don’t worry about them. If the Enclave couldn’t get into the control room over two hundred years, a bunch of high-tech goons won't have a chance of cracking it before the Pegans show up with a platoon of their own, as well as a tank or two… Then again, one of the Tainted seems to be wearing a tank. Alright then. I guess that part of the equation is balanced. The things Wastelanders do for fashion… Hey, hon? I know you don’t do killing anymore but it might be a good idea to whip up a rainstorm around the tower or something to try and get them to back off a bit. Cameras show the Pegans are twenty minutes out…”

DJ-Pon3 turned away from their mic slightly. “Okay, Children, looks like you’re in for a treat. A bit of live reporting. We don’t do this very much, do we? Who do you think will win? An impenetrable shield powered by Celestia and her soul-jar or… a good thirty of the Tainted grunts, what looks like an Outcast Ranger, a walking tank fresh from my Neighponese comic books, some Enclave Sniper, and… Oh. Now this might change the odds. Everypony’s favorite miniature gunship is here too.”

I winced, and shivered, sending a few loose bricks sliding down my left flank. Gale was already on the move. How long had I been down here regenerating? Did Gears remember where to meet up if we were separated? Had she even survived?

I doubled my efforts to dig myself out, listening to the radio only tangentially as I pulled myself upwards as fast as the bricks would move.

”Alright, that’s bad news. I seem to recall hearing he facetanked several grenades. With his helmet open. That skull might be thick enough to bash Celestia’s shield open with…. Okay, the fancy pants Tainted are walking up to the tower’s main entrance. They can probably get in there. Some of you who haven't chem-bombed your brains too much might remember yours truly got into a different tower once, and even blew it to hell afterwards. I’m pretty sure they can get inside… but I’m also equally sure this particular tower will prove a little more sturdy…

“Pip, dear? Can you ask Celestia if she’ll be able to keep the upper part of the tower floating with that shield. You know, if they blow the base up… She thinks so? Good. Hold on… Everypony, it looks like their black armored Outcast Ranger is some sort of hacker. He’s jacking his armor into the tower’s terminal. Looks like they plan on getting in without blowing the door. That’s a bit odd. Normally they shoot first and ask questions never. You’d think they’d just blow the door and be done with it.

“Annnd there’s the rain. Good job Pip, looks like a real downpour. Maybe throw some lighting in there to spook them a little? … Just a minute everypony. The cameras near the tower have audio and if I remember correctly I should be able to patch that audio into our little broadcast here.”

A few sharp electronic pops and clicks split the air, followed by a loud static hiss, then, the sound of pouring rain.

“There! Smile, raider scum. You’re on candid radio,” DJ-Pon3 chuckled.

“Status on that door, Black Hat?” Gale’s unmistakable voice boomed, peaking the mic.

“Standard MoA Encryption, Cypher form 3. I can get in as soon as my dictionary finds the passphrase… I will need to make sure the security system doesn't notice me while the script runs. This is going to take a little focus… Shouldn’t the Doc have the password for this thing? Why didn’t you get it from him?” a gruff stallion with an Oatbuck accent asked.

“This operation isn’t official, remember?” Gale mentioned.

“Yeah, about that,” A mare asked from almost out of audio range. “We could have easily gotten authorization to try and get the Princess. Why are we winging this?”

“The Doc’s pretty pissed off we couldn’t stop that damn zebra from delivering her packages,” Gale grunted. “We pull this off, and our outfit won't wind up on a firing line.”

“Hold up,” A new voice said curiously. “Did he say something about having us shot for incompetence?”

“No. But that’s the kind of guy the Doc is. I don’t know how he wound up heading the MoA, but he’s no Rainbow Dash,” Gale grumbled to himself.

The mic clicked as DJ muted the audio with the press of a button. “Now isn’t that interesting. Looks like we have a little bit of makeup homework going on here. Let’s continue to drop a few eves…”

The mic clicked again. The rain and soldier’s voices returned.

“— sition there, and your squad, hold there. There’s no way somepony didn’t see us beam in. I’m willing to bet they’ve got troops stationed—” Gale stopped speaking as an electric guitar’s wine drifted faintly through the air. “What the buck is that?”

“Uhhh… Sounds like something Pre-Ministries? Somepony playing a record from a hidden old stash…. Swear I heard this in the ring once,” the mare said, sounding a little confused.

I winced. I knew exactly what this was. I’d recorded the original with Rainbow in her parents basement during highschool instead of studying for my Arcane History final. This was the remix she went and recorded herself after somepony somehow convinced Rarity to approve the song for use in some cartoon or another.

She’d actually asked me to help with the recording. I don’t think she knew how embarrassed our old music made me after college.

Regardless of that, who the buck even had a copy of that anymore? Aside from Speed. Speed had a copy. But there’s no way she’d been blown all the way to the Canterlot region.

”Mmm, that’s an interesting little tune there,” DJ-Pon3 said quietly while muting the camera audio. “Not really my thing, bit loud and harsh.”

I took a moment to glare at my pipbuck. “You have no taste… Stupid genera-deprived wasteland…”

The mic clicked as the radio’s signal routed back to the cameras around the SPP.

“Sir, all squads in position,” announced a stallion with a reedy voice.

“Excellent. Once the door is opened, Squads Alpha and Beta will accompany us. Squad Gamma will hold the rear, and—” Gales’ booming voice stopped for just the slightest moment. “Can anypony tell where that spotlight is coming from?”

“What spotlight?” the mare from before asked.

“Look at our shadows. Somepony has a light on us. Troopers! Aim for the door and—”

“Sir!” the Oatbuck accented stallion shouted. “Target acquired, up near the spire’s peak. Looks like the storm isn’t from the tower.”

“Well, well… Suppose I’ll go say hello.”

A series of rockets ignited. Turbines spun, and the mic’s feed turned to static as a hundred and twenty decibels of thrust blasted past its pickups.

“You could just have shot them,” the mare said quietly.

“Eh, Gale’s got that murder-boner going full time these days. Best let him indulge, mate.”

“Am I the only pony here worried about him?” the mare asked with an aggravated sigh.

“You would be the one to worry about somepony going insane. Takes one to know one,” Black Hat grunted.

“I’m a medic. I suspect our commanding officer is being heavily drugged. You should take my medical opinion seriously, at least. Or have you forgotten who put your leg back on after you decided to hug a landmine?” she snapped with an oddly masculine twinge in her last few syllables.

KA-THOOOOM!

Something either exploded, or hit the ground like a ton of bricks moving at the speed of pain.

I jumped at the sound and looked around frantically. The noise was so loud I thought my shaky tunnel had caved in. I teetered back and forth on the small pile of increasingly unstable bricks, looking for anything at all for far too long before realizing that the sound had come from my pipbuck.

I sighed, squinted up to try and get a glimpse of light that wasn’t my own. Anything to indicate how deep I was underground.

Nothing.

Might as well pay attention to the radio. It sounded like two ponies were arguing.

The mic clicked and hissed as DJ-Pon3 overwrote the audio feed again. “I can hardly believe it myself, but it sounds like the newcomer has got Gale stuck in some kind of pre-war pony geek off. If anypony knows what a cartoon is, give me a call.”

The static came and went once more, clearing into Gale’s rage-filled words. “—o paste, you pathetic bucket of bolts!”

“Don’t be deceived by appearances,” an odd, metallic mare’s voice chastised. “My true form is far more powerful!”

DJ Pon3 snickered without muting the mic. “Did she take that from a Swormare comic or—”

“Ancient spirits of progress,” The metallic mare intoned, her voice crackling with an odd resonance.

“Woah, wait, what?” DJ-Pone3 sputtered.

The mare continued, her intonation crackling, swelling, and becoming something akin to a dragon’s bellowing.“Transform your decaying forms, and slay my enemies!”

“WARLOCK!” Gale screeched.

A cacophony of steel scraping, bending, and tearing overwhelmed the mic. The gut churning sound mixed with DJ-Pon3’s confused and terrified squeaking. “She’s not even a unicorn, she’s a pegasus how the buck is she—”

Rage, summarized in perfect crystalline clarity by an unnatural roar, peaked the mic until nothing but static could be heard.

“... okay she summoned a robot-dragon-thing,” DJ-Pon3 whispered. “Hey, uh… Am I high?”

A meek sounding stallion cleared his throat. “N— No. I see it too, Hom— Uh, DJ.”

A loud song, recorded in a classical early Equestrian chorus style, and backed with what sounded like an ancient war song played on modern brass instruments pierced the air, muffling the sound of gunfire and screaming.

Something evil's watching over you!
Comin' from the sky above,
And there's nothing you can do.
Prepare to strike!
There'll be no place to run...
When you're caught within the grip,
Of the evil unicorn!

The sound of metal smashing against stone and a second roar, this one the very personification of vengeance, tortured the microphone with its mere presence.

“Okay, so uh… Ladies, Gentlecolts, and Plotholes, I have to go save my wife from what appears to be an alien robot mare that can transmute junk into death-dragons. Um… Music track to loop!” DJ-Pon3 shouted in a half panic.

The radio hissed, crackled, popped, and music came through.

"Oh well, I'm the type of stallion who will never settle down.
Where pretty mares are, well you know that I'm around.
I kiss 'em and I love 'em cause to me they're all the same,
I hug 'em and I squeeze 'em they don't even know my name..."

I stared at my pipbuck, hoping my confusion would manifest answers on the screen.
Homage didn’t lie. She’d withhold the truth, but she didn’t lie. That had been pretty important to the Elements of Harmony working again.

This meant some apparently alien robot mare had, in fact, summoned what sounded to me like that giant monster lizard thing from that one movie Lyra made us all watch when she got really, really, really into Neighponese cinema.

This made no sense.

I frowned slightly as ancient knowledge bubbled up from the back of my brain. Gale had yelled warlock. I think I heard a disabled vet’s PTSD trip where he mentioned being attacked by a warlock. I pursed my lips and tried to remember if he had been babbling in terror about the ground turning into a giant zebra to crush him, or if he’d said the trees themselves had reformed into monsters before his eyes.

Or both.

Warlocks were a zebra thing… Maybe somezeeb had decided “buck it, nothing to loose” and taken a shot at—

No, that couldn’t work, what about the warlock having come from the air, and had wings? Could non-zebras be warlocks?

“Where the buck is Gears when I need to ask her a question?” I moaned out loud.

Something carried faintly down from above through the rubble. A sound! Somepony speaking! Too muffled by the rubble to be audible.

Thank Celestia!

“Help!” I called as loudly as I could. “Down here! Under… All of the crap!”

“Everywhere is the crap, blyat!” somepony yelled back faintly.

I frowned. The voice was familiar… Right! Nika!

“Overhere, dammit!” I yelled again. “Follow the sound of my voice!”

“Oh, you mean the intermittent quiet sound while my ears are ringing?!” he yelled back.
I hissed. “Buck…”

Wait a minute. I’m being dumb.

I squirmed until my saddlebags were not blocked by the rubble, and opened their clasps. A lot of ponies these days had pre-war saddlebags like mine. They were preserved, carefully maintained and repaired. After all, bags that are bigger on the inside are not only handy, they keep your belongings safe in their little pocket dimensions.

I managed to wriggle my keytar out with my telekinesis, but there wasn't enough room in the hole for me to turn it, or see the settings, nor what I played. Not that it mattered. I just had to make some noise.

I pressed the keys with my magic, and a single middle C erupted from the speaker, carrying with it a synthetic, stylized, nostalgic sound. The ringing note took me back hundreds of years to when I was a little filly.

I was standing on my mother’s back to watch a parade thrown by Canterlot High. Everything had been boring. Then, a float shaped like a flaming castle resting atop a slain dragon rolled into view. A band road atop it, a banner on the keyboard proclaiming them to be Mystic Knights of the Electric Stable. They played their hearts out, and in that one moment, I understood just how much music could move a pony.

I couldn’t remember when it happened in their song, but at some point during the keytar/synth duet, I’d gotten my cutiemark.

I may have said I could be my old self to Gears back in Los Pegasus. I wasn’t lying. That had put things into perspective… But I hadn’t been the old me. Not really. Not yet.

The old me loved music. Not the watered down, propaganda infused, Rarity approved, horseapples the wasteland knew today. Real music. Actual music. Songs with some soul. Songs that made a pony dance even if they hadn’t wanted to before you started to play.
I was almost ready to press another key and start one of my old club’s hit singles, when an idea popped into my head.

Nika was a griffon-at-heart. I knew a Griffonese song. The MoI had made me do a cover of it for some political reason or another. Why not un-shit it with a nice remix? The only downside would be Nika would know I spoke Griffonese…

I cleared my throat, began to play the intro melody, composing the remix as I went, doing my best to hit the record and loop buttons as I played in spite of not being able to see my instrument. Then, the time came. First time singing for myself in centuries…

“Nash Griffoniy Souz pokaraet
Ves’ mir ot Zebriki k moryam na vostoke.
Nad zemley vezde budut pet’:
Stolitsa, vodka, kamenniy medved’ nash!”

“NYET!” Nika shouted over my own singing, somehow.

I stopped playing.

“Sorry! Did I sing it wrong?” I yelled back.

“Nyet! Knock off that propaganda and play some real music!”

I felt my ears tip back in irritation. “Like what?”

“Eh…” Nika yelled thoughtfully. “Okay, loop these chords with some real good bass. A, C major, C, C, F sharp, F, C, F sharp. I’ll sing, da?”

I played the tune in my head, and nodded slowly. That was way better! “Yeah! Yeah that should be something good.”

I began to play, this time boosting the volume on my keytar so Nika could hear me over his own voice. Which seemingly wasn’t going to happen any time soon. I played for a good minute before a set of steel talons sheathed in plasma punched through the layer of brick wall above my head, and ripped it away revealing Nika, in a clean tracksuit, his gasmask slightly beaten up, framed by the night sky as he threw the wall to one side and proclaimed, “Izzzzz, Nika!”

I reached up with one hoof. Nika shut off his talons’ plasma fields and grabbed my hood, gently pulled me out of the hole… and into a glassy, debris strewn, crater the likes of which I hadn’t seen since the night I slept in a balefire crater.

“Glad to see you survived,” I said as I pulled the little sorta-griffon in for a friendly hug.

“Da… Only barely. I flew off to get our weapons,” Nika explained as he returned my hug. “I just found the bag when I saw their targeting laser. Nothing with laser that big can be good, so… I flew high up as I could. Still got thrown. I hit a tower in the city. Lucky for me, neck, she no break. But I was unconscious for, em… Medically-concerning amount of time.”

I let go and turned around slowly, drinking in the devastated military base, the even more collapsed skyscrapers across the bay, and the twisted remains of the few battleships that were not at ground zero. It was like the Last Day had come again… But on a Monday just after work got out.

“Did… Did anypony else make it?” I asked after a few moments.

Nika nodded. “Da! I saw Gears, she was out of the blast on hoof. She should be alive. But erm…” Nika looked down for a moment, then rested a talon on my shoulder while pushing his sunglasses up to reveal a pair of genuinely adorable blue eyes. “Speed… She didn’t make it. I found her helmet. Crushed. Covered in brain, bone, meat. Inside and out.”

I took the helmet with my Telekenesis and turned it over to examine it. It had been crushed in on the left side more than enough to pop a skull… While it was possible the gore belonged to somepony else, it was good enough evidence for me to believe she was dead. However, so long as no other parts of her turned up there was a small chance she was alive… A very very small chance, given how much she loved her new armor.

A small part of me remembered when I was young. I’d have freaked out so bad just from seeing this thing, let alone holding it. Death is a funny thing. It seems like such a big deal the first two or three times you experience someone dying. Even before the world died, old ponies would react with solemn acceptance when their friends passed, or even if young ponies died tragically.

It’s not that we didn’t feel for those left behind, or didn’t care for those who died. We’d just seen enough death to understand it was a normal part of life. It’s only a matter of time ‘til even immortals die. Nothing is truly indestructible.

Of course, unlike those old ponies, I’d seen so much death I could genuinely not care about it if I wanted too. This wasn’t one of those times.

“I didn’t know her for long. She had her problems. But she was my friend,” I said quietly.
I looked over my shoulder to Nika, who seemed to understand what I was about to ask before I even said it.

“I found nothing else… It’s possible she ditched her helmet mid battle,” he sighed and looked up into the sky for a moment. “I doubt it. She loved that suit.”

I nodded and turned back to look at Speed’s helmet. “Yeah. Well, she’s in Tartarus now.”

Nika’s wings flared in shock. “I— Isn’t that your people’s hell?”

“Yeah,” I smirked as a mental picture unfolded behind my eyes. “Thing is, the golden streets and loving fellowship of Elysium would be her hell. Her tedious, dreary, hell.”

I set Speed’s helmet down next to the hole I’d crawled out of. She’d run into the battle for the hay of it with a smile and a song. There was no way she wasn’t in the middle of the blast. An empty grave for a vaporized mare.

Nika finished processing what I said and shook his head. “I don’t understand ponies near as well as I thought I did.”

“Mm?” I asked quizzically.

“You… have personalized your mythological—”

I snorted and looked towards Nika. “Tartarus is real. Trust me. I wound up helping Twilight take Cerberus back there… You know, before the Ministries.”

Nika let out an extremely passable griffon squawk of surprise. “Shto blyat you say?!”

I frowned for a moment, then facehooved. “Riiiight, post-war and foreign. Tartaus exists. It’s one of the planes of existence adjacent to our own. Wizards have been using it for stuff for…
thousands of years. It’s a realm of eternal night, monsters we called demons, and torment. Elysium may be mythical, but a long time ago Clover the Clever proved that evil people who die on this world end up there… somehow. I don’t know. I slept through a lot of Arcane History.”

Nika pushed his glasses up again. “And… you can just… go there?”

I nodded and flicked some dust off of my suit’s shoulder. “Mhm. Princess Celestia banished a lot of evil-doers there. There’s also a few natural or just so old we think they’re natural portals leading to it. One of them was in the Everfree Forest. Red-Eye’s burning may have closed it, or blocked off the cave to get to it.”

Nika stroked his chin with one talon. “And you want to believe Speed went to Tartaurs, so you can rescue her?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. I want to believe she went there because as a little ball of murder she’d be right at home and probably be in charge of the place after killing her way to the top.”

She loved Omen. With any luck she was waking up in the claws of some monster looking to torment an Equestrian soul and saying something like “Yay! Outside has a Tartarus level!” then converting that demon into chunky salsa with her bare hooves.

That would suit her much more than tea and cake with the wisest scholars of all time.

“Mmm, da,” Nika agreed as he pushed his glasses back into place. “Of course, it does mean you want to think she could walk out of one of those portals… You’d think a ghoul of your age would understand loss better. Or at least, have healthier coping mechanisms.”

I shot him a look. “Oh yeah? What about your coping mechanisms?”

“Mine are simple,” Nika said quietly. “I added her to the list of names.”

“List?” I asked with a tilt of my head.

“Da, the list of names of friends these monsters have slain. The friends I will reference when I find the six-gunned stallion and say, ‘Hello, my name is Nika Silaverhawk. You killed my friends. SUCK ON KALASHNIKOV, CYKA!”

“We have the same coping mechanism,” I said with a dark grin.

“Good,” Nika muttered. “Twice the chance they bleed into the sands.”

“Anyways, Tartarus’s natural portals are one way,” I said honestly. “You can’t fix dead. But you can hope the dead are happy.”

Nika reached up to slide his gas mask down just long enough to flash me a coy smile. “Is that a challenge?”

“Is what a challenge?”

“I think I could fix dead… given time and parts.” Nika said with a self assured tail swish.

I laughed and shook my head. “Maybe you could. But sure as hell not without a body.”

I used my magic to lower Speed’s helmet into the hole and then push some rubble on top to bury it.

“Fight on, sister.” I said for a eulogy.

Nika walked over to my side and together we stood a silent vigil for a few moments.

“So…” Nika said quietly. “What now, podruga?”

“You said Gears was far enough out to survive, right?”

Nika nodded.

“Then we hope she remembers I said I’d meet her in Whinnyapolis if we were separated,” I answered. “I have business there. For a while, I had the ability to see spirits and souls… It’s faded now, but while I was having that vision, my dead friends told me to go to Lyra’s old office. That it was important.”

Nika hummed. “I am here to avenge my friends, but as a Silverhawk… I cannot say no to a spirit’s requests. I’m not going to let a friend go into danger alone either.”

I raised an eyebrow and gave him a sidelong glance. “We’re friends? So soon? In your opinion, I mean.”

“Da. We fought together. That is good enough,” he said, offering a talon for my shoulder, then hesitating. “Erm… You’re not the type of mare-loving-mare who hates drakes touching them, are you?”

I laughed and shook my head. He placed his talon comfortingly on my shoulder.

“I just don’t want to sleep with the members of your sex. That’s all,” I snickered. “Hugs are fine.”

I returned his hug before letting go. “Sooo… you got our guns?”

Nika nodded and started to walk away towards a pair of ratty gray duffle bags resting atop a collapsed quonset hut. “I helped myself to a few other things too.”

I followed him, and as I arrived he unzipped one of the bags and rummaged through it, producing my blaster in a matter of seconds. I took it from his talon with my magic and slid it into place in my suit’s holster.

“What else did you get?”

“Snacc, raw vodka, and—”

I held up a hoof. “Excuse me, Raw Vodka? Is that some kind of rare brand? I thought I tried all the vodkas out there.”

I could really go for a shot of something good right about now.

Nika turned around, his cheeks wrinkled as he grinned at me behind his mask. With a deft flick of his talons he opened the other bag and produced a single potato. “Raw vodka.”

I gave him my best sick-of-your-horseapples stare.

Nika rached into his jacket with his free hand, and produced a small collapsible cup. He opened with with a flick of his wrist, set it down, then cupped the potato in both hands and squeezed.
A rivulet of clear liquid flowed through his talons into the bowl. The potato vanished.

“Raw Vodka,” Nika repeated.

My expression morphed into shock. “Wait, what?!”

Nika laughed, rolled the potato out of his right sleeve, and then let a small falsk slide out of his left sleeve. “Aaahh! Got you!”

I shook my head and sighed. “You did. You did. So… How long has it been?”

“Since you were buried?” Nika asked while draining the bowl into his flask.

“Yeah.”

“Eh… Day? Almost two? I was out for a bit, then I helped some people in town who needed a doctor before coming here,” Nika admitted bashfully. “I… I thought everypony but Gears was dead. But, I knew I had to make sure.”

“I’m glad you came back then,” I said as I lifted the food and extra supplies bag with my magic and strapped it onto my back. “Come on, I know a Ghoul Road that will take us where we’re going… In theory. I’ve never been to her office since… Since the end.”

Nika shook his head. “Nyet,” he said as he strapped the other bag to me.

Why me? I felt like I should get an explanation before taking it off.

“You have a better idea?” I asked as I adjusted the second HEAVY bag’s strap.
Nika nodded. “We fly.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I don’t know any flight spells,” I said with a flat expression. “I also couldn’t cast one if I wanted too. Not enough juice.”

Nika grinned behind his mask again. “Remember how I used to live here?”

I nodded.

“I left a few things behind. I thought other ponies could use them. I thought, since we’re running around, and I’d have to find a ground-bound friend, that I would pick one of them up,” Nika said as he walked over the ruined quonset hut. “Lucky for me, she wasn’t smashed to bits. Hop in!”
I reared up to look over the rubble out of curiosity, and beheld the single sketchiest sky wagon of all time.

It looked like somepony had chiseled down a brick to roughly approximate a skywagon’s shape, painted it black, dented every last body panel, then used some white electrical tape to add three pinstripes over the front across the roof and down the truck. The whole thing was rusted out, and several of the rusted panels and supports had random other bits of metal welded on to replace missing bits or patch over cracked bits.

Most concerningly, someone had painted “Blyatmobile” on the front beneath the weird L shaped sailboat-looking manufacture’s logo on the grill. Or at least, the rusty hunk of scrap metal with bullet holes in it serving as a grill.

I spoke Griffonese… I knew what that meant.

The interior was not much better. The rear bench seat had an old griffonese style rug tossed over it, as well as mismatched accent pillows and a random teddy bear resting atop it. The navigator’s seat was covered in some kind of old beaded “massage” seat cover, while the passenger seat was covered by a disgustingly orange horse blanket.

“Uuuuhhhh…” I looked the machine over several more times. “How does that thing fly?”

“Like my sister,” Nika said as he slipped into the flight harnice.

“The dead one or the live one?” I asked with a suspicious frown.

Nika laughed and pointed to the cabin with a wing. “Strongest sky wagon in all Griffon Kingdoms! She’s ugly, but comfy. She’s got quad flux regs and full rack of redundant spark batteries. Hop in, push holotape into the deck, and kick back.”

I took a deep breath, let it out as a muttered “Buck it, I regenerate”, then climbed into the genuinely extremely comfortable backseat.

“Huh…” I murmured happily as I pushed the hotape in the deck next to the navigator’s seat into place.

The wagon’s amazingly functional sound system immediately began to play a nice, bass heavy, bouncy, techno/club song similar to the melody Nika had made me play earlier.

“What is this genera called?” I asked, growing a little to the exotic yet familiar beat.

“Hardbass. You ready?”

“Yeah, as much as I’m gonna be,” I admitted with a nervous chuckle.

“Davai, let's go!” Nika called back as he took off, pulling the wagon into the air with a surprisingly minimal effort and a quiet enough wine of the flux regulators to be almost hidden by the music.

Okay. It flew.

Let’s hope it continued to fly. Also that it could land. After all, Whinnyapolis was a long flight away, and with any luck my mare was waiting there for me. If not… Well, I’d just have to kill Gale twice as hard for the both of us.

Chapter 41 - Union/Reunion

☢★★ Whirling Gears ★★☢

Whinnyapolis was an annoying city. I didn’t like it. It took me forever to work out how and why, but once I noticed it, I couldn’t un-see it.

Cities should be grids. It makes delivering the mail simple. It makes logistics simple. Whinnyapolis had a grid. It also had lots of factories, and warehouses. It had been a true industrial center before turning into a mostly collapsed, falling down, and somehow still burning pile of broken dreams.

Broken dreams and city streets that formed 89 degree angle intersections.

Why? Just… Why?

Rainbow led us through the city by hoof, and in spite of the need for repairs at the Sparkle Cola Factory (bunker?), Moondancer sent two of her big-huge guards to take us as far as half way. Apparently their presence would piss off “the locals”. Wondering about the how and why of that thankfully distracted me from the almost but not quite right angle street intersections.

Rainbow’s random tips and tricks helped distract me too. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pay close enough attention to absorb them. A fact she eventually smacked my nose with a wingtip over.

“Hey! Gears! Pay attention! I’m trying to make sure you can shut the stupid thing down, okay?!” Rainbow snapped her left eye twitching slightly.

I offered her my best apologetic smile. “Sorry… It’s just this city is robot hell and it’s hard to pay attention.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow in that classic “mom-asking-why” pose I’d seen a million times on other people’s moms.

I cleared my throat, flicked my tail, and pointed with a hoof tip to the next rubble strewn intersection.

“So, ignore the rubble and the wrecked autowagons,” I said as I slowly traced my hoof along the intersection corner. “Do you see it?”

Rainbow shook her head. “No. What?”

Desi looked up at the two of us with watering eyes and a trembling lip. “Roadways intersect at non-right angle.”

I nodded. “Yeah, they’re all 89 degree intersections. It’s… It’s not okay!”

Rainbow squinted at the intersection, ckcoked her head, then took off, flying straight upwards and hovering above the rooftops for a split second before diving back down to the asphalt.

“You’re right… Why?” Rainbow grumbled to herself.

I shrugged. “I don’t know? Jerks on the city planning board?” I offered Rainbow a gentle shoulder pat. “C— Can you explain again? I’ll try and pay better attention. It’s just… very very distracting.”

Rainbow signed, kicked a bit of broken concrete with her hoof, making it bounce down the off-angle road. “There’s little time… I’ll go over the basic thing you’ll need to do, okay?”

I nodded and closed my eyes so I wouldn't see the road, and began to follow her by the sounds of her hooves clicking on the street.

“Once inside the shield bubble, you’ll go into the Lyra Machine and Tools factory, and make your way to the loading dock. There are stairs going from the dock’s unloading floor to the store room level. There is a fire alarm on those stairs, pull it down six times in under 4 seconds, then hold it down for 2 seconds,” Rainbow instructed. “This will open a hidden stairwell inside the stairs going up, down below is the old MoA base. You’ve still got my pin, so you’ll be let in by security if it’s still operational.”

“Okay, I can do that. Six times, then hold for two seconds,” I repeated with a nod, eyes still very much shut.

“Once inside, you’ll have to make your way to the Mirror Lab, there are signs,” Rainbow continued. “The Mirror Lab is small, it's easily missed. Once in the lab you’ll find a megaspell matrix built around what will look like an ordinary floor-standing mirror. It’s not. It’s a very powerful arcane artifact. The megaspell extends that artifact’s wards outwards to form this shield. You’ll need to power it down, or if you can’t, disconnect the mirror, go clockwise, and disconnect wires in the sequence of the colors of the rainbow.”

I nodded twice. “Okay, anything I should worry about?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow repeated. “First, whatever you do, do NOT touch the mirror’s surface. The frame is fine, but the reflective parts are not safe. If you touch it, I have no idea where you’ll wind up.”

I raised an eyebrow, accidentally pulling my left eye open and once more witnessing the hellish street layout. “What do you me— aaaaa! Stupid intersections!”

I closed my eyes tightly again.

I heard Rainbow mmmed worriedly. “It’s… It’s one of the Starswirl World Mirrors. They’re portals attuned to different planes of existence. There’s no way to know if the portal still exists on the other side, or where this mirror is attuned to right now. If it sucks you in, it could spit you out anywhere in this, or any other world, and there may be no way back.”

I winced. “O— Okay. Let me just burn that right into a memory sector…” I said while doing just that.

There was absolutely no way in Tartarus I was going to let myself forget that!

As soon as the memory files were written, I cleared my throat to indicate I was done. “Okay. What else?”

“Lyra Machine and Tool produced a lot of stuff for the Equestrian military,” Rainbow warned. “Their facilities may contain hostile robots. Including our own shot at the Assault-Pone-3 idea. I heard they even had an experimental prototype that was smarter than Zebra robots… But AJ kept a tight lid on that whole division, after what happened with the Anti-Machine Rifle. So much so I have no idea if that’s true or not. Point is, it could be filled with killer robots that may attack you on sight because Zebra.”

I gulped and then eeeped as I stumbled over a block of concrete, judging by the sound. “A— Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said in an odd tone of voice. “Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, go into Lab A without me.”

I opened my eyes and looked over to Rainbow, who was looking back at me with genuine worry.

“Because…” I prompted waving a hoof for her to go on.

Rainbow’s worried look became one of the utmost seriousness. “Because, that lab is huge, it’s full of very dangerous artifacts, and without me to explain what is and isn't safe to handle, you could blow up the whole base… and we need its command node intact.”

“Ah, yes. Good reason,” I agreed with three bobbing nods.

Rainbow looked to Desi and bent down a bit to get on her eye-level. “And that goes for you too. Sure, you’ve shown you know how to use a Star Blaster, but there’s other things in that lab too. Got it?”

Desi nodded once, then her ears perked. “Power supply?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know, probably?” she twitched her wings gently then began to pick up her pace. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

☢★★◯★★☢

We walked through the streets for another half hour. Everything was eerily quiet. I kept expecting to be shot at by raiders or even just plain old bandits. Each of the towering steel and concrete buildings provided so many sniper’s nests it wasn’t even funny.

Yet we made it through with such ease I honestly couldn’t even begin to understand how or why.

Then we rounded the last corner and our destination was in sight. It explained everything.

At the end of the street, in a large lot where the multi-story buildings and towers at last thinned out to reveal a huge open clearing, was the shield. It looked like a massive spherical mirror had been placed in the middle of the city. It reflected the sky, the buildings around it, everything, even us. It looked like there was just a hole in the world. If there was a factory beneath the shield, it couldn’t be seen.

Then, there was the large post-war building built right at the end of the street in front of the shield-covered park. A hodgepodge, yet well constructed building formed from bricks queried from broken concrete, windows made from melted-together auto-wagon windshields, and a wrought iron fence made from rebar with bits of concrete stuck to each bit of metal still. It took the form of a prewar chapel, complete with a bell tower.

The tower featured no bell, but had been decorated with small bits of painted scrap cut and placed to mimic a stained glass window. The image was the same as the painting the Pippites had sent Homage. What’s more, the chapple’s doors were engraved with a large number 2, and the fence’s taller posts served as pikes atop which the heads of decidedly violent looking ponies had been mounted to be picked apart by carrion birds.

A sign above the chapple’s door read “Church of the Silver Eye”. Another sign in front of the fence had a more sinister message.

Everything the Eye reflects is holy ground. Raiders and other Criminals will not be tolerated beneath its gaze. All who commit evil shall join these damned souls in eternal torment.

I almost said something out loud along the lines of “oh, no, not these guys again…” but fortunately I noticed several pipites were tending to small gardens in the church’s yard and kept quiet. It took me another three steps to notice the other ponies present.

They wore dusty-gray robes that blended in perfectly with the concrete, and stood still as could be, always watching the Pipites as they worked, or looking off in one direction or another, but never moving.

They almost looked like statues.

Rainbow slowed down, coming to a timid, cautious walk. Desi and I slowed to match her pace.

“Did you know this was here?” I whispered to Rainbow.

She shook her head. “No… I have no idea what—”

A thin slice of concrete peeled itself away from the rubble pile to my immediate right, resolving into one of the cloaked ponies.

I yelped and jumped away, ready to draw my concealed plasma pistols. Rainbow’s wings flared and she was off the ground in an instant. Desi waved hello and kept walking.

A pale gold light shone beneath the camouflage pony’s hood, and an unseen force froze me in place.

“Be still,” the pony whispered. “Until you fire, you have nothing to fear.”

“Let us go,” Rainbow said with an eerie calm.

“We’re not going to hurt anypony!” I added with a nervous gulp.

The pony nodded enough to make their deep shadow filled hood dip. “We sense no evil intentions. Were you a threat, you would not have reached this place.”

The unseen force vanished, and I heard Rainbow drop to the ground.

“I think you should explain a few things,” Rainbow said as she stood up and turned towards the robed unicorn. “Who are you?”

“We are the Children of the Eye,” the pony explained, explaining nothing. “We guard the Eye, and the world from the Eye. Have you come to worship the Lightbringer with our friends, or do you seek the truth of the Eye?”

Ooookkkay. Creepy religious cult. Okay. Fine. Let’s just not piss them off…

And just as I had that thought I saw Desi trot up to a random robed cultist and start casually asking questions about their camouflage abilities. Oh no?

Rainbow side-nodded to me and cleared her throat. “We’re here for something in the space beneath that shield. I left it here before the war.”

“Yeah,” I said to try and make Rainbow’s words sound true.

Sure, they were, but this random creepy pony wearing concrete colored stocking to hide their fur color entirely didn’t know that.

The cultist titled their head to one side and trotted over just enough to be able to gesture at the mirrored dome.

“The Eye cannot be crossed like a threshold. Not by just anypony. Were you hoping to dig under its barrier, you will find that you cannot,” they whispered as they put their hoof back on the road. “The Eye is a full sphere, we have dug beneath it in ages past. You are welcome to try and enter the realm beyond the Eye, but you may not interfere with us, nor any who may come to us through the Eye.”

My ears perked up at “through the eye”. “Wait, so, then—”

Rainbow squeaked in distress, her wings flaring somewhat. “Y— You mean to tell me that’s a portal and not a barrier?”

Rainbow’s pale, terrified expression, showed me just how worried she was about this. She’d clearly wired the thing up wrong. I remember her explaining she jerry rigged it...

I cleared my throat. “We heard machines can pass through it, and are relying on that.”

The Cultist chuckled and nodded, again, eerily quietly.

“They say machines can pass through, even during the moments a pony may pass from one side to the other,” the pony whispered quietly.

I raised a hoof to ask a question. “Excuse me, but… If it’s not what Rainbow thought it was, is she right about it killing anypony who passes through it?”

The pony hesitated for a moment. “The Eye may only be passed through during certain alignments of the moon and stars. If you draw near, and look through it into the factory beyond, you will see the bones of those who came at the wrong time. The Eye carries you to another time or place, be it here, elsewhere, or your grave.”

Rainbow frowned, then took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Alright, you’re worshiping this wormhole. Got it. Fair enough. But why are you letting those Pipites redecorate your church? Why kill anypony who gets close that isn’t peaceful? Not that I’m objecting… Frankly, it would be nice if you guys could take your little religion and go nationwide.”

The pony chuckled gently, their voice finally loud and distinct enough for me to understand I was speaking to a mare. She pointed with one hoof to the Pipites gardening. “They know of the Eye, and believe their Lightbringer may return to them through it. It is possible, and through their faith, they are welcome to live with us in wait for their day of salvation.”

I blinked and cocked my head. “Um, how is it possible? Pip’s locked in the SPP Tower.”

Rainbow cleared her throat. “Yeah. Ours is…”

“Oh…” I frowned, finally understanding the implications of a massive planar gate sitting in the middle of Whinnyapolis.

None of them were very good… Except for that one where the other side was filled with all of the lost mail and known address change forms.

“As for our hunting,” the cultist continued. “The Eye reflects that which it beholds. If a good soul reflects in it, there is a small hope of a good soul coming to us from the Eye. If a normal pony, with a heart stained with gray, comes into the Eye’s view, nothing happens. Should someone with an evil heart be reflected in its surface, the Eye will always birth a monster.”

Ah. I thought, sucking in a hissing breath for emphasis.

Rainbow’s face fell. “How many times has this endangered ponies?”

“Countless,” the cultist replied before resting a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder reassuringly. “Fear not, for we have been here since the first time, and we have stopped them all.”

“What kind of monsters?” Rainbow asked bitterly.

“Daemons. Dragons. Beasts which once roamed the dark corners of this world,” the Cultist answered casually. “These are common. The Eye has brought us things from myth as often as things from places known or once known to Ponykind. It has brought us things unseen by anypony before. Again, fear not. For the Eye is protected.”

Rainbow sat down and closed her eyes tightly. Doubtlessly angry with herself for causing this situation.

“What’s your name?” I asked the mare politely.

“We forsake names. Our identities do not matter. Our sole duty is to safeguard the eye, and ensure no evil enters its gaze,” the mare answered quietly.

“Yes, but like, what’s your name though?” Rainbow said instantly.

“We forsake names,” The cultist restated with a little exasperated sigh.

“You need to be called something so people know specifically to get you when you’re needed over anyone else,” I offered, hoping that would clear up… whatever this miscommunication was.

“We are interchangeable, travelers,” she said in a flat tone. “There is nothing one can do that others cannot. Were we any other way, our mission would fail.”

She pointed to the shield and nodded slowly. “Please? Be on your way. I must resume the watch.”

The mare ducked back down, melting into the concrete rubble before Rainbow or I could say anything at all.

Wow, Dad said in the back of my mind. She’s almost as good as my assistant was.

Huh?

Lunch hour would come and BOOM! Gone.

Rainbow stared for a moment at the spot where the mare was and then looked over to me, nodded, and began to trot for the shield’s rim silently.

Or was that the wormhole’s rim? What should we call this thing now?

“Rainbow,” I said quietly. “So, what do we call this thing now?”

“My latest buck-up,” she muttered bitterly.

“No, seriously… Wormhole? Shield? What?” I asked, flicking my tail nervously.

Rainbow took a few more steps, paused, then hopped over a concrete block in her way. “Gears… These guys can out-stealth me. They’re everywhere. Assume they heard our conversation earlier. Don’t give them anything else.”

“That we did,” a cultist whispered as they stood up, revealing themselves to have been the rubble Rainbow had just jumped over.

Rainbow yelped and took to the air, stopping a full two meters up. “HOW THE BUCK DO YOU DO THAT?!”

“Many of us are ghouls,” the pony whispered. “Two hundred years of practice blending into one place… You become akin to a god, and your students are trained to mastery.”

My ears perked up, more than a little intrigued. “Could they teach me to blend into snow as well as you guys can blend into concrete?”

The pony shook their head and then reached into their robes, rummaging around. “I am called Heretic by the others,” they said as they produced the butt of a weapon from beneath their robes. “I have sent machines into the area beyond the Eye, as I wished to know why it formed here, and not some place else.”

They continued to slowly remove the weapon, making sure we knew they were not drawing it to attack us. It was some sort of shotgun. Industrial in design, metal and polymers. Black mostly, with a bit of silver, and a luminous dot on the front sight post. It was also very angular, yet tubular. Pump fed, with an integrated flashlight below the magazine tube.

It was definitely not equestrian… and it had a very large grip similar to a griffonese weapon. It reminded me vaguely of a starblaster’s grip, but it was far less elegant, and definitely sized for some very thick talons. Or fingers…

“Is that a Minotaur’s shotgun?” Rainbow asked before I could.

The Cultist… Heretic? Nodded. “It is. It was given to me long ago. It is an 8-Gauge weapon. I will provide twenty shells. They are rare on these shores.”

I took the weapon with a hoof and examined it for a moment, then offered it back. “I can’t use it. I’m not a unicorn, and big as the trigger guard is, my hoof won't fit in there.”

Rainbow cleared her throat. “Your battle saddle has a quick mount for Minotaur built equipment. All G3 saddles and onwards do. Fun fact, Lyra Machine and Tool made those for us. I had to spend five hours talking Lyra into it. She wanted to make robot gauntlets ponies could slip on then use griffon or minotaur weapons… I’ll hook it in at the edge.”

I took the shotgun back and tucked it into the straps behind my bag, then accepted the shells Heretic offered me. They were still in their original box. I couldn’t read the print, but the logo had a hippo on it. I smiled a little, remembering watching small herds of them back in Zebrica from time to time.

Heretic began to walk, heading towards the reflective dome. “There are things within the Eye’s space. My machines have seen them… I do not know what your plan to enter is, but if it succeeds, be on your guards… And…” they paused, stopped walking,and turned to face me. “Destroy it if you can.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Um, don’t you worship it?”

Heretic nodded and rolled a small piece of broken concrete beneath their left forehoof. “Yes. But all things must end… Especially that which draws danger to the innocent.”

Rainbow nodded in agreement, opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by Heretic continuing. “They say there was a very clever robot that tried to close the eye once before. It failed, and left.”

I gulped. That didn’t bode well… But at least it meant I could get out.

Heretic pointed with their left hoof to a section of the shield slash wormhole. “That is where the barrier is the weakest. Try there… Be warned, under these stars, the Eye gazes into Tartarus. If you can wait two weeks, it will look elsewhere.”

Rainbow stopped mid-step and slowly turned back towards Heretic. “Excuse me, but that thing can point to Tartarus?!”

Heretic nodded. “Yes.”

“Annnd if evil ponies approach it, something from where it’s looking that’s even more evil emerges, right?” She pressed.

“Oh…” I said with a wince and worried rev of my cooling fans.

“We have yet to fail,” Heretic said with a chuckle. “The beasts of that realm do not like being egged.”

Rainbow triple blinked. “You… You’re saying the Deamons of Tartarus can’t handle being hit with an egg, and run?” she shook her head almost violently for a moment. “WAIT! Where are you getting the eggs?”

Heretic reached beneath their robe and produced a small, black, egg shaped gemstone that seemed to be sparkling with green light from within. “Wrong kind of egg, pony.”

I cleared my throat and gently nudged Rainbow. “Let’s go before that two hundred year old shell detonates just because…”

“Good idea,” Rainbow said with a gulp. “Hey, Heretic, buddy, don’t trip okay?”

The pony chuckled and walked towards a rubble pile. “I haven’t in two centuries. Good luck,” they said before crouching, and vanishing into the jagged blocky pile.

“I don’t want to be here much longer,” I said to Rainbow with as serious a face as I could muster.

She nodded and trotted towards the shield quickly, tapping Desi on the shoulder with her wing as she passed the little mare. “Come on, we’ve got to get Gears inside.”

I picked up my own pace to fall in line after them and—

Desi’s telekinetic grip held a small taco and a little plastic cup of lemonade.

“Where did you get the taco?” I asked Desi as I tried everything I could to determine the answer on my own.

“Asked sneaky pony,” Desi replied between bites.

“Wait, they gave you a— That… That looks like a coal-station microwaveable…” Rainbow said as she turned her head to look, then just looked away. “ Yeah, let’s not bother the people living next to an open wormhole…”

The three of us continued to the very edge of the reflective shield. It was kind of strange to see my own reflection. I’d changed a lot since I left home. Thicker flanks, thanks to the radiator upgrade and Roll’s partial rebuild of me with parts mom left behind in her lab. My improvised power armor legs…

To say nothing of the crappy security armor I was wearing. I never thought I’d see myself in real armor. My subdermal plates had been more than enough for most anything back home. The Heartlands were… definitely more dangerous.

Still, not as bad as many ponies said. I’d made a lot of friends… Friends who had died. I’d fallen in love, too… she’d also died. It had been almost two months since I’d left home, and back then, I couldn’t say I’d ever thought I’d become the mare I saw in the magic mirror.

I didn’t like her. I preferred when she still had all of her friends and her special somepony. But she had a job to do. I had a job to do. The Tainted had to be stopped. I’d already paid the postage. I just had to drop the package on their doorstep.

I felt a tug at my side as Rainbow slotted the shotgun into my battle saddle. “Okay… There. It’s locked in. I’ve put the shells into the auto-loader too, so—”

I blinked and looked back at Rainbow. “It has an auto-loader?!”

She nodded, then looked up at me with a distressed face. “Please tell me you weren't manually reloading…”

Desi took out her book and quickly flipped through it before looking to Rainbow. “Gears is a silly pony. She definitely did not know.”

I slowly facehooved and groaned. “I’m not a soldier, okay?”

Rainbow shook her head, then nodded towards the shimmering, shiny, mirror-like barrier in front of me. “Just… Just get it done.”

“Right,” I said as I began to take a step forward.

Jasmine signed in the back of my mind.

I froze.

“What’s wrong?” Rainbow asked instantly.

“Shh!” I hissed to her before turning my thoughts inwards. What is it?

Jasmine insisted.

You do. I answered, frowning.

“Gears, what’s wrong?” Rainbow repeated quietly.

“Shh! Jasmine’s talking to me,” I said out loud, trying not to get too distracted.

Jasmine continued.

My eyes widened in horror, I set my hoof down then stepped back form the shield. If I walk through it, then you’ll die for real… and I might become too stupid to finish the mission.

Jasmine sighed.

But we cant! I protested, stamping my hoof as I bit back tears. We’re not what Rainbow needs. We’re the wrong tool!

I blinked and frowned. “What?” I said out loud.

I shook my head and stamped my hood hard.. “NO! No, I can’t do that! You deserve every chance to live! Just because it sucked—”

Jasman practically spat.

I closed my eyes tightly, and shook my head. I can’t! If I let go of the guilt, and we merge, I know what you say now, but you’ll regret it later!

Rainbow put a hoof on my shoulder, “What’s wrong? I need to know.”

I turned around to face Rainbow and Desi, both of whom were looking at me with worried eyes.

“I— Jasmine… If I go through now, she’ll die when the field destroys my pelt,” I said, voice trembling somewhat. “She wants to fully merge as a warlock, that would let me go through without losing most of my higher reasoning—”

Rainbow looked at me like I was an idiot. “Then do it! Or did you forget we’re trying to make sure there’s a world left after the Tainted’s next ill advised button push?!”

“But she’ll be gone forever!” I explained, tears streaming from my eyes. “She died to make me. It’s not fair to her!”

“Is this her idea?” Rainbow said bluntly. “The merge?”

I nodded.

“Then do it. She wants the world to not literally explode!” Rainbow shouted at me, her left eye starting to twitch.

“But—” I began.

“No buts!” Rainbow growled. “We have to—”

Desi put one of her tiny hooves on Rainbow’s mouth to quiet her. Rainbow shot her a glare, but stopped talking so Desi could speak.

“Jasmine is part of Gears,” she said slowly, definitely having rapidly used her book to find the correct words as she dropped all expression of emotion. “She is not working properly. You need to be fixed. She is the broken piece. Fix her, fix you. Jasmine won’t be gone. You will be her. She will be you. Like friendship, but permed tent.”

I blinked and titled my head. “What?”

Desi looked back down at her book then blushed. “Permanent.”

Jasmine begged.

I took a deep breath then hung my head. “Okay… I’ll do it.”

I turned back around and faced the shield again, doing my best to ignore my reflection. How do we…

I sat down and closed my eyes, doing my best to… just let go.

A minute passed. Then another. And another.

I don’t… I don’t think I can do this alone. I admitted, my ears drooping down.

I moved my hooves up, focused, pushed, and timidly let some of my aura shine in my hoof. It probably wasn’t too good of an idea to do that right next to a hole in reality but, um, desperate times?

Jasmine reported.

I opened my eyes. In my left hoof was a large golden ball of light, almost the same size as my hoof. In the right, just a single green spark of light, like a firefly that got lost and landed on me to rest.

Is that how little of her was left? Poor thing… No wonder she wanted to join with the rest of her… the rest of me.

Jasmine called, her voice very distant.

Then?

I concentrated, released some of my power, and willed the two points of light to move upwards. They resisted, it was like trying to pick up a box that was heavier than you thought. I pushed harder. Harder… Even harder, then, they began to slowly glide upwards.

Small bolts of energy began to crackle off each ball, zapping my hooves in a slightly tingly way, but mostly arcing to each other. I willed them to move closer, pushing even harder than I was already. I needn't have bothered. They wanted to touch.

They slid together like magnets running into each other, bolts of lighting crackling and sparking gold and green as they rammed into each other, forming a single, bright, lime green orb.

I paused, wondering why I felt nothing when they touched. Shouldn’t that have been—

The orb raced back towards me, slamming into my chest and sinking into my reactor core. My entire body pulsed with lime green light, building up until a full aura shone brightly enough to look white in the mirror. I could feel a thousand tendrils running through my mind, linking me to new thoughts, memories, feelings, ideas, and knowledge.

All of her memories, I could see them now. Jasears. Uh, Gearsman. No, her— I mean, my… Our—

NO! Mine. My memories. My knowledge. I am whole… for the first time.

She was physically disabled, she was not. She was socially disabled, she was merely an outcast. I am the best of both worlds.

“I am complete,” I said to myself.

“I’m blind…” Rainbow muttered angrily. “You could have warned us. I have sunglasses.”

I laughed. “Sorry, Gears had no idea that would happen… I prefer that name, let’s keep using it.”

Desi gently tugged on my tail for attention. “Still sisters?”

I nodded and gave her a quick hug. “Sure are! Even if not really. You need some family, and I’m here… Kind of a dumb thing to say before going on a olo mission… Heh,” I grinned a little bit.

Looks like she was wrong. We’re not as smart and eloquently spoken as she thought we’d be. Oh well. Still, an improvement.

Desi returned my hug. “Understood. Experience high levels of desirable yet implausible probability.”

“Thanks,” I said as I turned to step through the mirror. “I’ll need the luck.”

I saw myself in the mirror portal. Just how I remembered from a few moments ago, except… Yeah, that was confidence and drive in my Sweetie Eyes. She was right. We should have done this years ago. No more fragments. No more stupid misunderstadnings.

Soooo… Before you go in there, hon, Dad said through my comm system. You know I’m alive now, just, somehow ghoulified into data or otherwise merged with the computers in the Crystal City, right?

Cool, I still have that fantasy too! I lied just to bug dad.

I hate everything… Dad grumbled.

Just pulling your leg dad. Sorry for being stupid. I was mostly emulating mom before this data dump. I think.

Dad laughed. Thank Celestia. You have no idea how annoying that got! Now, get in there and save the world… Then come save me. Please. I’m not in danger, I’m just trapped in a computer and your mom’s never gotten around to it...

No problem, I replied before taking another step forwards, raising my hoof to enter the sphere’s realm of influence and—

A klaxon blared through the rotting husks of buildings. It was loud, long, and low. A classic air raid siren. I stopped and turned my head to the sky, wondering if some ancient cloudships were about to drop bombs.

The sky was clear.

Then what—

A cultist ran up to us from behind, tripping the proximity sensors which I’d previously paid no attention to because ponies don't have those and I was stubbornly fixed on being something I was not.

“Get back!” The cultist shouted. “A great evil approaches! We failed to kill it in time! It is reflecting!”

Rainbow swore something under her breath. “Gears! Dive through, we’ll fall back!” she said as she began to run backwards, Desi hot on her tail. Uh, I mean, nose.

“Right!” I said and bunched my hind legs to jump through the portal.

I sprang, flying through the air, forehooves outstretched towards the mirror-like surface.

I mean the bright toxic green surface.

Oh… no…

A dark shape flew from the opening portal and slammed into me. We tumbled end over end, sailing away from the mirror-portal’s rim, bouncing along the ground twice, then skidded to a halt. The thing that hit me seemed to be a pony shaped mass of flesh, covered in thick, black, ichor blood.

I gathered my hooves beneath me to flick it off myself. It moved, twisting until a pair of blood red eyes looked into mine.

“Oh, hi Gears!” the blood pile said to me.

In Speed’s voice.

“What?!” Myself, Rainbow, Dash, and the Cultist asked at once.

Speed picked herself up, shook some of the blood off like a puppy getting out of a pond, then somehow pulled a sawed off double barreled shotgun to her from where it had lain next to the portal with telekinesis. Dull, red, evil looking, telekinesis.

“So I just got punted through that portal thingie by a really big angry thing that’s pissed cuz I killed its two friends because they're a really fun thing to kill right? So we should probably—”

“How did you survive?!” I snapped, one eye twitching th either wide open. “You got hit by a giant space rail gun that fires meteorites!”

Speed nod-nodded, and more of the blood fell off showing she’d apparently grown a small pair of horns.

Uh oh…

“Oh, no I didn’t die,” Speed explained excitedly. “When you die there’s like, a loading screen then you wake up in the lobby.”

I facehooved and remembered she was locked in a Dream Pod simulator her whole fillyhood…

Speed cleared her throat. “Sorry, some B-Negative got in my mouth and it tastes gross. Anyways, I’m pretty sure that Outside’s physics engine couldn’t handle that hit, and I got clipped through the map into the Tartarus level, which is AWESOME, by the way!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the green portal was still open… and had grown, rather than contracted. I frowned for a moment, then realised Speed had said something kicked her out of the portal…

“Um, Speed?” I said, but she was on a roll.

“So I landed on this big like, meat-floor thing, and this deamonmare came over and was all flirty and shit and well, I had just been fighting so I was turned on and was like “Sure!” but it was a trick and she tried to eat me, so instead I ate her—”

A pair of massive, orange-red scaled and also leathery hide covered hands reached through the portal, grabbing the rim of the gateway about 3 meters above the ground.

My core skipped several cycles. “SPEED!” I yelped, activating my battle saddle to take aim.

“— Apparently that means you take over their body, I guess it’s a map or game mode thing? Anyways, I did that and started killing like, everything, because it’s a challenge and also fun, and then I ran into this one stallion who gave me a gun but didn’t say anything. So kinda like that Day-P mod for the Yildra simulation map—”

The monster attached to the hands poked its head through. It looked like the child of a dragon, a badger, and a crocodile. It’s literally burning orange eyes scanned around, then fixed on Speed. Also me.

“Speed.” I squeaked.

“A— and then I just keep shooting and killing things until that jerk bucked me through the portal,” Speed said before firing over her shoulder and hitting the monstrosity in the face.

It screeched and stepped all the way through, revealing an ape-like body with a back covered in six tentacles that dripped a greenish corrosive ooze.

The link to tartarus slammed shut behind it.

“— and now I’m back with one of my friends. Best weekend ever!” Speed finished before turning around and running headlong at the literal spawn of Tartarus with a loud happy eeeee. “Come on let’s split this one!”

Chapter 42 - Lyra Machine and Tool

Speed rushed ahead,at least three rockets and a balefire egg reached the monstrosity first. They detonated against the things chest in a blinding flash of light which sent her flying back from her target.

Oh. So that’s why the cult was not worried. Artillery support.

As dad liked to say, it was time to de-ass the area. Unfortunately, I had to turn towards the explosions. Great.

I pushed against the ground with all my might, did my best to ignore the eldritch abomination from Tartarus just slightly left of where I was running towards and raced for the mirror-bubble. The clatter of my hooves on the decaying asphalt was lost amid the gunfire, rocket launches, and explosions. They made it almost impossible to concentrate on focusing my will on shielding myself from what was to come.

I was fairly certain that my new merged form would survive encountering the silvery barrier in front of me. Not completely, just fairly.

There was still the chance I would d—

A rocket detonated behind me, a missed shot. The blast hurtled me forwards, head over hooves through the barrier. Pain overwhelmed me the instant I touched the silvery dome. I could feel my pelt dissolving, withering,and flaking away, even as it healed and regrew.

I grit my teeth and focused my will on holding myself together. It only slowed the process. I needed to think through the pain, to understand it.

I tried to scream to vent some of the pain and frustration, but the noise came out mangled, deep, and slow. Why? The mystical energies at play were familiar somehow. Gears had known this…

Of course! A temporal effect like the Spirit Realm. Could I control it?

I did my best to will myself to stick to one speed of time. My pelt began to drop away a piece at a time. The degradation wasn’t slowing.

I finally landed from the blast. I could see the city behind me through the dome. Everything seemed to be progressing along at hyper speed. The demon vanished in an instant, burning away with flames as colorless as anything else on the other side. Ponies moved around at the speed of Rainbow Dash, seemingly making sure it remained burning.

So that was what was happening. Time in here moved more slowly, but things which entered were not brought into the same dilated temporal region. If my machine mind and targeting systems couldn’t process fast moving objects, I would have had no idea what to do and likely would have taken centuries in here.

I couldn’t dilate myself to match the timeframe. I’d tried that and failed already. But maybe I could dilate the field to match me.

I drew on every ounce of spiritual energy stored in my being and began to shape it. I could feel power flowing from me as if I broke a hydraulic line. Without the energy from Rainbow’s sacrifice, this would have been well beyond my power to tackle. I might not even have enough power to do it as it was, but every second I could correct the dilation, the less time would pass before I could succeed from the outsider's perspective and the more time we would have to stop the Enclave.

Outside the dome I saw Dash and Desi sit to look into the dome where I’d vanished. A cultist came up to them, gave them some weapons, pointed east and then ran off.

More trouble? It mattered not. I had a mission here. I closed my eyes, reached out with my magic, and took hold of the lines of energy coming from the machine creating the mirror-dome. No artifact this powerful could be commanded to shut down by a Warlock, but, just maybe…

I leaned on the thaumic currents with all my might, pulling them down, left, and inwards. Each movement drained more and more of my power, but they did move. The dome rippled, shimmered, and seemed to groan as I pulled on the magic fuling it. Slowly, ever so slowly, the world outside began to slow.

More cultists ran by, heading the same way as the first. Why?

Oh, right. The Eye had reflected evil. They had to stop the reflection, and the source of that reflection. I mean, otherwise it would keep reflecting in the Eye, right?

With my luck it would be Uncle Gale and his murder friends. With Dash’s luck as the cherry on top, the Enclave likely knew what was here and what we were doing, too.

I gave the thaumic currents one last yank. They fell into place with a crackle and thunderous boom. The world outside moved at what seemed to be a normal-ish pace.

Not perfect, but I could get things done in here without months or even years passing outside. And too much time probably hadn't passed. Good enough.

I stood up and yelped as my pelt fell away entirely, leaving my chassis exposed. I could tell I was still me, and my systems reported my talisman was functioning fine. I could regrow it once I got a hold of some food to use as the raw materials… But it was pretty unsettling to look at myself and see the smooth white armor plates with all of the random bullet holes poked into them over the last few weeks as well as all of the upgrades poking out.

At least my crappy armor had survived. The webbing was a little ragged though… I mentaly corrected “it survived” to “it survived as a costume item”.

I frowned and hung my head a little. I’d looked pretty before I started this journey… If I survived I’d need to get mom to fix me up. Forget the five year oil change and coolant replacement. I needed a full rebuild for sure.

I turned my attention to the center of the domed area. The Lyra Machine and Tool complex lay before me. Six simple square multi-story concrete buildings and a big chain-link fence protected area where a few huge cargo wagons were parked in front of a loading dock.

If it hadn't been for the remarkable intactness of everything, it would have been just like any other ruined part of the city. Instead, some of the mint green and cream-yellow paint on the buildings was still… Well, nice looking.
I should have brought a camera.

I started to trot wards the complex and looked for a way in other than the front doors on the buildings. It didn't take long to find one. One of the loading dock’s bay doors was open. A shipment had to have been being delivered when the bombs dropped. An easy way in.

I started to run, which was easier said than done without my pelt. It was a little bit more than decorative like I’d thought before. With my newly expanded knowledge I understood it served a dual purpose of disguise and additional cooling surface. While my flank and ear radiators could keep me working for the most part, the pelt’s skin connected to those radiators at many micro-valves and much like an organic's skin, helped to shed excess heat rapidly.

Which meant I had to stop my run after a hundred yards and settle on a jog. The jog turned to a walk as I passed through the chain link fence via a nice rust hole. The shipping yard was weirdly clean. Sure there were bits of old paper laying about, and the wagons were obviously left where they had been, but I couldn't see a single crate, tool, or any other useful object lying around anywhere.

Nopony could have gotten in here to loot anything. The time dilation alone would have killed them. Aren't loading docks usually full of tools? Dollys, warehouse loaders, crowbars, hammers, everything you needed to move, open, or close shipping crates.

Where was everything?

I began to step a little lighter and double checked my battle saddle. If the time bubble preserved the packing paper I was stepping over, it might have preserved anypony or anything which had been here when it was turned on… After all, Dash turned this on. She’d gotten out somehow. Probably by being the only pony to work out where to download a speed-hack for reality.

Yeah… Relocated goods that were of no immediate survival value. Ponies probably lived here.

I crept up to the open bay door and leaned just enough to look past the gray cinder block wall into the dark interior. I could see… nothing. Not one thing. Not even shelves. There were floor brackets for shelves to be bolted down, but no shelves, nor even bolts which might have secured them.

Okay. Yeah. Nope.

I bent down and put my battle saddle’s bit in my mouth so I could be ready to fire at a moment’s notice. Let’s make this quick. Ponies are certainly here, and desperate for metal for some reason. That would be fine, were I not made of metal.

I spent a minute looking for any stairs. Dash’s plan had mentioned the loading dock… Yes that’s there the secret entrance to the MoA lab was. Where was it again?

I closed my eyes and played back my memory. A thing I should have remembered I could do in the past, except back then I was a total sillyfilly who did her best to not be the badflank robot she was.

“... the stairs going from the dock’s unloading floor to the store room level… a hidden stairwell inside the stairs “ Dash’s words replayed for me, crystal clear and precise.

We’re never forgetting anything ever again, me. There are things a good robot should do to be more like a pony, but forgetting stuff is not one of them. We’re not going to be a hyper-derp like every robopone in fiction and insist on perfectly mimicking ponies.

I turned my attention to the room once more. The unloading level clearly had shelves, but it couldn’t be the storage area. Stairs had to lead up to the storage area.

I ran my eyes along the walls for a moment until I spotted them. The warehouse was split-level with most of the storage on a section about two meters above the loading dock for… some stupid reason. Why make ponies have to carry heavy things up stairs? Fortunately I could see the stairs from here. Unfortunately they were at an angle to me and it was very dark in the warehouse, so I couldn’t see if they were blocked off or covered by anything. But I could check for security devices.

I closed my eyes and did my best to sense any machine spirits in the room byond the bay doors. Nothing. I gave things a quick look to make sure there wasn’t anything shielded, then slowly crept out of hiding and quietly trotted across the empty room.

It took me a minute of slow, careful, quiet trotting, but I made it the twenty yards to the stairs where a major problem was waiting for me.

Dash had given me instructions on how to open the hidden entrance in the stairs. That entrance was already open. The stairs folded down in the center to form a one-pony wide stairwell going down instead of going up, and the entrance had been jammed open with a scrap piece of I-beam.

Poneis differently lived here.

I had no choice. I had to proceed. Fate of the world depended on it.

I climbed down the stairs into the dark stairwell. The air was strangely humid, and cold. Well, cool. My systems told me the lab below was 21 degrees, and about 63% humidity. Pre-war that would have been a very damp, sticky, fur-washingley moist day with a bit of a chill… Like spring just after winter.

Nopony liked feeling damp all day, let alone kinda cold. Why would anypony set climate controls to this? It had to be climate controls too. I could hear air flowing and fans humming in the darkness beyond the stairwell. This did not bode well...

I reached the bottom of the stair sand felt my snoot bump against a cold metal door. Hoping the noise didn’t alert anyone or anything, I carefully felt around for a handle or button to open the door. Eventually they found it, a small square panel next to the door. A green light illuminated as my hoof touched the panel, followed by a red light which cast a ray across me, momentarily let me see the MoA seal printed on the door.

Kingdom of Equestria Ministry of Awesome Extra-Territorial Operations Headquarters
TOP SECRET CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY
OS-SAP III CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY
Trespassers will be executed by site security without trial.
Vigilo Confido

Well, at least this was the right pla—

“Welcome back, Ministry Mare,” A pre-recorded macho and gravelly stallion’s voice announced as the door hissied open, shattering all hope of stealth.

“Well buck me right in the plot,” I grumbled to myself around the saddle’s control arm.

Shame I couldn’t control the shotgun without this dumb thing…

The hallway in front of me screamed “science lab”. Big square tile floors, all white of course. Simple stainless steel trimmed cinder block walls, also white, with a big yellow stripe along the middle of each wall occasionally punctuated with big glass windows looking into dozens of little labs, each with its own security door.

It was exactly what I thought Equestrian science labs were like when I was avoiding listening to my fighting parents yelling about weather or not to leave Zebrica for Equestria. If I’d been able to regenerate my pelt the fur on the back of my neck would have stood on end. The only thing missing was random announcements about various exparim—

Three short musical notes played out on chimes over the intercom before the same digitized voice spoke once more. “Internal Security is detecting Unauthorized Persons within Lab A. Researchers are advised to remain clear of Lab A.”

My eyes dilated. I took a step back from the door, ready to bolt. Unfortunately for me, the world, was actually, at stake.

I gulped, took a moment to steel myself then trotted through the open doors. Lab A was on my immediate left. Unlike the other labs it had no window, just the door. The open door. While Dash had said not to go into it without her, she’d also probably not realized there was sompony in here.

From what I could see, Lab A was smallish. Maybe the size of a big living room. I could just poke my head in and see who was in there. They couldn’t have left. I’d have seen them. I’d poke my head in, blast them with my shotgun if I had to, then leave.

Nothing else.

I poked my head into Lab A. The room was lined with work benches covered in all kids of incredibly advanced looking tech I couldn’t even begin to identify. Most of it was made from a shiny silvery metal, some with a polished finish, some with a matter or textured finish, but all looked like it belonged to a set.

Interesting as that was, there was nopony in the lab. There was however another door at the far side of the lab that led to a staircase going down. I frowned around my saddle’s control bit. Dash had said Lab A was huge. It had to be a series of rooms, or maybe this was an annex and there was a main section down the stairs.

I looked back to the items laid out on benches where workers had been attending to them before the war. Nothing looked like it was an active hazard. No gas, sparks, or eerie sounds like an overloading spark battery. The dangerous artifacts must be in the main chamber. I should still peek inside to see what I was dealing with. After all if I didn’t and got blindsided by three mares with miniguns mid-mirror disarming that would be the end of me.

I took a few steps into the Lab’s outer room and began to slowly make my way to the second door and the staircase. As I moved I could see more of the workbenches. This wasn’t a prototyping lab, this was a reverse engineering lab. Every scrap of paper was documenting a part of the device and how it functioned, or trying to work out what the device was.

Strange. Must be some advanced Zebrican totems, or maybe this was captured Neighponese technology. Zebrica had captured a lot of Neighponese military hardware… right? I think so. Those memories came from Jasmine and like all organic memory was fuzzy.

I was nearly to the door when I noticed one particular device had a little light on the side that was lit up green. I closed my eyes for a moment, let out a worried sigh, and decided to give it a look before I looked down the stairs. After all, it could be an armed explosive of some kind with the detonator on whoever was in the main lab section.

The device looked similar to a pipbuck in a few ways. It had a small screen, a few tactical controls, notably a dial and three buttons. There was a slot on the top for what I assumed was either a data-matrix crystal or a holotape cartridge. The only difference was it was a simple flat rectangle that would fit into the frog of your hoof nicly rather than something to wear on a leg.

A note sat next to it, along with a simple black plastic rectangle with a few metal contacts on one side. I made sure to quickly read the note.

Tofu, I know you can contact Miss Dash via her red line. I’ve gone to look for you. If you get back before I find you, you need to call Miss Dash immediately. I’ve gotten this device to work. It is not a simple dictation machine. It is a translation matrix. It listens to us and learns our language to a small degree. I listened to the first data-crystal in the stack and Miss Dash will want to hear this immediately. This crystal contains mission data. Exactly what they were doing is still unclear because the device can’t translate their language to Equish completely yet, but you can pick up some very important things. It also provides text translations. We could use it to determine what each control on other devices is for. As in, we could do that right now.

Doctor Bright

Translation matrix? Neat! I grinned to myself and began to take a few more steps to the door, then stooped, hesitated, and looked back at the data-crystal.

Yeah, not knowing what this stuff was was going to bother me… I sighed and did my best to remember I could just ask Rainbow in a few minutes… But then it occurred to me that if this note was still here, the researchers evacuated on the last day. Rainbow wouldn’t have been told anything about this note. This was something she did not know.

And something I could totally learn right now. Something which would explain where all these tools were from and—

The fact that these weapons matched the description of the Star Blaster and Desi’s rifle, as well as her belt, hit me like a ton of bricks.

She said she was from the future… Were these future pony tools? Jasmine believed her explanation of time travel was horseapples. I could learn where her stuff came from right now. This was an internal security problem. I had to know.

Keeping my eyes on the door leading to Lab A’s stairs, I backed up until I could reach the translator and slipped the crystal into the slot. The device chirped. Its screen glowed faintly and displayed some words in a runic language I simply could not read.

So I pushed buttons. Each button made the device chirp and changed the screen. After a half dozen presses I grumbled under my breath. “Come on you stupid thing.”

The runic language instantly changed to Equish, at least, some of it did. One part of the screen was the word play in a square of purple light, and some of the other words were numbers strung together like an index or identification tag.

On a whim I fiddled with the buttons until the largest number was highlighted on the screen, and after a minute of bucking about discovered you could touch the screen itself and make the device chirp weirdly, so I pressed the word play with my nose hoping it worked like the runes on a messenger gem.

It did! The device began to play a recording of a deep, gravelly voice. Speaking incredibly broken Equish.

“Leader’s fallen-tree, romantic evening beneath the stars forty-three thousand nine hundred ninety-six-point-two. The transportation has undiscovered the location of itself due to damage accepted within the boundaries of the prior wedding proposal. The group containing myself and the others have the sole option of constructing a danger arrival. The assistance conjurer has been defenestrated and should shout for assistance within some time. Shields are stuck in the down position due to a pseudo-scientific problem. The group containing myself and the others may not survive a dangerous arrival. Willpower-supply positive probability. End fallen-tree.”

I blinked several times. “Wut?”

I understood just enough of that message to know it was saying something important, but the rest was just so much confusion. How does pseudo-science lead to an inability to hold up a shield?

I stared at the device for a moment, wondering if I could risk the time to play it again. My left ear twitched as the sound of rubber on metal echoed up from the stairwell. Somepony was coming up!

I quietly set the device down on the counter and began to back up, doing my best to walk quietly and time my steps to those coming up the stairs.

Click, click. Click, click. One, two. One, two.

The rhythm was all wrong. I couldn’t move quickly to its steps. Whatever was coming up wasn’t a pony. It had to be a biped of some kind. The cult had access to minotaur weapons, maybe a minotaur? Or perhaps a younger dragon who could still fit in the building?

My heart skipped several beats as I realised I was technically underground. Hellhounds could have dug their way into the lab! I’d hate to have to hurt one.

I was halfway to the door when a red light began to flood the stairwell, casting long shadows which stretched out the doorway from me. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to sneak out into the hallway before it reached the top of the stairs.

Fight or run?

If I shoot here, I risk hitting one of the artifacts Dash said are very dangerous. If I run, I have to fight it later. Ponies are fast, Hellhounds are faster, Minotaurs are great shots, and there’s a good chance a dragon small enough to be in a pony building could fly.

Fight.

I braced myself, took aim at the door, and prepared to fire.

The light grew brighter as the source approached. The color shifted, turning pinkish as a yellow glow was added to the mix. If the thing walked on four legs the glow would have matched a unicorn’s aura. But it wasn’t a unicorn. Or anything else I’d thought of.

The creature finally ascended the stairs enough for me to see it properly. It was a biped, but short, kinda hunched, and oddly shaped. Like a pear with legs, a head, and narrow shoulders. It was clad in a sleek, mirror polished, suit of armor made from the same silvery metal that either artifacts in the room were made from. Beneath the plates of armor was a simple gray jumpsuit, and between the cloth and the metal I could see the wires, rods, and servo links of some sort of robotic exoskeleton.

The creature’s face was hidden behind an angular helmet with a golden visor. It had a pair of gauntlets which made its taloned hands seem skeletal. One of them held a boxy-looking pistol fashioned from a gray metal with an underslung red flashlight. The other hand held a large bronze xiphos of minotaur design based on the runes set in it and the fact it was glowing with an angry blue light.

I’d heard about minotian power weapons. That was one. We’d made the power fist using the same magic. That was bad. Even worse was the creature was wrapped within a magical shield of golden shimmering light.

I fired my shotgun. A full meter of fire belched from the barrel as the buckshot streaked forth to make the unknown thing just go away. I saw the shield spark white as the lead shot disintegrated against it. Not a flicker, not a wobble, just some sparks.

“I am become error,” I whispered to myself in terror as it leveled its gun.

The creature emitted a burst of static followed by a modulated voice. “Encountered an unknown Zebrican robot. Eliminating.”

I turned and began to run. A bolt of white light lanced past my left ear with a sound like an electric hawk’s cry, and vaporised a hoof-sized hole in the concrete in front of me.

Whatever that ray had been, it was absurdly hot. Might even be a heat-based laser weapon. I could have looked at the concrete to see if it was glowing to verify that. Instead I took off down the hall deeper into the lab.

That was likely the wrong decision… But I didn’t fancy my chances doding fire by zig-zagging up stairs.

I duck and wove as I sprinted down the hall, looking for the mirror lab. If I could destroy the mirror before the creature killed me that would be enough. Vinyl was dead. I could join her if I could bring the mirror’s barrier dow—

Another bolt of white light blasted past me and exploded a chunk of the floor. This time I could see glowing red concrete around the rim of the crater. Yep. Heat-ray.

I looked to my left, the labs were all labeled with letters. Nothing with words or names. Had Dash forgotten the letter? I’d have to look through the windows too—

Another beam sliced through my left foreleg, melting some of the armor plating but leaving the inner workings undamaged.

I didn’t have time for this! I had to take down the dome! Rainbow couldn’t enter until the dome was—

There! To my left! A lab containing a single full length mirror atop a large platform of silver, brass, and gold, connected to the mechanism by a ton of glowing blue wires.

I spun to race into the lab only to realise the door was closed, and the panel next to it was lit up red. Locked.

Would the pin work? Probably but there was no time to be scanned!

I took aim at the lab’s window, doing my best to not point in the direction and fired two shots. The round shit the window and spiderwebbed the bullet proof glass…

“Luna’s motherbucking tits! OF COURSE IT’S BALLISTIC GLASS!” I shouted at myself rather than the window.

Well, that was it. No more time. I would be shot now. If only I still had my LAERS. They’d probably overload that shield fast enough to save me. I couldn’t dodge easily in this open hallway. I’d bucked up too badly to recover.

I’d failed.

Everypony was doomed.

I deserved this.

I closed my eyes to wait for the next shriek and the blinding pain it would bring.

The creature spoke again. “Robot, who programmed you to swear?”

I frowned and opened my eyes slowly. “I’m not a robot. I’m a—”

I stopped myself from saying warlock just in time to realise that would probably be a bad idea. ThHis thing knew what Zebrican robotics looked like.

“Cyborg?” The creature asked.

Why wasn’t it shooting me?

“Technically, yes,” I replied.

The creature adjusted its aim, clearly deciding to shift from center mass to my head. “Explain the technicality.”

“Uhhh… Necromancy was used to put a soul into this platform,” I answered half-truthfully.

“Who are you?” the creature asked. “Name. Nationality. Military unit.”

“I’m actually just a post mare,” I answered reflexively. “My name is Whirling Gears, I was built in Equestria pre-war and I was born to immigrants too so I guess I’m technically an Equestrian citizen, but I work for the Kingdom of Lith. Um, and I also live there. It’s where the Crystal Empire was.”

The Creature lowered its weapon slightly. “A post mare?”

“Yes… But I’m currently helping Rainbow Dash because she needed a mechanical person to get in here to unplug that mirror so she could get back in.”

I looked at the creature, trying to see what its reaction would be. The body language was… alien.

“Four years and people are already making new nations…” The creature muttered to itself.

“Huh? Um, no. It’s been ten years since Pip fired the gardens,” I answered.

The creature stepped back, seemingly in surprise. “Excuse me, ten?”

“Yes,” I nodded, cleared my throat, then pointed one hoof at the creature. “Now if you don’t mind, WHAT THE BUCK ARE YOU?!”

“I’m a unicorn,” the creature answered, still sounding shaken. “Has it really been ten—”

I shook my head slowly. “No, you can’t be a unicorn. Not unless someone else stole mom’s research too… Which since Sparkle Cola stole it somehow I guess is plausible? Nice to meet a fellow brain-bucket.” I said and did my best to smile friendly to not be shot.

An act which was probably very creepy without my pelt. Dammit...

“Huh?” the creature said-asked. “What? Oh… No, this is a costume I beefed up because, you know. Apocalypse! Might as well dress how you want.”

I raised an eyebrow… Or at least I activated the circuit to do so. I wasn't sure if I had mechanical actuators for that or if it was current based.

“What?”

“Take the battle saddle bit out of your mouth and I’ll show you,” the creature said.

Remembering I had plasma pistols in my forelegs I could use for a single desperate shot, I nodded and let go of my saddle’s trigger.

The creature holstered its pistol in a thigh holster, dismissed its sword’s enchantment before sheathing it on its back, then bent forwards. Its exoskeleton clicked and hummed loudly as it reconfigured shape. The creature's hands folded up into simple hoof-boots as it touched the ground, clearly now in an equoid stance. Then its helmet’s visor retracted to reveal a pair of golden eyes and filthy mint-green fur.

“See?” the creature, or rather unicorn, said in a voice that was definitely a mare’s now that it wasn’t modulated by the helmet. “The exoskeleton lets me walk upright as long as I want and also triples my strength. Neat, huh?”

I blinked twice. “I’m sorry but… Why?”

“Because I can and have all the time in the world and supplies to tinker with. Obviously,” she huffed. “Look, can you prove you’re here with Rainbow Dash? If you are, I’ll help with whatever she needs. She sort of put that shield up and bolted with my wife and I still in the office.”

I shook my head, reeling from that little anvil of knowledge. “Oh holy buck the time dilation…”

I looked back up as quickly as I could. “How long has it been for you?”

“Time dilation?” the mare asked, cocking her head slightly.

“Yeah. The shield had a temporal effect. Rainbow thought it was a death-effect but what was really happening is anything passed through aged to death in milliseconds. I was able to process events fast enough to correct the dilation before my systems failed and—”

I stopped talking, thought for a second then facehoovd. “Oh my, Luna… I could have walked out and had her come in right away… I fixed the problem… Aside from the shield being a portal.” I coughed and lowered my hoof. “We should shut it down anyways. It sort of makes portals to Tartarus randomly… Also it’s been about 216 years since the war.”

The mare sputtered, her eyes nearly popping out. “WHAT?! Two centuries?! I— But— No! No it’s fine. That means everything’s back to normal and this is some weird relic, right? Good! I can just… go get to have a normal life. Good.”

“Not really no,” I said apologetically. “Uh… There’s a few small nations, and mine is hopefully going to start the first real rebuilding effort soon with help from Los Pegasus. Maybe. Not sure. I haven't been paying attention to that. I’m supposed to be delivering a book. Like I said, I’m a post mare.”

The mare took a deep breath, then sighed. “I’ll process that later. Right now, more important stuff. Can you or can you not prove you’re here working with Rainbow?”

I attempted to raise an eyebrow again. “Wait, if you’re pre-war why don’t you call her Ministry Mare Dash?”

She snorted and smiled enough for me to see the corners of her mouth past her helmet’s chin guard. “Please, we go way back and the country she was in charge of exploded.”

“Way back?”

She nodded once. “Mhm. We went to Canterlot University together. I helped her study for her weather pony licence. She did a Rainboom for my wedding, and she’ll totally deny it but she was also in my book club.”

“Oh,” I said with a little frown as I processed everything. “So, you were from Ponyville?”

“Yep! I imagine that’s one of the few places still standing, right? No strategic value. That’s why they put stable 2 in Sweet Apple Acres… Do they still make Zap Apple Cider? The Everfree must have survived too, so you should be able to still get them.”

I shrugged. “I have no idea, uh… What’s your name?”

She blinked then laughed. “Sorry, thought it was obvious. I’m Lyra Heartstrings, welcome to my factory.”

I sat down and put my head in my hooves.

Lyra took a step forward. “Are… are you okay?”

“You’re alive.” I said flatly.

“Yes. Why?” she groaned sadly. “Did one of my company’s products do something horrible in the wasteland? Buck me with a wine bottle…”

“Probably,” I muttered as I did my best to hold in a sobbing fit. “But… I— I was traveling with Vinyl Scratch.”

Lyra froze. “Excuse me?”

“She’d survived as a ghoul… Uh… balefire zombie. She was sane. Not feral. She wanted to apologize to you… but… she died a few days ago…” I said just before failing to hold back the tears any longer.

I cried for a few minutes before I felt an armored pair of legs pull me close in a hug. “Hey… It’s okay. Everypony dies. Zombie, huh? Heh… Guess it’s good she didn’t invite us to the Stable.”

I took a deep breath and collected myself. “I— I’ll tell you everything later. Right now, all you need to know is that Rainbow needs that shield down so she can get in here and use a control center to shut down a megaspell some very very bad people took over that can actually destroy the planet by firing asteroids into it… And… And Vinyl was killed by them with it. Took out a whole city.”

“Uhhh… I’ve been here for four years, broke into the MoA lab after two weeks looking for food,” Lyra said slowly with a very worried expression on her face. “I’ve never seen any control room for a super weapon.”

“It’s probably hidden somewhere. Fake wall,” I muttered. “Look, let’s just unplug that mirror.”

“Or, you could press that MoA pin on your collar and let me talk to Rainbow… I don’t think you’re a very sophisticated robot. You’re definitely a pony, so I believe you a little bit. But I still want to talk to her before letting you go.” Lyra said in no uncertain terms.

I winced. “Uh, well… I’m a Zebra, actually.”

Lyra snorted dismissively. “One who was born here. Just because I am— Uh, was, a defense contractor, doesn’t mean I’m racist. You’re one of us, not one of the Empire.”

“Oh, good,” I sighed in relief due to her only being a nationalist. “Also the pin has a privacy charm. You couldn’t hear her if I used it.”

Lyra gave me a deadpan stare. “Did… Did she not tell you how to use conference mode?”

I frowned. “Conference mode?”

“Double tap it and everypony in two meters can hear and speak. I manufactured those for her,” Lyra said with surprising politeness.

I closed my eyes tightly. “First my saddle has an auto-loader, and now this. I really wish people would tell me these things!”

I tapped the pin twice. “Rainbow? It’s—”

“BUCK!” Rainbow’s voice shrieked through the pin. “Bad timing! It’s the Battle of Emerald Jungle up here right now! GET THAT SHIELD DOWN!”

“It’s safe to enter now,” I explained quickly. “It wasn’t a death effect. It was warping time so much that people would age to death instantly on entering. I fixed that. I can take it down still, and I will, but you can enter now, and please do, because there’s a mare here with a very nasty gun who seems like she’s friendly now but might still kill me if—”

“Hey, Dash! The Hoofhand Gauntlets work awesome. You owe me ten bits,” Lyra said loudly.

“The buck?” Dash murmured quietly. “That sounds like… Lyra? Did— Did you make one of those neural prototype things and somehow back yourself up on—”

“Nope, time dilation. Apparently. Octavia’s fine too. We were in here when you set up the shield. My office’s safe room was a good shelter.” Lyra said with a laugh. “So what’s this about a battle up there?”

“I’ll tell you shortly,” Rainbow shouted, took a breath, then groaned. “Buck that grazed me… Gears, we’ll take the bubble down later since you made it safe to enter. The Enclave is here in full force. They somehow know about the HQ. I’ll be right there, with some help. Vinyl made it! She showed up with a cyber hippogriff… Also your moms here with a bunch of robot… zombie… uh, junk golems. Oh, and Ribbon’s defected. It’s been a weird hour.”

Hour? Okay, guess I didn’t fix the dilation completely. Wait did— “My mom?!” I sputtered.

“Yeah. Over and out,” Rainbow said unhelpfully.

I spent several long moments staring at the wall trying to process how, why, when, and what my mom was doing here of all times and places.

As I stared down the hall, I saw a middle aged cream-colored mare poke her head out from the entrance to Lab A. She had a two tone pink and blue mane that was starting to go just a bit gray. Consistent with any mare in her 60s.

“Oh, thank goodness. You disabled it,” she said with a relieved look.

Lyra turned around. “No, but it’s okay. It’s a friendy cyberpony. Probably a MAS project, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, my mom is Black Swan.”

And she’s here. For… why? … processing...

I stood bolt upright. “I need to make sure she’s okay! She’s not well! Like, off-in-the-head not well!”

The older mare eeped and pulled back into the lab.

Lyra called out. “It’s okay she’s here with Rainbow. There’s a battle outside though so get in the ship!”

My ears perked up. “Ship?”

“Oh, thank goodne— Battle?! Lyra get your butt in here with me!” the mare yelled with worry. Then a fraction of a second later added, “And take that ridiculous thing off!”

“No!” Lyra countered like a foal. “Rainbow will need somepony to help her make the doors seal again.”

“Excuse me but what ship?” I asked, confused even more but also kind of hopeful I might get to shoot Gale with a ship’s main gun. “We’re not near water. Is it like a training ship down here or something? Like the flood control room simulator back in—”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “The alien spaceship that crashed her like forever ago and the MoA stole all of their cool stuff from by making nerds help reverse engineer it for free via their TV show. Really, you should go to more Conspiracy Cons.”

My jaw dropped. “W— What? T— The RMSE Protector is real?!”

“Yeah. Since all the actors were MoA Agents they shot some scenes in the ship. There were still lighting rigs in it when Bon and I moved in.”

“IT’S JUST DOWN THOSE STAIRS?!” I shrieked at roughly 3.4 kilofanfillies worth of volume.

“Always has been,” Lyra laughed.

As I tried to process that Lyra gave me a little push. “Heh! I’ll bet you also don’t believe in the Little Gray Mares. Go help your mom get here safe then you’ll get to see everything. We’ll be able to hold up in there for a very long time so it will be our fallback point. I’ve been fixing it for the last four years. Bonbon and I were going to try and escape in it. We figured the planet would be pretty bucked up so, you know. Moon.”

I felt the most amazingly potent wave of confusion hit me like a truck. I just stood there, processing everything in circles, only able to agree with Dash that this was the weirdest hour of all time until suddenly I was on my back with a very weirdly lucid mom hugging the crap out of me and yelling something.

“WHIRLING GEARS, WHAT IN THE WORLD DID YOU DO TO YOUR POOR LEGS?! IS THAT STEEL RANGER ARMOR YOU'VE WELDED TO YOURSELF?! DO YOU WANT TO GIVE YOUR POOR MOTHER A HEART ATTACK?! WELL TOUGH TEATS! I’M NOT PUTTING A HEART BACK INTO MY BODY!”

Mom was observing a change to the environment?!

What even is today?

44.1 - The Calm Before (Part 1)

☢★★ Whirling Gears ★★☢

Despite mom’s insistence that everything was stable, we galloped straight to the transporter room. Not only was mom’s word not necessarily the most “stable” in and of itself, but we were still on a massive ticking clock. The Enclave could fire Star Drop at any moment.

“Querry: Having fired a meteor previously, will their engineers not have discovered the multiplicative properties of extra-planetary space?” Mom asked while we sprinted down the corridor.

“We can’t count on that,” Rainbow grunted, her eyes flicking back in irritation. “They could think the overcharged shot was a fluke from it sitting around just charging power banks for centuries. Or maybe they don’t care and would be happy to blow the planet up and live on the station forever.”

“That doesn’t seem very likely,” I commented. “Ponies seem to like open spaces and nature.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow nodded and slowed down to take a righthoof turn. “Which isn’t a problem. It’s a big station.”

I took the turn a moment later and recognized this stretch of corridor from the show. The room at the end was our destination.

“Soooo, we just beam into the fire control room, kill everypony, and then disable the gun, right?” I asked. “I mean, I don't think we shared a plan, but that seems like the best one.”

“Yeah, it is. And that’s what we're doing,” Rainbow sighed, slid to a stop, and facehooved. “I can't believe I forgot… Stress. Just all the stress.”

Desi slid off of Loom’s back and pressed the small panel next to the door with her nose. It hissed open, revealing a small chamber dominated by a large white crystal platform with a single elegant console facing it from a position along the left wall.

“Interesting,” Mom noted almost the instant the door was open. “The Rainbow Relay utilizes synthetic ruby as the pad. This uses a boro-quartz compound. Why?”

Rainbow sighed again. “Look, if you figure out how to synthesize this stuff in one huge flat piece, please tell me. We couldn’t. So we used the next best thing.”

I frowned and tilted my head to one side. “Wait… The show has the teleporter work just, anywhere. With the pad being like, just a convenient spot to teleport too. You know, it’s known safe. Is this limited pad to pad?”

Desi and Rainbow shook their heads together.

“No,” Rainbow answered with an annoyed sigh, like she knew a massive question was about to slap her across the face. “The pad boosts the range. We could beam anypony from anywhere on the ship to anywhere else on the ship, but to get things further away the start or destination has to be the pad… Also, we never got this one working right. Safest malfunction is it flipped a technician upside down. He landed on his neck and… let’s just say the MoI’s insurance premium went way up.”

“On it,” Mom said as she trotted into the room.

Rainbow blinked once and looked between Loom, Desi, and I. “N— Nopony’s going to ask why we’re risking that or worse?”

“Pretty clear this is the last chance to stop the end of the world, so, no.” Loom snorted before shaking her head. “Besides… It’s not as bad as that time you had us take that ancient wizard's gateway.”

I looked up at Loom expectantly.

“It’s classified,” she and Rainbow said together.

I gave her my best Sweetie Eyes.

Loom winced and took half a step backwards. “That… worked better when you had skin.”

“Noted,” I said as I turned to watch mom work. “Hey, how long will this take?”

Mom had pulled a floor panel open and had her head and several mechanical limbs extended downwards into the machines’ recesses. “At least six minutes. This device lacks a spirit, but I can see its principles clearly. Several logic nodes are misaligned.”

Desi landed on the floor and trotted into the room, making her way to the console, which she began to poke and prod at. I walked up alongside her, half to see what she was doing since she was the only pony with a full working knowledge of this ship, and also because something about her story didn't quite add up.

Desi began tapping at the console’s screen with her nose and the frog of her left hoof, dragging little images of volume sliders around seemingly randomly.

“Hey… Desi… If this ship has a teleporter, why did you use like an escape pod or whatever to come down?” I asked as casually as I could manage.

“Teleported first,” Desi answered. “Alicorn scared me. Reversed teleport with magic. Computer Mom angry. Launched me in torpedo case. Prevented returns.”

“An alicorn scared you?” Rainbow asked with a little grin. “You mean the thing you are?”

Desi nodded and then shivered. “She was… too happy.”

Loom and I shared a confused look. Dash flinched. “Oh. OHHH… Yeah. Yeah, I’ve heard of that one. Big. Gray. Long flowy blue mane. Will talk your ear off like you’ve known her forever?”

Desi nodded.

“Never met her myself, but I hear she creeps everypony out… If we survive this it might be a fun pony to track down. Nice simple hunt,” Dash grunted as she turned to look at what mom was up to.

Desi kept tapping away at the screen. Eventually, a little picture of space appeared, and the sliders seemed to scroll the view. I watched in fascination as the stars slid by, followed by a good view of the sun, then the moon, then… Star Drop.

My jaw dropped as the massive structure filled the picture almost entirely. I could tell it was massive because I could see inside of the big, main, cylindrical section. The station was shaped like a big cylinder, with three large sections cut out to be windows, with a big round tube-like wheel-shaped section stuck on one of the cylinder’s ends, with the opposite end home to three colossal solar arrays that glittered like diamonds.

The entire station was painted a bright white, with gold trim on the struts, edge banding, and around the docking ports. It looked almost like somepony had fired one of Canterlot’s towers into space where it sat slowly rotating around its longest axis in the black void of space.

My idea of the station’s scale came from what I could see through the huge bay windows which, presumably, existed to let sunlight into the motherbucking nature preserve! The cylinder section had hills, and lakes, and a river, and a forest, and clouds, and even what looked like a small pre-war town built on the inside of the cylinder walls.

The station’s curve was so bucking massive that if you looked at just one of the inner sections, you couldn’t tell that the thing was built on a curve. I swore there was even a pillar of clouds along the middle axis as if there would be a sky to look up to.

“W— What?!” I stammered.

Loom hummed and turned her head to look over the console. “Oh. Yeah. It’s cool, huh?”

“WHY?!” I snapped, unable to process why anyone would build something so huge… as a weapon! “Why is this a nature preserve, in space?!”

“Easy. I thought the world was going to explode. It did,” Rainbow said, still all the way across the room. “All of the firing controls and systems are in the ring section. And no, we can’t just jettison it, and if we blew it up, we would breach the Sorin Cylinder and kill everything in there… It’s likely the only supply of unmutated crops and wildlife—”

“Wildlife?!” I sputtered. “Y— You put animals up there?”

“Yeah. It’s a whole mini-ecosystem. Even has a replica of old Ponyville.”

“But why though?” I sputtered yet again.

Rainbow turned her neck to look back at me. “Nostalgia… foolish hope that I could get the girls to move in with me post-war… Aesthetics… pick one,” she said before turning back to whatever mom was doing.

“Problem,” Desi announced with a lack of emotion.

Rainbow’s head popped back up immediately. “What is it?”

“Station’s shields stronger than anticipated. Teleport is impossible.” Desi answered equally emotionlessly.

I took a deep breath. “Desi, I know you a bit. Enough to know you stop emoting when you’re focused. You have a plan to get around this, right?”

Desi shook her head once. “Thinking.”

Rainbow grit her teeth and also took a deep breath. “It’s… fine… We have to get this thing working anyway. Just… Just everypony else, check your weapons. Get ready. We’re going to find a way.”

Vinyl wasn’t here.

The realization hit me like a sky wagon. I cleared my throat. “Speaking of getting ready… I’m going to find Vinyl so she can come with us…. Uh…” I frowned and pawed at the floor with one hoof. “Um… Scratch that. Big ship. Hopefully going soon… It would take too long to find—”

Desi looked up at the ceiling. “Computer: Locate biosignatures high in radiation.”

“One signature located.” the ship’s creepy un-living voice reapplied instantly.

“Illuminate path to signature. Purple.” Desi ordered.

The light panels set into the wall outside suddenly lit up with a narrow purple band, studded with an arrowhead pointing the way every few meters.

“Huh. Neat!” I said with a satisfied nod. “Good job, Desi.”

Desi smiled. “Admin access. Very satisfying.”

I turned and galloped down the hallway, following the purple line. Hopefully, whatever Vinyl had done, said, or been told, she’d be okay and able to help us save the world.

44.2 - Reunion

Author's Note

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following Vinyl Scratch section was written on my behalf by HiddenMaster due to my personal issues with romantic interpersonal conflict and fights which rendered me incapable of writing these types of scenes without experiencing significant mental distress. It has been edited to better match continuity by my usual editor.

Thank you, Hidden. You got me out of a nasty corner I wrote myself into.
Thank you, Vex. You’re appreciated.

44.2 - Reunion

☢★★ Vinyl Scratch ★★☢

Vinyl Scratch bashed against the door, grumbling. “I. Will. Have. My. Booze!” she grunted, bucking against the metal door, again and again, slamming into the door and making it twist and bend within its frame. Above, a broken sign Vinyl presumed to be some form of neon back-lit panel blinked. The glowing alien letters presumably spelled out “Full Liquor Bar”. At least, that was the fan theory she was out to confirm.

Why this one door was locked onboard a downed UFO, Vinyl had no idea, but she knew she needed her fix while her blood was hot. It was actually nostalgic.

She once wrote a song called “Self Destruct”. It was prior to the whole Zebra conflict, the War, even before the Ministries, and definitely way before she’d become a ghoul. It’d been a pet song she’d written and worked on silently for months. She premiered it at a rave and had finished off the fast-paced, resonating song that sounded like an endless percussive scream by smashing her DJ set and hitting her speakers with a sledgehammer. Then, standing above the sparking mass of equipment, she’s smirked, flipped her mane out of her sunglasses, grabbed a vodka shot, and downed it before walking outside to the rave party’s perplexed bewilderment, smirking all the way and eyes slightly watery from the song’s final moments. All the while she screamed on the inside as every last bit of the 1200 bit equipment set she’d destroyed in the finale cut at her finances and general sanity.

Walking out of the rave with a fortune lost and one of the best songs she’d ever performed unrecorded made her heart freeze in a timeless state, torn between the moment of realization of her art and the reality of her financial gouging. Sometimes, drinking brought her back to that horrifically sublime moment where she’d lived and died inside as an artist simultaneously to the sparking echo of the only song she’d ever refused to record.

With another buck, the door creaked and hissed open as some emergency system decided to do its job after eons of sitting unused. The door indeed led to a bar, just as the old TV show foretold. Vinyl, as was tradition, required something deeply alcoholic to kill a few brain cells because by Celestia, the recent fighting had her blood running and she needed a self-destructive fix. These days raves weren’t viable, but space vodka definitely was. Or at least, hopefully, was. Should such a thing be a thing that exists.

More crucially, thank goodness a second time for Canterlot Ghoul’s resilience. Because whatever was behind the bar, Vinyl was going to drink it. A lot of it. Maybe all of it.

Vinyl barged in and froze even as her ghoulish heart skipped multiple beats.

Vinyl, over the years, had regrets. Any ghoul who lived long enough did. Most left them behind because the tide of years ensured nothing escaped the Wasteland, and the only way to live was forward, otherwise, you choked in the radioactive dust of the past. And yet, one of her greatest regrets was right. There.

“Oh bother, I thought I had the door locked? Seems as if I’m doomed to not even enjoy a drink in peace… Also nice to see you out of that silly Exosuit, Lyra. But where did you find the glow stick you've smeared over your face? You do know those are toxic, yes?” the mare said with a rich, refined tone only found in old Canterlot families. The mare looked like her old friend, sounded like her, and…

This was happening. Octavia was behind the bar. Not just a mare that looked like Octavia, Octavia, her best friend, her BFF, her...love, was right. Fucking. There.

Discord delivered.

“O-Octavia?” Vinyl, for the first time in over a century of life, squeaked.

Octavia’s head snapped up, eyes going wide and nearly bloodshot in an instant. Vinyl couldn’t read her. She seemed to go through dozens of emotions in an instant before her face twisted into a very specifically readable expression. One which clearly said: “I am not dealing with people I don’t know so this is my polite please fuck off face”.

“I...I suppose I should have expected this,” Octavia muttered into a half-empty margarita. “I did take over the bar and you were bound to head this way...In retrospect, it’s beyond silly a UFO would even have a bar, but here we are. Vodka shot, right?” Octavia said as she trotted around the bar then stooped to search for drinking supplies.

Vinyl could barely nod, her voice lost to her. Her mind was still struggling between two facets of her life. Her best friend was dead. Yet her best friend was alive. Was this a clone? Was Octavia a ghoul? A robot? A robot ghoul? A robot ghoul made from a clone? Or maybe a ghost in an organic shell? That last one felt surprisingly plausible given Desi.

A dark part of her mind suggested the disturbingly probable theory that she had finally snapped like a feral ghoul and was currently huddled in some corner of a crumbling building, imagining the last few weeks.

“Shut up me,” Vinyl muttered to herself.

The key to staying sane was to push the darkness back. Constantly.

Somehow she found herself at the bar. Part of her wanted to jump over and hug Octavia, but the shock of the situation kept her still. Octavia finally found a set of shot glasses, poured Vinyl six shots (her usual), and slammed the last shot glass down in front of her. Vinyl started to unseal her helmet to drink, then paused.

“Uh… Do you have RadAway? This glow isn’t a glowstick. I’m pretty radioactive right now.”

Octavia didn’t react. Her face was still the resting polite face. Vinyl took this as a no.

“Okay. I’ll drink this outside in a bit then.” She murmured to herself.

“How?” Vinyl asked.

“I suppose I could ask you the same.”

“Ghoul,” Vinyl croaked.

Octavia waited a moment, before sighing. “I suppose that is an answer in this world, isn’t it?” Octavia said, leaning at the bar.

Vinyl found herself reaching for Octavia’s hooves. Octavia noticed and scooched further back behind the bar. Vinyl felt as if she’d been stabbed, worse than the times she’d actually been stabbed. This...this wasn’t right, and the sheer wrongness of Octavia’s act left Vinyl feeling just like the day she’d felt the bomb’s drop on her world with nothing she could do about it.

“I had many things to say to you, you know,” Octavia said, examining her own drink-wine, obviously, an eternal contrast to Vinyl’s vodka. “Some experiment kept us prisoner here for four years...four years stuck in one building with few other ponies. We couldn’t even look out the windows, you know. We just saw a gray mirrored nothing stretching to infinity. We couldn’t even tell the world around us burned, and I found myself in Hell,” Octavia said.

“Octavia,” Vinyl said.

“I’m not finished!” Octavia snapped, before adopting her resting polite face. “The green world I knew is gone. I couldn’t see outside, but I know what balefire does! The fillies and colts we’d bake snacks for when they played in our yard are all dead. Whatever’s out there is just scared and hungry ponies trying to find anything they can to survive. That’s this world! What echoes in my head, what stays with me, is a simple realization. You had a stable to go to,” Octavia said, and for the first time, she glared at Vinyl.

“What? The stable, it wasn’t-”

“Oh it clearly failed, given you’re here. Let me guess-the stable probably suffered a catastrophic breakdown for some idiotically inane and obtuse reason? It wouldn’t surprise me. The Cutiemark Crusaders ran that company, and when did they ever make anything that worked in the history of, well, ever! But the fact of the matter is we had a spat over our art,” Octavia said.

Vinyl remembered. They’d both worked in the Ministry of Image writing “Equestrian Heritage Musical Stylings”. Rarity had seen the need, then, to drive spirits up in Equestria, to remind ponies of their loyalties, and who the enemy was. Vinyl had complied, even agreed to an extent. Octavia had thought her art was disappearing into a well dug from hate. They’d argued. Then they split, given each other a month so no more horrible things were said. Then the bombs dropped.

“You had a plus one voucher for that stable, didn’t you?” Octavia mused, swirling the wine in her glass.

“Yes. I did,” Vinyl admitted, puzzling over what other answers there could be to why she hadn’t let Octavia go with her.

She’d needed space. That was all.

Vinyl felt like her blood was turning to ice as a horrible realization dawned. She couldn’t. She didn’t think that, did she?

“I can’t think of any other reason you went to that Stable right then when we weren’t talking. If I hadn’t talked with Lyra, then…” Octavia trailed off.

Then, with a scream, she threw her bottle of wine at the wall, splashing the contents over the silvery metal, the wine dripping down like blood. Vinyl flinched. Octavia breathed heavily through her nostrils then had her polite, cold smile on once more. “I may have some anger to work through, given what you chose,” Octavia said.

“It wasn’t like that, Octavia,” Vinyl said. “I bucked up. Okay? But I would never hurt you,” Vinyl said.

“Somehow I don’t believe that,” Octavia said, not looking at Vinyl.

“I went to the Stable, but it was part of a test run. Just to see if that stable would work at all… It had an AI Overmare. They wanted to be sure that it would work. After the bombs—”

“Dropped, ruining all Equestrian civilization and most civilization on this side of the planet. I once said Equestria was killing art, but this went further than I ever thought it would,” Octavia said.

“Truth be told, I don’t know if I want to believe you. You could be telling me the truth. You could be holding onto me as the last connection to your old life. I thought we had something, but...well, four years is a long time for me to think.”

“Over two centuries for me,” Vinyl managed to say.

Octavia frowned. “What?”

Vinyl sighed. “Lot to fill you in on… That silver bubble warped time inside it. Some MoA tech made from some ancient wizard’s toy gone wrong. It’s been about two hundred and ten years,” she summarized. “I— The important thing is the stable. I left. Broke the seal on the door after the bombs hit. I wanted to apologize, make up… Or bury you… Wound up like this instead.”

“True. Maybe the bombs fell at just the worst possible moment in our relationship. Maybe you did choose Equestria over me. Maybe it doesn’t even matter. But...what we had? I don’t think it exists anymore,” Octavia says, softly.

Vinyl felt wetness trailing down her cheeks, and realized she’s crying. She didn’t even know she could still do that.

“I...I can prove it to you,” Vinyl said, finally finding her strength even as her vision blurred. “I hurt you. I hurt myself, with beer—”

Octavia blinked once. “Beer?”

“Yeah! Couldn’t let everything in that brewery go to waste. Turns out ghouls don’t get drunk easy so after the twentieth gallon—”

“Uh… Wouldn’t that… rupture your stomach?”

“Well the skin and muscle, yes, but the stomach itself can stretch pretty goo—” Vinyl paused, looked up at Octavia’s horrified expression, and laughed half-heartedly. “Uh… Long story short, I’m almost indestructible. I was also cutting those with stimpacks because I ran out of Stampede. It’s… complicated. Where was I? Right! Beer, drugs, with my song, but I would never hurt you. Octavia...I can’t imagine what you’ve been through any more than you can me, but...please. This doesn’t have to be the end.”

“Perhaps,” Octavia said, looking at Vinyl in the same way an Old World store’s clerk might have looked at an annoying customer. “A year ago I might have tried strangling you. My anger burned hot enough I would have ripped my own hoof off if it meant a chance at hurting you. But that idea seems silly, pointless now. Maybe we both bucked up, but…” Octavia trailed off, sighing.

“We can talk after the present crisis… Lyra radioed something about the Enclave and a megaspell, I’m somewhat up to speed,” she added. “Neither of us is liable to live long if the Enclave has its way. That is the most I can promise,” Octavia said, walking out of the bar. She paused by Vinyl, and for a brief moment Vinyl thought Octavia was going to hug her, pat her, do anything, but nothing came. All she caught was a tear-streaked face as Octavia left the bar, and Vinyl to wallow in silence that dug into her.

Most of her heart ached, longing for Octavia’s forgiveness. The rest… The rest hoped if Stardrop did blow up the planet that she wouldn’t be floating in space for eternity.

44.3 - The Calm Before (Part 2)

☢★★ Whirling Gears ★★☢

As I rounded the last corner to the bridge, a place I’d figured out the purple line had been leading me a good two elevators ago, I realized that Jasmine had been a colossal super-nerd. Maybe even a Turbo Nerd. If the ship had told us that Vinyl had been on the bridge, I’d have been able to find it. Because Jasmine had memorized the deck plans.

The real question was if the ship was in fact real, why the buck had Rainbow published accurate deck plans in the technical manual? It’s not like Equestria could have ever afforded to make one of these ships if some nerd worked out how it could be done. Gadgets found on board were one thing. The ship? Yeah. Right.

The bridge doors hissed open for me automatically. Again, just like the show. I took a moment to take in the sights. Few parts of the ship had been restored, just the bits they had shot the show on. The majority of the corridors were burnt, twisted, and warped. The bridge, on the other hoof, let me see what the ship might have looked like when it had been whole.

It was just like the show. A big monitor set in the front wall with a large raised curved section with consoles on both sides along the back wall, and three big chairs in the center of the room for the captain, first mate, and anyone invited to the bridge. All of the consoles were covered in decorative wood paneling, the floor had softer, more plush carpet with some red accents here and there, and all of the chairs had nice soft, plush looking leather covers.

I remembered Jasmine was always morbidly curious if the leather was real or veg-leather when she’d watched the show. Now was a chance to find out. Well, in a moment. There was something much more important to do first.

Vinyl sat in the captain’s chair. The huge high backed seat made her look like a little filly in a space mare’s costume. She sat there limply, staring at the screen, mumbling to herself. I upped the gain on my ears so I could hear her, just in case it was even worse than it looked.

“Not even troubling to cloak themselves…” Vinyl muttered to the floor. “Attention all hooves: As you know, we could outrun the Dorvik vessels. But we must protect the Cedar Creek until she enters the temporal rip, and we must succeed. Let us make sure nopony forgets the name Protector. Midnight, out.”

I flinched. If it was so bad she was slipping into escapism… Well, there was only one thing to do.

I trotted to the first mate’s seat, climbed up into it, and took a seat. Vinyl didn’t even blink. She just kept staring at the floor.

Vinyl sat quietly for a good hooffull of seconds before continuing her recitation of what I was now pretty sure was season three episode fifty-two. “Miss Beepboop?”

I bit my lip, sighed, and decided to play along with her. At least for a moment.

“Shields are holding at forty-three percent, ma’am.” I quoted.

Vinyl’s ears perked slightly. She nodded. “Mister Cloud, come about to course one-four-eight-zero-zero-three.”

I cleared my throat and did my best to put on a Germane accent. Naturally, I failed horribly. “Mana-Torpedos ready.”

Vinyl nodded, which I remembered Captain Midnight did at this point, then cleared her throat. “Dispersal pattern… sierra. Fire.”

The computer beeped three times, the sharp, hostile notes had both of us clamp our hooves over our ears.

“Torpedo launchers obstructed. Torpedo launch is not advised. Manual override required.” The computer reported.

“Oh…” Vinyl and I said very quietly together.

“M— Maybe we shouldn’t reenact the battle of the Spur Nebula,” I said with a half-laugh as the panic began to fade.

“Yeah…” Vinyl agreed, looking a bit less shrunk in on herself.

Sweet Celestia, we almost blew up half the bucking city if the torpedo yields were accurate… But at least imminent danger helped push her out of that dark place a little—

“Wait,” Vinyl said looking up towards the ceiling. “The ship uses voice commands.”

I nodded and flashed her an fillyish grin. “Yeah! Desi downloaded some language files from a translator and—”

“And it responded to what I had to say,” Vinyl added, her ears perking up just a little bit more.

“Y— Yes?” I asked, wincing as a horrible feeling began to overtake me. “You’re not thinking about—”

“Computer!” Vinyl proclaimed as she sat up straight in the seat. “Raise shields and prime engines for activation.”

“Shields raised. Shield charge holding at twelve percent. Emitters banks alpha, gamma, epsilon, require repairs. Error. Cannot comply. Engines inoperable. Repairs required,” The computer reported.

I sank into the chair and let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Celestia…”

Vinyl sighed and sank back down. “Buck… there goes taking on the Enclave with a starship.”

“While that would have been cool, we would have had to crash through at least fifty meters of solid rock.” I pointed out to my would-be-captain.

“Computer: Are the laser banks charged and capable of burning a hole through the surrounding rock?” Vinyl asked hopefully.

I sighed and ran a hoof across my face. “Hon… The engines are broken, and I don't think mom could talk them into working. The ship did crash because of navigation failure you know.”

“Secondary weapon banks are fully charged. Estimated tunneling time, twenty-seven minutes for safe passage.” The computer reported.

Vinyl’s cheerful expression evaporated instantly, replaced with a dead, hollow-eyed look that stared into my soul. “Gears, I get it. But here’s the thing. I just had three shots of vodka. Like, good pre-war grade vodka. No idea where they got it. I’m kinda drunk, my wife has differently unofficially divorced me because she thinks I knew the bombs were coming and left her to die, and there’s no bucking way I’ll ever convince her otherwise. So like… shut the buck up and let me fantasize about being a cool space captain in this junker, okay?”

I bit my lip, hissed, and nodded slowly. “Okay… So… You go ahead and do that then, Captain.”

Vinyl blinked once, winced, and recoiled. “Also, for the record, cool with you being a robot. Really am. It's kinda hot. But seriously, Gears. Don’t do that lip bite thing when you don’t have lips. That is horrifying.”

I flicked my ears back and rubbed my head. “Ah… Noted. Um… Was there any food in the bar?” I frowned and looked up. “I could ask the computer, I guess. Computer? Is there any food aboard?”

“Also why do I have command privileges?” Vinyl added a split second later.

“Yeah!” I sat bolt upright and snapped my gaze to Vinyl. “Why do you have command privileges?”

“Replicators are functioning in emergency mode. All files are fully accessible. Command privileges issued on emergency status to the current occupant of the command chair,” The computer informed.

Vinyl’s ears perked up at the announcement. “Wait… all files? Computer, what can be replicated?”

“Good question,” I added.

“Replicable objects include but are not limited to: Food items, medical equipment, medication, armor, weapons, munitions, field equipment, survival tools, shelter, and personal items.” The computer reported.

I felt my core pulse slightly more rapidly at the idea of getting my hooves on something like Desi’s gun, but in canon form. Yeeeeessss, gimminao!

“H— How much can we make?” I asked while rubbing my hooves together.

“Current matter reserves permit three-point-two-one tons of replication,” The computer answered.

“Awesome,” Vinyl nodded triumphantly. “Computer: Make my mare a sandwich!”

A quiet hum and faint glow to my left caught my attention. I turned my head just in time to see a small cubby in the wall which I’d mistaken for a desk produce a simple sandwich from thin air. Thin air to my mundane senses that is.

I could see, feel, and taste the magic on display within the device. The same flavor of chaos I’d seen in Los Pegasus blossomed within the device, not once but thousands upon thousands of times. Not a single blooming blossom bigger than the nib of a quill. A mass of controlled chaos.

It was… beautiful. This felt finished. Understood. But it was otherwise the same.

The focused chaos came to an end, and I half expected to see a cubic meter of amalgamated sandwich ingredients sitting in the cubby. Instead, there was what looked to be a simple wheat bread ham sandwich, with lettuce, tomato, some kind of cheese, and olive on a toothpick holding the sandwich together, and it sat on a plate.

“Huh,” Vinyl and I said in unison.

I trotted towards the conjured sandwich, giving it a critical eye to check for any magical flaws. Just in case. “So… I’m guessing StableTec didn’t actually develop Los Pegasus’s replicators.”

Vinyl frowned for a moment then groaned. “Right. Right, they have crude ones.”

I paused and played the spell back in my mind. Once, twice, three times. “No… Not crude ones,” I said as I smiled in realization. “They only have one module! That huge machine they use, that’s a giant version of the many, many, many modules that have to be in this thing. Oh man, you know what that means? There’s so much further enchanting can be taken! Imagine what we could do with the miniaturization needed to fit a pipbuck into a single glasses lens!”

“Not very much if you don’t eat that sandwich so you can cool down properly and help save the world,” Dad whispered in the back of my mind.

Point very much taken…

I scooped up the sandwich and wolfed it down as fast as I could. I could feel my repair talisman start converting the material… it wouldn’t be enough. “Computer, another sandwich!” I ordered.

☢★★◯★★☢

Three sandwiches later I was my proper self, once again clad in nice fluffy striped fur. My chassis creaked slightly as I moved. I’d gotten just a bit hot and everything had moved as metal expanded. Now everything was shrinking back into the proper place. That always itched so bad.

Vinyl still didn’t want to talk about what happened with Octavia in detail, and I wasn’t about to press her… But she was looking more despondent and depressed with each passing moment. The problem was I wasn’t sure what to do, other than to provide a distraction.

I had a few options, none of which I could do because we were pressed for time. If only we had enough time for a hug or a quick cuddle. Sex would probably be inappropriate, but something to show she was loved would be—

Wait a minute!

I trotted over to Vinyl and smiled directly into her face. “Hey guess what?”

“Mmm?” Vinyl sighed, looking up at me.

I planted a kiss on her helmet’s visor. “I’ve got lips again!”

Vinyl smiled for a moment. “Thanks…” she said quietly before a thoughtful look overtook her face. “You know, I lost a lot. But I’ve gained a lot too.”

I nodded. “Yeah. So have I… And I don’t want to lose what I have now.” I nodded towards the bridge doors. “Everypony’s working to get us to the Station. I got to see it. It’s… it’s really something.”

Vinyl hummed and sat back in the chair. “Yeah… I— I probably shouldn’t have done those shots. Gonna be buzzed for a bit.”

“Even drunk, we’ll need numbers,” I pointed out then turned my head to look at the bridge’s huge screen. “Hold on… Computer: Display a view of Star Drop station.”

“Error. Location specified not in the database.” The computer reported.

“Uh, display the space station in orbit of this planet?” I pressed.

The computer beeped once and the screen flickered to life. In an instant, the flat surface was replaced by what looked to be an open hole into space. Everything was three dimensional, with proper depth. Looking into the black void of space felt… well… like looking into the black void of space.

Vinyl’s jaw dropped as she fixed her attention on the colossal station suspended within the black inky void. She looked twice as shocked as I did. It took her a good thirty seconds before she could speak at all.

“There is no way this wasn’t built with replicated stuff. There’s just no way… I can see my old bucking house… What the buck, Rainbow?!” Vinyl sputtered as she stumbled up to her hooves and grabbed at my tattered armor. “Hon, call fast-butt and make her bucking explain!”

I gently pushed Vinyl’s hoof away from the pin so I could touch it myself. “Okay. Hold on. Calm down. I’m doing it.” I said as soothingly as I could.

“No!” Vinyl snapped, moving her hoof back. “I want to hear it too!”

“Alright, but I need to touch the pin to activate it,” I explained.

Vinyl frowned in irritation and moved her hoof back just a little.

I tapped the pin. “Rainbow?”

The reply was immediate. “Gears. How’s Vinyl?”

“I’m kinda shit,” Vinyl answered.

“Oh. Good! You figured out how to use conference mode,” Rainbow noted. “Doctor Swann has the transporter working, and Desi has a plan to maybe crack the shield open enough for us to beam in. She and Swann are working out the technical details to see if it will work. Can you two get back here?”

“Why the buck did you replicate Ponyville on Star Drop?” Vinyl demanded. “Just, why?!”

“She really needs to know… Please, Rainbow, she’s in a bad way right now. She’s taking this kind of personally and hard.”

Rainbow let out a long and lonely sigh. “Vi… It’s because I wanted to go back to how things were. You can understand. Right?”

Vinyl stared at the badge with an empty look in her eyes. “I… I do. But we can’t. We have to move on.”

I blinked at Vinyls’ candor. Maybe drinking really did help some ponies with their problems.

“Yeah. We do.” Rainbow agreed. “But… I mean, since it is there. If we pull this off. You’re welcome to move in.”

I cleared my throat. “I hope that offer includes her current partner.”

“Totally does,” Rainbow laughed. “Anyways, get down here. Loom is off moving some stuff to one of the shuttle bays. Desi thinks she might be able to get us a Star Blaster or two from a supply locker she knows of.”

A grin spread across my face as I remembered the crappy state of everypony’s equipment. “About that… Vinyl and I found out something pretty interesting.”

“Oh?” Rainbow asked.

Vinyl looked up at me, quite lost. “We did?”

“We did,” I reminded her with a little nuzzle to her helmet. “The ship’s replicator system is in an unrestricted state due to the crash and an emergency mode. It said it can make weapons, munitions, armor… And we have about two tons of material we can produce.”

“I— We— what?” Rainbow asked with an audible ladyboner.

“We can just make everypony here a star blaster. Or even cooler, whatever they call heavy weapons! Maybe they even have power armor!” I said excitedly before a crushing realization hit me like a bag of hammers. “Oh… uh, scratch that last one. It would be shaped for the aliens. Not us.”

Rainbow swore under her breath so quietly I couldn’t hear which specific curse she used. “Replicating power armor would have been so awesome… Buck me with a cactus. I’m kind of pissed off we couldn't wear anything it could make now. Would have been extremely useful— Hold on. Desi wants my attention.”

Rainbow went silent for a moment, when her voice came back it was full of excitement. “Good news! Desi can read lips. Better news, her jumpsuit was made from the replicator. They automatically adjust any worn items to fit the user. Also, she’s looking up the armor patterns available right now. Come on down. It’s time to get loaded for Ursa Major!”

☢★★◯★★☢

The next thirty minutes passed in a blur of activity. Rainbow, Vinyl, and I went through every weapon, armor, and munitions schematic we could find in the ship’s computer. Loom, Mom, and Desi were working on their plan which Rainbow never bothered to mention. We just didn’t have the time. Not if we wanted to find out what we could grab for the mission.

Loom was mostly moving heavy things for Mom and could talk to us while we loaded up. According to her estimates, we could expect at least three hundred soldiers onboard the station at any time. Mostly Tainted, but some Enclave troopers too. More importantly, the minute we got on board the station would recall the forces it had planetside to counter us.

We needed to be heavily armed, and heavily armored. Everypony had to be a walking tank for this. We had one of six set up for that. Getting the rest of us there, even with alien armor, was proving to be a huge pain.

The aliens did have power armor. Lots of power armor. In fact, almost every set of armor they had in their database was powered. Unfortunately for us, instead of being foals in a candy shop with endless options to pick from and an unlimited line of credit, we had hit a wall.

Every single power armor design the aliens used required the wearer to have cybernetic implants. As far as we could tell the implants would connect the wearer’s nervous system to the armor so it would control just like a body part. Raining even harder on our parade was the depressing fact that it took three days to perform the cybernetic implantation, and that also required a doctor. The ship’s computer couldn’t do it.

This left us just a few options. Options which whittled down very quickly as we checked to see just what each of them gave us verses what M.E.W.s and plasma weapons could do.

It turned out while the alien's weapons were insanely powerful, their armor was just barely better than ours. The details of their conflicts were sadly classified, even if you ran back up to the bridge and asked from the Captain’s chair. Rainbow’s personal assessment was that the aliens built armor mostly to protect you from space and environments. That whatever they fought was so powerful that they simply couldn’t protect you from it properly, and therefore ensured if you were hit, you’d die rather than suffer whatever horrible fate awaited you.

A grim thought…

“Well… this is the last file,” Rainbow sighed as she pulled up the very last entity in the armor database. “Let’s see… It’s called the Mark II Hazard Suit.”

Rainbow hit the screen with her nose to open the file. “Computer: Give me an overview of this suit.”

The computer chirped, a sound we’d realized was it letting you know it had to load information or process something. Then, a moment later, it began to speak. Vinyl and I sat around the bridge floor, just half-listening. After all, we’d heard thirty-nine of these in the last half hour…

“The Hazardous Operations Suit was developed aboard the Tenacity during its twenty-eight-year voyage home. Its primary design ethos is the preservation of crewmembers in situations with a limited crew and no chance of reinforcements. The suit is composed of several layers, with a standard uniform as the innermost layer, complete with all features one would expect. The middle layer is composed of kinetic dampening gel combined with energy diffusion grids to diminish physical impact and energy transfer. A built-in environmental control system prevents the suit from cooking the wearer alive. The outermost layer is composed of armorweave fabrics, similar to standard power armor interface suits, but are augmented with a multi-phasic shield generator mesh to provide personal shields, as well as a second more robust energy diffusion system.

“The Mark II version also includes active scanning technology for environmental navigation, friend/foe identification, and foe tracking. All relevant data is displayed for the user with an included linked Tactical Eye Display (T.E.D.), superior power cells, a field charging system capable of leaching energy from nearly any available source, and an improved Transporter Buffer belt, allowing for the storage of up to eighteen standard size weapons in addition to a dozen standard yield grenades, with a further six cubic meters of storage available for mission-specific gear.

“WARNING! While legendary, and included in all ship replicator databases, the Hazard Suit is not solely responsible for the success of the Tenacity’s Hazard Team. The Hazard Suit does not augment your strength, agility, and speed as power armor does. You are not Lieutenant . Putting on a Hazard Suit will not put you on his level. Only copious bioengineering and decades of training can hope to do that.”

By the end of the computer's summary, I couldn’t help but grin ear to ear. “I like how they had to tell people that wearing this guy’s signature clothes won't make you a badflank.”

“I’m sorry, but did it say this thing can let you use eighteen guns at once?” Speed said from the doorway.

I looked up in surprise. “There you are! I thought you would be with Lyra.”

She nodded and pointed to the screen which displayed the image of the seemingly ordinary-looking jumpsuit. “I was. I want one of those. Also, the Enclave is trying to break into the ship.”

“BUCK!” Rainbow slammed a hoof into the captain seat’s largest. “We have to move. This has to be good enough. Computer: Replicate a Mark II Hazard Suit for everypony on board. Girls, we need to figure out weapons as fast as possible! I don't know how long this crumpled old hull will keep them out.”

“Oh, it will take a while,” Speed commented with idle boredom. “The shields are holding… I mean… you guys turned them on, right?”

Vinyl facehooved. “Oh, right. Yeah. I did, didn’t I?”

I blushed and pawed the floor. “Um, we were just playing with the ship when we did that.”

Rainbow glared at each of us in turn. “Do not do that.”

Speed shrugged. The replicator hummed, flashed, and spat out a series of jumpsuits. Unlike the simple monochrome blue wireframe design on-screen, these jumpsuits were black with silver trim, silver shoulders, and had a gray combat harness with some large, techy-looking, silver kinda-sorta shoulder pads on them. I could sense magic in those pads. Defensive magic. Must be the shield generators.

They also had belts which looked a lot like Desi’s belt, but a bit bulkier and with small buttons on boxes rather than pouches. My best guess was you tapped the button and the belt stored what you were holding in that “pouch”.

Speed picked up one at random and then frowned. “How do we know which is sized for whom?”

Rainbow blinked, shrugged to herself, then looked up to the ceiling. “Uh, Computer? Which one is for whom?”

“Standard uniform jumpsuit feature thirty-seven: Auto-Size adjustment.” The Computer reported with an odd crackle to the voice. “Error. Shield resonance interfering with tertiary computer functions. Mild speech synthesis errors will ensue.”

Rainbow hummed. “We better do guns quickly then.”

“Good idea,” I agreed. “Let’s find whatever their version of a grenade launcher is and make me one.”

Yes. Soon!

“Better idea,” Speed said with an evil giggle. “Computer! My girls need guns. Lots of guns.”

The computer beeped. “Command received. Select parameter: Enemy boarding vessel. Ground assault. Boarding enemy vessels. Everything is proper fucked.”

Vinyl giggled and covered her mouth with one hoof. “Hehehe! It swears like a foal.”

“Everything is proper bucked?” Rainbow asked hopefully.

“Parameter accepted… Performing neural scan of ship occupants…” A blue beam of light blinked into existence, starting at the ceiling and quickly sweeping down across everypony before vanishing into the floor. “Android detected. Performing data download.”

I felt something poke at my memory files. It was too fast to react to. In the blink of a processor cycle, the ship had everything I ever learned downloaded. Bucking Tartarus… I want that bandwidth! That magical, extract more info from a system at once than that system could output bandwidth. How the buck did it do that?!

“Personality profiles generated,” the computer announced. “Replicating primary and secondary weapons best suited for each crewmember and delivering to their position via the transport grid. Standby…”

“Huh,” I said as I blinked a few times to take that in. “Too bad we didn’t know it could do things like that. Did Lyra tell you that, Speed?”

Speed shook her head. “Nah. I just figured anypony who makes something like the Star Blaster has to have a “oh buck give gun now” command for their stuff-makers.”

I opened my mouth to say that Speed had a good point but stopped as a thousand flavors of chaos magic sparkled before my eyes. They flickered in and out of existence, bringing something glorious into existence just for me.

Three barrels. Each lined with dozens of cooling fins. A sleek, sexy, industrial-looking main body with a rotary system and a belt feed. A small blister on the bottom appeared to be some sort of mana reactor based on the energies I could sense within. Hookups for a battle saddle. A simple, elegant, electronic scope.

But most of all, a name painted in white on the simple, classy, blued steel weapon of my dreams.

M-900 A2 Rotary Grenade Cannon

I picked the weapon up with reverence and hugged it to my barrel. “Dear, how do I load you?” I asked as I stroked the barrels with a hoof.

“The M-900 A2 features an internal replicator. The reactor can create nine thousand and one rounds before a replacement fuel rod is required. The weapon has an internal carousel and automatically cycles between six fuel rods. Grenade type can be selected via data-link while the weapon is in use.” The computer reported.

I started to drool a little. Then a lot.

Vinyl cleared her throat. “Okay, everypony. Let’s give Gears and her new marefriend a few minutes alone.”

Rainbow jumped out of the captain’s chair. “YEP! Computer, delay creating our weapons until we are out of the room…”

I snapped open my battle saddle’s left mount, completely ignoring everything everypony was saying. Even if I died, even if we failed and the world ended in a shower of rocks and magma as an asteroid plunged straight through the plant’s heart, I had a marefriend and a rotary grenade launcher.

Life! Complete!

45 - Shootout at Space Ponyville

☢★★ Whirling Gears ★★☢

It felt a little weird to be standing in a circle in an intact room with a bunch of ponies wearing the same new outfit. Kinda like the war never happened. Only it had.

I liked the Hazard Suits. They had a sleek but protective look to them. I also liked how Vinyl had managed to put hers on over her space suit. Not only was her glowing radioactive body not hurting everypony but, like, come on.

Her suit had a suit.

It was cute. And also gave me something to think about other than the sheer impossibility of the task ahead of us while Rainbow had us walking side by side into the transporter room. Except for Loom. She was slightly behind everypony because, well, hallway space.

“Shouldn’t we be at least jogging?” Loom asked Rainbow with just a hint of confusion slipping through her helmet’s vox.

“No,” Rainbow muttered as if we were in a library.

Loom’s question popped open the floodgates. We all had questions.

“Also why do we have to all be in a line shoulder to shoulder?” Speed asked.

“What lamp prismatic pony place at start of walk for?” Desi added quickly.

“Cartoon reference. Equality League, Season One,” Mom said like that explained anything.

“It helps me focus on a mission if I can start it with something cool, okay?” Rainbow grumbled under her breath.

Vinyl snickered to herself.

Loom facehooved. “Oh, my, Celestia… We’re doing the intro!”

“Shut up.” Rainbow grumbled around a deep blush.

We continued to do whatever it was we were doing for another minute before we reached the transporter room. Desi popped the door open and we all slipped inside, walking up onto the big circular platform under Desi’s directions.

Apparently long range teleportation required an “antenne” of sorts, and stuff had to either start from the antenne or go to the antenne. The more I learned about wizardry, the less I wanted to ever get into it as a career. Thank goodness I wasn’t a unicorn.

“Everyone ready?” Rainbow asked one last time. “Remember the plan?”

“Yes,” everypony replied together.

We’d gone over the plan a dozen times. It wasn’t like anyone could be more ready.

Dash nodded twice and then gave everypony one last worried look in the eyes. “You’re sure? We have one shot at this. I don’t even know if the plan will work right.”

Vinyl facehooved. “I’m with Gears, Gears is a robot. She literally can’t forget—”

I elbowed her in the barrel. “I forget things all the time,” I remembered irritably.

Mom’s ears perked up. “I designed her to emulate an organic pony. Hence she randomly deletes ancillary information based on an RNG algorithm.”

Dash’s ears fell as she wheeled around to face mom. “But… but her model was intended for spying.”

“No.” Mom said flatly.

“She was going to put herself in me originally, kill everypony at the MAS hub and escape to Neighpone. I was never going to really be mass produced.” I explained

Mom nodded once. “Yes.”

Rainbow blinked twice. “I— I didn’t know that. There are pre-war secrets I don’t know. COOL!”

I took a half step away from the slightly crazy mare.

Speed’s left eye twitched slightly. “For buck’s sake!” she pointed to Vinyl and I with one hoof. “They teleport to the hab module and vent it to space because Rainbow can replenish the animals and stuff from stored geneseed later, and they’re the only ponies here who can survive vacuum exposure. I go to the barracks and do what I do best and also steal their pretzels for Desi, if they have any, if not, make one make pretzels before killing them. Desi and Loom take over the command deck with you, and Gear’s mom asks the station’s reactor to turn off. Everypony rushes B after—”

“The command deck,” Rainbow corrected.

Speed shot Rainbow an irritated look, snorted, and restated, “Everypony Rushes B, ie, objective two, after finishing their primary objective, and backs up Rainbow.”

“Yep,” Loom agreed, flexing her neck idly.

She’d insisted on keeping her power armor on, which everypony was fine with. Except for Desi. Desi insisted everypony should have their uniform in a way that Rainbow decided invoked actual OCD. So poor Loom had to squeeze into the Hazard Suit then slide her armor over it.

Her obvious discomfort levels were off the scale. But… well… If the pony from the future says you should do something, you do it.

Rainbow sighed, flicked her tail, then nodded up to Desi who was still riding Loom’s back. “Okay. Desi, is everypony’s coordinates punched in?”

Desi nodded and made an exasperated popping sound. “Correct.”

They had been for about fifteen minutes now by my clock.

Rainbow took a deep breath to calm herself. “Six mares, half an alien armory, a horseapples idea, and a pending firefight in a space station…”

Mom fachooved and pointed one of her mechanical graspers at Desi. “Engage transport beam before she loops this level’s briefing again.”

Desi’s horn glowed as she hit the final command on the teleporter’s terminal. The terminal hummed, clicked, and beeped. The pad beneath our hooves sparkled, shimmered, began to glow white, and then I was standing in a field of grass.

A field of grass I would admire after doing my best to hope Mom didn’t think she was playing some old video game. Seriously, mom… phrasing.

“Woah…” Vinyl said quietly prompting me to pay full attention to our surroundings.

We were standing on a hill. A green grassy hill. In a pleasant breeze that smelled like flowers and fruit and something I couldn’t recognise. There were trees for kilometers and kilometers to our left. Not the short, prickly, stick-things, but real trees. Living ones. With green leaves that rustled and blew in the wind.

To our right was a town. A pre-war town. Nothing was burnt, everything looked… time worn. A little old. And a bit overgrown in places, but everything was, like, intact. Nothing needed fixing. You could just move in and… do whatever you liked to do. No construction needed.

Freaky.

I blinked a few times as I tried to figure out why this scene was just so alien and wrong. Then it hit me. We weren't on a planet. It totally felt like we were, but we weren't. I’ll bet my squishy friends couldn’t tell, but I could feel the spin the station had. There wasn’t gravity here, just, spin.

Subtle, and wrong. To go with the intact town’s overt and wrong. And the weirdness of the living plant life everywhere.

Also, there was more land overhead. Stardrop Station had three big “wings'' of the cylinder portion dedicated to being a living area. All covered in nature. Fine and fair enough.

The light beam and clouds in the middle of the cylinder that served as a sun was fine but… Did the windows need to exist? They were just as big as each wing but, ya know, looked out into the endless yawning void of space.

It kinda looked like the world had just split apart revealing an endless pit rather than the core of Equis… But that wasn’t the most unsettling thing about this place.

I could feel the Void. Not the void of space, but the metaphysical place spirits dwelt. It was closer here. Much closer.

My ears flicked back as I remembered Rainbow’s explanation of magic being more powerful in space. Of course it was. Without the planet’s magnetic fields and the signal noise made by leylines… of course my link to the realm of spirits would be greater as well.

Is this what ancient spirits felt like all the time? Access to a constant supply of power, but also constantly aware of the hair’s breadth between existence as your own entity and falling back into the screaming? Lost amongst the infinite spirits damned to the Void?

I shivered and turned towards the town. Rainbow said the air lock was in the Ponyville Replica.

“Come on, let’s get to it.” I said as I started trotting my way towards our goal.

“Hold on,” Vinyl said with a happy sigh. “I forgot that the world looks nice when it’s not exploded.”

“Ehhhh…” I winced and shrugged. “Looks more creepy to me. Everything’s alive and… like if I took a nap or ran out of power for a week some of this grass might grow into my gears or something. It’s just, not okay, you know?”

Vinyl snorted, then giggled. “Robot mares…”

I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?”

”Now, Gears,” Dad said politely. ”She has a very good point.”

How bucking good is your radio transmitter? I asked silently as I shook my head incredulously.

“Pretty bucking great, apparently!”

Vinyl turned her head, smiled, opened her mouth to say something, then a blue bolt of light slammed into the ground between us, scorching some of the grass.

“Freeze!” A stallion’s voice called from above.

“Oh right, the Enclave,” Vinyl said, quickly shaking herself out of her pre-war nice-place trance.

I reared up to aim my battle saddle his way and let my new toy spin up. There wasn't just one stallion, there were ten. All of them clad in the bug-like enclave arial armor and hovering, ready to shoot.

And shoot they did.

A dozen M.E.W. bolts splashed against our shields. The Hazard Suits hummed and vibrated lightly with each hit. Unlike a pony built shield, there was no flash. No sparks. No blinding burst of light. Their shots just stopped. Vanishing.

A little boring. But, based on the way the Enclave squad’s rate of fire dropped off to nothing after a few moments… differently intimidating.

I felt just a little bad for them. Sure these guys were racial supremacists, but… There’s fighting and then there’s just plain old not-fair massacring.

“Hi!” I called up to the ponies. “We picked up some alien shields from the mothership on the way over. If you want to surrender, you should go inside. We’re kinda gonna vent the atmosphere. Later!”

The stallion at the group’s front swore under his breath. “Gray Squad to command, intruders are heavily shielded. Low-power shots wont—”

Vinyl fired her pistol. The sickly-blue bolt of light lanced out and struck the stallion in the jaw. He spasmed, crunching into a ball as he fell.

“RISK THE BREACH AND FIRE FULL POWER BOLTS!” somepony bellowed.

I began to lock onto the remaining Enclave troopers. They began to fire. This time their bolts crackled and sparked off four Hazard Suit’s shields. I could see the energy readings on the little eye-piece thing. I could take this for maybe thirty seconds. Probably less.

No problem! One grenade for each of your pie-holes coming right u—

Vinyl twisted her helmet with her magic and pulled it off, floating it at her side.

“Check your rad counters,” Vinyl shouted over the M.E.W. fire.

The squad began to pull back, flapping upwards as they fired down, their aim going wild as they backed off from what my systems and slight blurring vision were telling me was approximately 200 rads per second.

I turned my neck to look at Vinyl in confusion.

She grunted. “I know you prefer more challenging targets. They were like ten meters up.”

I quickly reassessed my target locks. Still green!

I nodded, said “Yep,” and sent my new toy ten fire commands. One for each enemy.

Screeeeeeeeeeee—brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!

A lot happened at once.

An arousing number of grenades went flying.

I “teleported” onto my butt and plowed a rut about two meters long into the hillside.

The Enclave squadron aerosolized.

The hundred or so grenades that didn’t hit them burst in the air, blasting holes into pegasi-hardened cloud formations.

I learned that each fire command was for a fifteen round burst.

“Eeeee!” I squeed mostly to myself… and everypony in a two kilometer radius.

Vinyl used her telekinesis to pick me up and put me on my hooves. “So, that’s a “on-all-fours” gun.”

“Yep!” I giggled happily. “Okay, let’s vent this airlock!”

I started to gallop towards the somewhat distant town, Vinyl was on my tail, clipping her helmet back into place as we ran. The replica-town was maybe forty seconds away. The airlock was located in the town square where the city hall would have been in the old town.

Those directions would have been way more helpful if I knew any of Ponyville’s layout or streets.

“Follow me,” Vinyl said as she ran ahead.

“Oh yeah, you used to live here.”

“No, I lived in the not-space one.”

“Right.”

“Same difference though.”

I turned to look at Vinyl, tilting my head slightly. “How so?” I asked before realizing something was very wrong. “Wait, why aren't other Enclave soldiers—”

Several hundred somethings slammed into my back, knocking me flat against the ground and sliding me across the dirt hard enough to leave plumes of soil. My Hazard Suit’s hud screamed red at me, something about shields depleted and kinetic overload. I couldn’t even begin to process what the buck just happened before something roughly the size of a freight train slammed into my back hard enough for me to feel my subdermal armor buckle.

Something hoof shaped. But huge.

Oh.

Oh no.

“The buck stops here, Stripe,” Gale said with uncharacteristic calm. “No more games. No more you.”

I gathered my hooves to push upwards and try to throw Gale off. Gale pushed down, crushing me underhoof. The ground beneath me gave, compacting under the force of power armor and augmented flesh much more easily than my chassis… Though the pops, creaks, and error messages flashing in my eyes couldn’t be good for me at all.

Pressure Warning: Desist present activity. If you don’t, I'll know, and I’ll paint your chassis pink when I fix you.

Yeah thanks, mom. I’ll get right on—

Gale pushed harder, definitely taking exception to my squirming. Pain started to radiate out from my back in spite of the kinetic dampeners in my Hazard Suit.

Ow! Okay, yeah, I’m—

I heard Bad Trip fire three times, and three crackle and pops as the shots splattered off Gale’s armor.

“Only I tell my mare when the buck stops!” Vinyl shouted.

It had to have sounded way better in her head.

Gale said nothing. A servo hummed. A minigun spat lead. Explosive lead. Something heavy and wet hit the ground.

Horror kickstarted my failing hydraulics. I shifted myself to the left, not far but just enough to de-center Gale’s hoof. The force popped me out from under him like a Sparkle Cola cap off a shaken bottle. I rolled, bounced, then sprang up right… only to see Vinyl’s limp, splattered form laying in four pieces atop the hill.

I stretched out a hoof towards her, stammering nonsense through the pain and horror.

Gale laughed. His suit hummed as he aimed all four of his guns at me. “Little known fact, Stripe. Magic is at least ten times more potent up here than it is down on Equus. You have always won by a hair. Luck, Stripe. That’s what’s saved you from me so many times. But not this time. Not here. Sure, the feeble systems in your mechanical body will give you a boost as well, but it wont make a difference.”

No. No she was a canterlot ghoul. She’d start regenerating, right?

“You’re no super soldier, you’re no assassin, you’re not even a mage,” Gale said as he placed his hoof on the back of my head, crushing it into the dirt.

Vinyl wasn’t regenerating. Her dismembered form lay still on the grass, blood pooling around her. She must have been hit in the head.

I felt my eyes flood with tiers. She was gone. She was gone and there was nothing I could do. Nothing...

“You’re not even a real zebra. The reality is, you’re just an equoid, and I am a—”

Something deep down in my soul snapped. My reactor’s smooth pulsing beats spiked into a glowing, burning, mass of hatred. My coolant began to boil. My soul reached out and grabbed hold of the unnerving energies of the Void.

“You’re a Ḑ̸̑E̵͚̒Ä̶͉́D̵͍̓ ̵̜͝S̶̠̑T̷̰̍A̶̼̽L̶̗̈L̷̰̃Í̷͉Ò̶̬N̴̮͆!̴̜̕” I roared, rolling over under Gale’s pin to take hold of his power shod hoof and throw him off of me in one smooth motion.

Gale backed in surprise as he tumbled over, controlled his roll with a blast from his armor’s maneuvering jets, and landed on his hooves.

I didn’t bother getting up, I aimed my cannon and fired.

Screeeeeeeeeeee—brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!

Gale dodged. Thrusters burning brightly. Hundreds of rounds detonated, blowing a trench through the side of the hill. I picked myself up as I fired, painting a trailing line of explosions behind Gale as he took to the air, always a step ahead of my shots no matter how I tried to lead them.

Gale opened fire. His four cannons spun and roared, tearing furrows in the hill in front of me as the line of explosive rounds started to trace through my position.

I could feel the magic in each round. The enchantments that let them burst into the blaze of white fire which had taken my love from me. They were machines. Simple ones. Still machines. They were in my domain.

I willed them to detonate. Gale’s shots exploded in front of me as if striking an invisible barrier. I continued to fire. Gale continued to evade my shots.

He couldn’t dodge forever. I could see his thrusters glowing. They weren’t meant for sustained flight… and if he could come in range, perhaps I could overpower his armor just as I had his bullets.

My M-900 beeped loudly, a temperature warning popped into view on my HUD. I kept firing. A second later my canon clicked as the fuel rod was depleted. Her barrels stopped belching fire. A large glowing white, half molten rod ejected from her bottom and melted its way into the loose dirt. Motors hummed and ratchets clicked as she began to load her next fuel rod.

Gale swooped down from the sky and rammed into my side, launching us down the hill and back towards the replica town. My shield took the impact, popping and sparking as it collapsed from the strain. Half a heartbeat later we blasted through the plaster and wicker wall of a small home on the edge of town.

Dust and debris blasted everywhere. I felt part of my face scrape off against a support beam. We hit the floor, still locked together. The floor failed immediately, unable to support our weight. I rolled and twisted as we plunged through the timbers, managing to land atop Gale and blast him point blank with the Minosian shotgun strapped to my saddle’s other mount.

The slug pinked off his armor, leaving a dent.

Gale flicked a foreleg, throwing me off of him, across the furnished yet destroyed living room, and through a multi-paned glass window, getting a bit impaled by the wooden frame. I bounced across the street for a moment, stumbled up to my hooves, and fired a burst of grenades through the window at Gale’s rising form.

They hit. All fifteen hit. Shards of armor plate blasted out through the window, slicing my face, Hazard Suit, and neck. Gale roared in pain and jumped through the entire crumbling wall, quad-guns blazing, helmet and barrel plate almost entirely gone.

I willed his rounds to detonate. Some did, others ignored my commands, too consumed by their master’s rage to heed any other voice. I jumped to my left to doge, my right shoulder slid into one of the bullet streams. Sparks showered out from the hit as my suit tried to compensate, failed, and caught fire. Three rounds ripped into my shoulder, tearing at the servos and frame which held my leg on.

I ignored the damage. It didn’t matter.

I ran into the street, zigzagging to throw off Gales targeting. Without his helmet, he couldn’t aim well. Understandable, rotary cannons are hard. Plenty of recoil.

It hardly mattered. Rounds tore through my back and flanks. My vision began to fill with warnings and error messages. I ignored them. They didn’t matter. My magic plugged the gaps with crackling light.

Taking cover behind the wall, I took stock of everything I had.

Shotgun.

Rotary grenade launcher.

Eye laser.

Untested plasma weapons built into forelegs.

Insufficient, but it would have to do.

Gale’s hooves pounded against the cobblestone street. I needed to get some distance from him or this wouldn’t work. There wouldn’t be time to aim. I broke cover and sprinted deeper into town, pushing every ounce of magic I could harvest into my leg’s servos.

They cracked, wined, and crackled. I could feel liquefied bearing components dripping through my legs.

Irrelevant. Ignore melting. It is less painful than what he’s done to me already.

Gale continued to fire as we ran through the mock-town’s streets and alleyways. Walls crumbled ahead of me. Stone chips rained down as craters were blown into the street. Business signs splintered, glass shattered. Bullets tore up my back and legs. My suit burned, melting the flesh, rubber, and warping the plate beneath it.

But I gained ground. Slowly but surely I gained ground. One second… then two.. Then three… soon I would have four seconds of ground. All I would need.

I ducked into one last alley. Possibly a mistake. I could see the alley ran into a large open courtyard of some kind ahead of me. Maybe a plaza. Huge, with a fountain in the middle. Or maybe a pool.

One shot. Now or never. Failure meant no cover. That would be the end.

But.

Gale could not turn or dodge in this narrow brick walled alley.

I ran to the end of the alley, spun on my rear hooves, the now bare steel kicking up sparks and gouging lines into the granite stones.

Gale was four seconds behind me, screaming rage and fury as he fired all throughout his charge. A walking tank with a big hole in the frontal armor. Perfect.

I reared up. My battle saddle adjusted aim, bringing my launcher and shotgun to bear on Gale’s head. Not enough.

I activated my eye laser. Its capacitors charged almost instantly due to my melting core’s extra power.

Emergency valves across my chassis popped open, venting gasses from my various boiling fluids. The remains of my smouldering suit and flesh ignited some of them and made my body match the burning flames of rage that had become my soul.

My forelegs split open, deploying the plasma pistols Desi had installed for me. They hummed and crackled as my core instantly overcharged them. My hooves seemed to glow with their awesome power.

Gale’s charge faltered. He threw his hooves out, trying to skid to a stop to reverse direction. “Oh, shi—”

I unleashed my love, my anger, and all of my sorrow.

The alley disintegrated. Brick melted. Grenades blasted everything I could see to shrapnel. Nothing could have survived the hellfire I’d created. It was done.

I slumped to my knees. The magic sustaining me began to fade. It was time to die. Perhaps the shreds of Jasmine’s soul within me would let me return to Vinyl’s side once I finished burning.

A hydraulic actuator hummed, screeching in mechanical pain.

Was that one of mine? Were any of them still working?

No.

The smoke and dust filling the ex-alley way began to clear. Gale struggled up to his hooves, his armor, sparking, smouldering, and shattered, but still just barely functional. Gale seemed to be mostly fine. Burnt fur. A deep cut on his forehead that dripped blood into his eye. Some shrapnel cuts on his barrel, but he was moving.

“Oh, come on!” I attempted to shout, though my slagging vocabulator could only manage a crackling whisper.

Gale stumbled forwards, reaching up to his neck with his right hoof to tug a small talisman worn on a chain out from the smouldering remains of his armor.

A shield talisman. A melted, very much now broken shield talisman.

Gale gave me a single impressed nod. “There’s now one zebra I respect.” He said as he walked over to my locked up form.

I willed myself to get up and continue fighting. The intense magic I had felt before was so much more dim now. Had I used everything in the area up so quickly? How fast would more energy flood in from the edges of this bubble?

Gale dragged his crumbling armored bulk to me and picked me up, one hoof on my chest, the other on my pelvis.

Come on… MOVE! He was still alive, you need to move, body!

I managed to get my left foreleg to swing at Gale’s head. I missed.

Gale grunted, grit his teeth, and pulled. His armor whined, howled, groaned, but pull he did. My chassis cracked, popped, and with a loud snap, I was split in half.

My color vision winked out, leaving the world a red-scale mess drowning in so many error messages I couldn’t see a thing.

I felt Gale wrench his shoulder as he threw my hind legs as far from me as he could. His hoof came back, gripped my right foreleg, wrenched it off with little difficulty, and a moment later it joined my legs wherever they had been flung too.

“There,” Gale said decisively and quietly before dropping me to the cobblestones.

I cleared the warning labels. I wanted to see death coming. If I couldn’t avenge Vinyl, then at least I could go out bravely.

I looked up to see Gale lifting his leg to crush me underhoof. It was time.

“Do it now,” I said as best as I could with my still melting systems. “Or the fire will beat you to it.”

Gail began his stomp.

TSSSSEW!

A bolt of blue streaked out of nowhere, striking Gale in the chest. Gale froze, his face twisted in agony as she screamed in pain.

“GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH!” Vinyl screamed with the lungs of someone who was very much not dead.

But… how?

Another blue bolt from Bad Trip blasted Gale in the side, he staggered towards the fountain. I turned my head to see Vinyl walking forwards, putting shot after shot into the alchemically enhanced super soldier.

She was in one piece, so was her suit, but she was limping badly, her face contorted with pain, and… she was rad free.

Gale continued to stagger and stumble with each shot Vinyl pumped into him. How the hay he was able to resist having a seizure and dying when everypony else that gun hit dropped in one shot, I had no idea. But my mare was alive! And badflank!

Vinyl took another limping step forwards and fired. Gale slumped down to his knees at this last bolt. Vinyl pulled Bad Trip’s trigger again, but this time, no bolt. The power cell had run dry.

Her eyes widened in terror.

Gale panted, groaned, and stood up, spitting a line of blood onto the fountain. Specifically onto the little metal panel with a few buttons and a little twist-lever-knob thing on it.

“Are you done?” Gale growled, clearly in extreme pain.

Why did the fountain have a small control pan—

Oh. Oh hello…

“Because if you’re not,” Gale panted as he turned towards Vinyl and extended his armor’s hoof blade. “I am going to be so, bucking, nettled!”

Vinyl laughed nervously. “I’m going to chalk that one up to the dozen seizures you just shook off.”

I extended my remaining leg and pulled myself towards the panel.

Gale begna to limp his way towards vinyl.

Vinyl began to dig through her saddle bags frantically.

Gale begna to laugh in an extra-insane tone.

“COME ON I HAVE TEN MORE OF THEM!” Vinyl scream-yelped amid frantic searching noises.

I reached the “fountain”.

“Canterlot ghoul, correct?” Gale asked between hysterical laughs. “I blew your head off last time. Was it the rads that saved you, or do you need to cut the neck from the head? No matter, no more rads for you, and I desperately want to cut somepony!”

I tapped the code Rainbow had told me into the bloody, sticky panel, twisted the lever thinning, and hit the big red button with a little, “Boop!”

The airlock hissed open without any warning. Purge mode. Intended for repelling an invasion.

The open hatch created an instant hurricane as all of the air decided to try and rush out of the airlock at once. I skid across the stones and hit the lip of the decorative airlock bezel, catching for just long enough to watch Gale get blown out into space.

If I had a mouth, I’d have smiled.

I won, asshole.

For a second. On the bright side, the vacuum and wind blew out the fire burning in my chassis. On the down side, I was about to be freeze solid for I too was sucked out into space.

But only for a moment.

Vinyl’s blue aura engulfed me, and slowly, but surely dragged me back into Star Drop station. I got a look at Vinyl, belly braced against a lamp post she was gripping with every last one of her legs, her eyes locked onto me as she grit her teeth in concentration, keeping me safe from the depressurization hurricane.

Then, after what felt like forever, the wind stopped.

Vinyl pulled me close with her telekinesis and hugged me close. I felt a painful burst of static as she turned her suit’s radio to my frequency.

“Are you alright, hon?” Vinyl asked.

“Your zebra requires significant repairs and will now shut down,” I said honestly.

“You go ahead and turn off, dear. I’ll get you all the help you need,” Vinyl said as she held me close.

Then the blackness came for me.

Epilogue - 5 Years Later

“... and that’s how I met your mother,” I finished.

Bright Skies, Vinyl and my adopted colt, blinked six times. “You died?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

Bright glared at me. “Horseapples!”

I giggled. “I’m a robot, hon. Grandma fixed me right up!”

My little peach maned tan colt dragged his forehooves across his eyes. “Okay but also none of that had really anything to do with… anything!”

I frowned and tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

“You just… stopped before… What happened to Pip? What was the Prince doing? What happened with the book he ordered? How did you stop the Enclave?” Bright whined, flapping his little wings irritably.

“Oh,” I shrugged. “Vinyl and I weren’t really around for any of that. Expect the book. I delivered it once I was repaired. But, Pip had a pulmonary edema from laying down too long. Katydid's doctor fixed her up and she moved with Homage onto Star Drop because the pre-war environment sounded therapeutic to her. We could visit, maybe?”

I cleared my throat. “The Prince had found a copy of the Black Book, not a magic one, just a copy of the text. He was going to use dark magic from it to let Celestia possess him, if she wanted, so she could fix the wasteland. She said no. Mom’s got a robotic body for her on her build list.”

I thought back over the last five years to try and get everything else I could for my little pony.

“As for how we stopped the Enclave… Um, I was offline for that. I heard that Loom, Speed, and Desi just sort of went and killed them all,” I answered honestly.

I’d heard that bit in a lot of detail, but unlike the rest of Vi and my story, it wasn't exactly suitable for little ponies.

Bright opened his mouth to protest, but Speed dipped her head into the reading room and smiled. “Almost all! A few actually managed to be faster than me and beamed out before we got the power offline. I like to go hunt for them sometimes. See, this one officer that got away is Type O, and that is the best!”

“Oh,” Bright said contently.

He knew full well how good Auntie Speed was at killing things.

“So yeah… they might pop up again,” I said with a shrug. “But, it doesn’t matter much. There won't be many of them left, and since Rainbow’s keeping the station online but under her direct control, and it’s not like you can kill her long enough to fire that thing before she reforms and kills you right back… We’re pretty safe. Everypony can start rebuilding properly now.”

“What about your griffon friend?” Bright asked.

“Oh he just went back home. We could also visit him, sometime. When you’re old enough to fly.”

Bright chuffed and crossed his little forelegs over his barrel and sank back into the library couch. “Fine… You could have just said “We met during an adventure!” though… and you didn’t say where I came from…”

I giggled, blushing a little. “Oh! Sorry… Um, Speed found you in a burnt out house to the south and—”

“And I gave you to my friends because I don’t know how to make life keep existing. That’s the opposite of my job,” Speed called loudly.

“Shhhhhh!” somepony hissed from the library shelves.

“Actually your job is assistant librarian,” I corrected Speed.

I’d been so happy when she discovered that shelving books was enjoyable to her. There weren't very many bad guys for her to go nuts on these days. That would probably change soon, but for now, it was a good thing my best friend the murder machine had something besides killing she could like doing.

I nodded and bit my lip a little. “Well, yes, but without all of the context—”

Bright hopped off the couch and trotted into the library’s main room. “Aunt Speed! You said it was a good story!”

“It’s a totally awesome story! Your moms airlock killed a dude,” Speed called back. “That’s rarer than a railing kill. Even I don’t have that achievement yet. Sheesh. Tough crowd.”

“But it’s so looooong!” Bright moaned. “And she didn’t finish it good!”

“I was dead for the end,” I huffed crossing my forelegs.

“Ugh, fine… that’s a good reason, I guess,” Bright grumbled bitterly.

I shook my head and stood up, giving him a little pat on his peach mane. “You’ll like it more when you’re older. Longer stories can be some of the most fun! Now I’ll see you the day after tomorrow. I have to get to work.”

I trotted past my son and gave Speed a polite nod. “Take good care of him while Vi and I are out. And remember, no more taking him Windigo hunting.”

“Yeah yeah,” Speed said with a dismissive hoof wave. “Don’t worry, I’m going to take him out target practicing so next time he won't get half eaten.”

“Good,” I said with a nod.

Most mothers would probably be concerned about that sort of thing. I wasn’t. Bright couldn’t have a better teacher, and he’d have to fight more than a few times if he wanted to make it to old age.

Besides, he’d managed to take down the Windigo before it killed him. That’s talent.

“Oh!” Speed exclaimed, turning after me. “Your mom said she and Desi will be at the Crystal City for a few more days. They think they might be able to get your dad out of the network this time.”

I looked over my shoulder. “I hope so… Will you be okay with your mares being gone a few more days?”

The three of them made for the cutest little herd. Though it did suck that a lot of ponies through Desi was their filly. At least it only took one or two corrections for them to remember the tiny space mare was an adult.

I passed through the library and stopped by the door to put on my coat, and the mail mare’s hat the Prince had made for me as payment for delivering his book. Then I slipped on my postmare’s bags, and headed out the door.

Vinyl looked up from her seat on the porch and tucked a sheath of papers into her saddlebags. The light caught the blood-ice amulet I’d gotten specially made for her as a wedding present.

Safe forever. No going feral for my mare.

“New song?” I asked curiously.

“Yeah,” she nodded and then laughed. “The Sparkle Cola Corporation wants a new jingle and I wrote the first one sooo, one of their big-huge amazon bots clomped through about an hour ago asking for me. Never thought I’d do work for a corporation again. Soooo, we heading out?”

“Mhm,” I began to trot down the walkway to the street.

“Any idea what we’re delivering?” Vinyl asked as she fell into step beside me.

“Nope, but we get to do route 8!” I said with a smile.

“Isn’t that the route you wrestled a polar bear on?”

“Mhm!” I mean they all were, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Sounds like fun,” Vinyl said shaking her head slowly. “Okay, let’s go deliver the mail.”

“There's nothing else I’d like to do with you more, dear,” I said with a smile and a happy sigh.

Author's Note

It's been a wild ride. I hope you guys enjoyed it more than I did.

Me? I've discovered that I am not very good at writing fanfiction of fanfiction. The constraints needed to make something that fits with another's work when that work is already constrained by something else is not something I enjoy doing. This almost killed my love of writing... But I think it was worth it. Especially because, I did not leave this thing unfinished.

Don't expect more Fallout Equestria from me any time soon. But, a little bird tells me that there's a disturbance in the Betaverse that requires my attention... and an Oscillation Overthruster. Anyone know if you can pick those up at Autozone?

1 - International Shipping

Author's Note

Author’s Note: This fic is based on kkat’s Fallout: Equestria and is intended as a sequel. Familiarity with the source material will help with comprehension, but is not required as most everything will be explained as needed in this fic via the classic “Fish out of water” trope. However, I cannot recommend Fallout: Equestria highly enough. If you haven’t read it, you should.

I have a basic summary of the Great War and how it changed Equestria available here for those who want to read it. It’s a mixture of the canon story, kkat’s lore-expanding blogs, and my own creative work which was used to fill gaps. It is not canon to FO:E for that reason, though it does use the canon lore.

Kkat, if you read this, I hope you like it even half as much as I liked FO:E.

Editing by: ClockworkMage and Popmannn.

Special Thanks To...

1 - International Shipping

The door creaked as I walked into the library for the first time in a week.

“Mom! I’m home!” I called as I kicked the snow off my boots.

The rubber soles squeaked against the well-trodden floorboards. I loved that sound. Nowhere else in Lith had a wooden floor worn this smooth. The sharp squeak is how I knew I was really home. Being a courier is a job that makes most everypony homesick. Even if you happen to have the fastest trot in the whole kingdom.

I turned my ears this way and that as I took off my radhare fur-lined cloak, listening for mom’s reply. I remembered how ponies protested against raising animals for their fur years ago. Then the arcane winter blanketed Pomare and Rainbow’s Fall in negative sixty degree, radioactive blizzards. Those animal rights ponies suddenly got real quiet.

Personally, I still would prefer a nice pre-war cloak. Fur is nothing compared to something like Her Majesty's robe.

No sign of mom. Maybe she was sleeping?

I unbuckled my battle saddle and hefted it up onto its hook. My saddle didn’t have any weapons attached to it. My normal run wasn’t dangerous enough for me to be issued a rifle. Instead I used my dad’s old pistol.

He claimed it was a Hyperbreeder, but I knew better. It was a normal Recharger pistol he tweaked until he made it into an auto-pistol. He’d given it to me for my thirteenth birthday. It never left my flank.

I’d debated attaching it to my battle saddle a few times, but I didn’t want to pay for a custom attachment mount. Besides, adding weapons would mean I couldn’t use my saddle’s stilt strider and shoot at the same time. Being able to move through deep snow is more important than packing firepower.

The short barrel would probably also not protrude past my couriers’ bags, which presented a pretty obvious problem.

Couriers’ bags are pre-war relics. They are densely enchanted, with space increasing, weight reducing, weather proofing, and anti-theft enchantments. If I damaged one, it would mean years in jail and a fine my family could not afford. The Courier's Office does not mess around with our most important and least replaceable resource.

More importantly, it would mean I failed at my job. Unacceptable.

I paused for a moment to make sure the slender spider-like stilt strider wasn’t going to pull my saddle off the wall. The strider was the reason I had a battle saddle to begin with. They wouldn’t attach to anything else and if you need to cross an extra deep snow drift, a shallow river, or a patch of sticky mud. There’s nothing better than a good stilt strider.

Satisfied that this hook would hold the robotic stilt’s weight, I cleared my throat and called out again.

“Mom? I’m home!”

Nothing replied. Other than my echo from deep within the archives.

I trotted out of the small arctic entry into the Library’s foyer. The smell of old spruce trees and lemon crystal polish assaulted my nose like sub-zero frost on a humid day. The small room held nothing more than Little Pew (our security turret), and the counter where books could be checked out. I hadn’t expected mom to be there, but there had been a small chance.

I poked my head into the Assistant’s Room. Copper wasn’t there. Her bed was still made. She must have spent the night with her coltfriend… And probably got lucky, otherwise she would have opened the library by now.

I sighed, rolled my eyes and muttered under my breath. “I’m older than you… How come everypony I watch grow up finds somepony and I’m just here watching from the sidelines?”

I turned and walked into the archives. The crystal shelves glimmered in the faint light coming through the windows, but the lights were off, casting an air of gloom over the stacks. I shivered, imagining for a moment that Pomare had at last succumbed to the windigo and I’d come home to a ghost town.

That feeling died as I noticed a new shelf of books had been added since I left. It was always nice to see the transcription project make progress. The ancient storage crystals mom brought north with her way back when wouldn’t last forever. We would need to copy the data over to new crystals one day.

If the crystals degraded before we could manufacture new holotapes or crystals… Mom’s condition would either get worse, or she’d die from a nerd rage aneurysm.

“Mom? Are you here?” I called loudly as I walked through the rows of crystal shelves.

The shelves were nice. I got to watch one of the geomages grow one once. It’s amazing, the things crystal ponies can do. If only they could grow crystals with the right density and thaumaturgic capacitance for data crystals.

I looked up to see if mom was up in the reading loft. If she was deep into a technical manual she would be essentially deaf. I squinted through the shadows at the loft. No sign of a reading light, but mom didn’t need one.

I closed my eyes and listened. No rustle of paper. No quiet murmurs. She wasn’t reading.

She must be in our quarters.

I turned and walked through the archives into the house-portion of the library. The faint click of a well-oiled ratchet echoed through the narrow hallway from Mom’s workshop. I smiled and walked up to the slat-timber door and knocked quietly.

No response.

I smiled. Of course. She’s too invested. There's only one thing to do now.

I closed my eyes and waited for the sound of clicking to change. I had to time things just right and reach her between tasks.

The clicking stopped. I heard a mechanical hum and the sound of metal scraping against plastic. Mom’s half-way-normal synthesized voice murmured something in a loving tone. I strained my ears to listen.

“There we are. All better! Now don’t you let yourself get rusted up again, little mister,” Mom cooed.

I smiled and shook my head. The odds of mom working on anything with a spirit in it which could understand her were so low… She always talked to everything she fixed. I knew for a fact her mentor had trained her in the basics of shamanism, and she should know which items held spirits and which didn’t, as well as which spirits were powerful enough to talk with and which certainly weren’t.

She saw them in everything. Heard them, too. The few Shamen we had up here had tried and failed for years to determine if she was hearing something they couldn’t, or if it was another of her symptoms. Spoiler, it was a symptom.

I pushed the door to mom’s workshop open and stepped inside. She looked the same as she always did. Her old oil-stained red robe with faded gold trim concealed most of her body, allowing only her chrome plated biomechanical wings and six spindly cybernetic arms to be seen.

It’s amazing how many people mistake her for a robot on first sight.

“Hi, mom! I’m home,” I called loudly.

Mom looked up form her workbench where she had been replacing a rusted out leaf spring on a wheelbarrow which my own shamanistic senses showed me was completely spirit-free. As she turned towards me I could see the last bits of her original cyan fur around her mouth and jaw as she smiled. She had been so pretty once… A shame she couldn’t handle being made of something as easily damaged as meat.

“Gears! How are you, honey?” Mom’s unusually thin lips turned down slowly as she tried to understand that which was beyond her now. “Wait, you left? When? You were here a minute ago… Weren't you?”

I shook my head. “No mom. It’s been a week. Can you remember how many things you’ve done today?”

Mom nodded. “Of course I can. I left work with you, met your father, then we fled Fillydelphia when the sirens started and—”

I set a hoof on mom’s shoulder, grimacing slightly as I noticed I was covered in so much silt you couldn’t see my stripes. I must look like a gray earth pony mare right now… Note to self, take a bath after saying hi to dad.

“Mom, do you really think all of that can happen in one day?”

Mom’s frown deepened as she raised a silver hoof to her lips and thought hard for a long moment. “I— I don’t think so, no… No. They couldn’t have. But, they must have! I feel… It’s an anomaly. I know it’s an anomaly…. Perhaps I should check on— No. No that’s classified… Let’s move on.”

I looked into the distance for a moment. Mom’s condition was only slightly better than it had been years ago. Without medicine she wasn’t going to ever get much better than she was now. Unfortunately, we didn’t have anything that would help her.

Pre-war pharmaceutical manufacturing. Or greenhouses with seeds for potions. Two more things our Kingdom could really use.

“They didn’t mom. It’s been years. But that’s okay. You’ll remember one day.”

Mom nodded slowly. She was aware of her condition. Some of the time. Well, partially. Thank Celestia she could remain functional other than not understanding what time is and obsessing over every little machine.

If only her brain was a machine. Then she could fix herself. She’d planned on finding a way to replace that part of herself too, but then I happened.

Mom turned back to the wheelbarrow. “I need to deliver this to Dapper. He needs it before tomorrow and… Tomorrow has to be any minute now, right?”

I nodded. “Yep. It will be tomorrow soon.”

“Good. Days are too long,” Mom said quietly as she picked the wheelbarrow up with her spine-mounted arms.

“I’m going to see dad now. Do you need anything, mom?” I said as I stepped into her workshop so she could use the hallway.

Mom paused for a moment then nodded. “Yes. We are out of food.”

She reached into her robe’s pocket with a free mechanical arm and handed me our home’s ration card and her coinpurse. “Please get groceries.”

I took the card and tucked it behind my left ear while subtly sliding her coinpurse back into her pocket. I covered groceries. Not her. “Sure thing mom. Right after I talk to dad.”

“You’re such a good girl, Gears. I’m glad you’re always here for me… Your father could learn a thing or two from you! I haven't seen him since… This morning?” Mom asked as she looked off into the distance with a frown.

Oh, mom…

I pulled her close in a hug, squeezing a little tight before letting go. “He’ll be here soon.”

“Good.” Mom gave me a kiss on my cheek then sputtered. “Bleh! What on earth are you covered in?”

An embarrassed glow spread across my cheeks as I bit my tongue, thinking of a reply. “Silt. I fell in a river.”

That was true. Mom didn’t need to know why or how I fell in. Nor did I want to remember that myself. Suffice to say, I did a dumb for stupid reasons. At least now I knew that Feature could have fallen into the river by accident.

Mom’s head tilted as she inspected my face. The shadows beneath her deep hood bent away from her face, offering the slightest glimpse of the single glass visor slit which had replaced her eyes.

I shivered. The thought of wanting to cut out your own eyes simply because they were not something you could repair… I’ll never understand how she did this to herself. Emotionally, or physically. Thank Celestia MAS issued her a personal surgeon after she installed her own ocular replacements.

“This silt layer is unusually thick,” Mom said with an observant nod. “It may interfere with your body’s ability to cool itself properly. You should wash immediately.”

One of her mechanical arms produced a shop towel from Celestia knows where and began to dab at the silt covering my left side.

I smiled to prevent myself from rolling my eyes. “I already said I’d take a bath, mom.”

“Oh. Yes. That’s what that phrase means,” Mom’s lips pursed, the only remaining way to tell she was blushing. “Well, do that. Before you hurt something.”

She set the shop towel down on her workbench. Good. As much as I appreciate her care, being washed is just a little embarrassing.

I wanted to be snarky, but the odds were pretty good she simply didn’t remember that colloquialism anymore. I nodded and pointed to the wheelbarrow mom was still holding. “Don’t forget to deliver that.”

“Of course I wont forget to deliver it! I was simply making certain you were alright, as a good mother should,” Mom leaned forward to give me another kiss on the cheek, but stopped halfway through.

I frowned slightly and stepped backward. “What is it?”

Mom reached over to her oil-stained workbench with one of her mechanical arms and plucked a fresh shop towel from an open drawer, and gently wiped the silt from my check. Then she delivered her kiss.

I smiled. “Have a nice day mom.”

“Oh gosh…” Mom slowly frowned. “It’s been so long and so much has happened… I don’t think I can, sweetie. But I promise I’ll try.”

Mom turned and walked out of the room. I closed my eyes tightly and debated punching myself.

Damnit, Gears! She can’t tell time is passing anymore. Don’t tell her to have a nice day!

Thoroughly disappointed in myself, I walked down the hall and turned left, existing the library through the back door. I flinched, instinctively expecting a blast of frigid air, much to my embarrassment. After running a route, it’s hard to remember that Pomare’s Climate Shield is a thing.

I looked up and watched the pink and green energy bubble crackle as the wind threw ice and snow at the magical barrier. Our Kingdom was super lucky the Zebras hadn’t known about Site-11. Before the war, the MoT and MAS teams working in the Crystal City Facility set up a remote laboratory here.

Pomare’s main project had been the shield, an attempt to replicate the Crystal Heart’s enchantments, not only in case the Heart were sabotaged by a Zebrican Balefire Bomber, but also to make the Empire as a whole more habitable.

It worked! Well, it mostly worked. Well… It sort of worked. Mom often helped maintain the shield’s projectors and generator. The engineers and mages building it never got to finish it. The only parts ever built for it were the climate controls, and weather resistant shield.

Upside, it kept the town warm, and all of Lith’s farmable soil came from inside this radiation-free bubble! Downside, it ran on unicorn magic, because nopony had yet worked out a way to power it on anything else. Thank Celestia that shape-changed changelings are a functional substitute.

We really don’t have that many unicorns living here. Or kirin, for that matter. Anypony who can provide magic for the shield, does. Eventually.

They have too. If the donor pool is too small, the strain can kill you. There’s a name wall to honor everyone lost to the generator in the town square. If we’re careful, a fifteenth name will never be added to it.

Other downside, all of the topsoil had been exported from Pomare for farming purposes, or moved to the farm-sized areas on the outskirts of town. At least the gravel we used for the yard was worn mostly smooth. Still, it would have been nice to have a few trees in the yard.

I like trees. I don’t like having to walk out into the infested blizzards to look at them.

I took a few steps into the backyard, doing my best to ignore the crunch of hoof on gravel, and sat down next to the rock garden where dad was laying. “Hey dad. How’s it been?”

No response. I hadn’t expected one, but it would have been nice, if a little scary, to get one.

“I just got back from another run. Seventeen packages this time. I almost lost half of them taking a nasty spill into Wolverine Creek. The ice gave out right under me. It was weirdly warm up there… I think it’s from those soldiers that moved into the Relay. Every time they activate it you get that massive rainbow beam, right? I think its heating up anything they point it at… I know it’s not a weapon, but somepony needs to tell them not to use it to move things to Cliffside. It’s probably not a good idea to use that on a town built on a glacier.”

I sighed and stared at the storm through the shield. The ice blowing across the bubble glowed slightly. Flecks of radioactive material trapped inside the particles, becoming re-energized as they slid across the shield. Pretty. Threatening, but pretty.

I turned to look at the limestone boulder which served as dad’s headstone.

Sergeant Hydraulic “Jack” Lift
A hero and a father.
2038-2089

It wasn’t an actual grave. Queen Katydid had the real body in an elaborate diamond sarcophagus, in the Royal Garden. The surviving members of the expedition had recovered his body. Or at least, a big pile of charred meat they thought was his body.

I didn’t like going to his actual grave. Too many older ponies telling kids about everything dad did for us. Too many memories from before he tried to stop the Crystal Heart from exploding.

He succeeded, and we’re all thankful we’re alive, but I missed him. Caring for mom was hard without anypony else to help, and she honestly couldn’t understand he’d been dead for years. She’d never find another lover. She never knew he left. In her mind, he’s just not home.

I tried paying a changeling to imitate dad for her once. The problem with that idea was she had the same sense as any zebra and knew something was wrong. Turns out changelings can’t mimic auras, only bodies. Poor Feature hadn’t deserved the verbal beatdown she’d gotten from mom for that.

I sighed and looked back up at the dome. “You know dad… I’m glad to know that ponies survived in the south, but… If you saw those soldiers, I think you’d be worried about them too. Sure, they have Shadowbolt armor and stuff, but something seems... Off. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m just not used to other cultures? Maybe putting scorpion tails on power armor is inherently intimidating? I don’t know. I don’t like them.

“I wish you were still around. You’d know what to do.”

Dad’s voice popped into my head from deep within my imagination. “Stop thinking you’re stupid, kid! When the time comes to do something, you’ll know what needs doing. I raised you, didn’t I?”

I felt my cheeks flush as I turned to cough into my hoof. “Yeah. Sure, that’s why I told mom to have a nice day.”

“Oh, no! You did something appropriate for literally anyone else. How dare you be polite by default!”

I sighed to myself. Imaginary dad was not a good substitute for real dad.

I turned my head, making the ration card I’d stuck behind my ear rustle, reminding me of its presence.

Right. Groceries. As heavily modified as Mom was, she still needed to eat at least once a day. Preferably more, but nopony had the ration stamps for that. Not even her majesty ate twice these days.

I’d know if she did. I worked for her in official capacities often enough to have seen her use the same card as everypony else. Hay, I’ve gotten Her Majesty groceries several times.

I reached up and pulled the card out from behind my ear with a hoof. A week of groceries would be two thirds of my pay. That left me with fifty eight bits form this check, and the two-sixty I’d saved up over the last five months. If I was remembering correctly I’d finally have enough to buy that scarf with hidden pockets from Sassy’s shop. Having something with pockets would make carrying my things around way easier.

“Or, you could use those huge buck-off magic bags you’ve got.”

I smirked. That one was exactly how dad had been. “Yeah, I’m going to use work issued items for personal use. That sounds like a great plan.”

I turned back to Dad’s headstone and gave him a sad smile. “Well, I need to get cleaned up and make sure mom’s okay for the next week. I’ll see you soon dad.”

“You’d better not! I’ll tan your hide if you turn up dead.”

“You know what I meant, dad,” I grumbled as I trotted away, wincing as I realized I’d did it again.

I really need to stop pretending he’s alive. Uh… Well, not alive. Capable of conversation. Yeah, that would do.

As I walked back inside and headed to the bathroom I remembered just how much that one pegasus soldier went nuts over our running water. Every town in Lith had running water. My heart went out to anypony surviving in the Heartlands.

I’d happily kill for a hot shower and warm house at the end of the day.

☢★★◯★★☢

After a long shower I went straight for the market. Very few people in Lith got permission to purchase what they need to leave their village. There’s simply not enough survival equipment to go around.

I was one of the few people who could appreciate just how much of a difference Pomare’s shield bubble made. Here ponies, changelings, and kirin could be outdoors without being bundled up and miserable. So they did.

Foals played in the streets. Older ponies hung out in their gravel yards, talking or working on mutual projects together. Heck, I could hear street musicians playing in the square down the road.

The only other towns in all of Lith with street musicians was Stable Town, and Sunny Pastures. Stable Town didn’t count. It was a Stable. Everything was inside, with heaters. Sunny Pastures was a ghoul town, one deep in the bloodice. The ghouls living up there weren't bothered by the cold anymore.

I loved sunny days like today. They bathed the town’s crystal buildings in prismatic rainbows.

The sunlight streaming through the Climate Shield came down in shafts of light which made the whole town shine and sparkle. Every building in Pomare was at least half made from crystals. Partly because we had a ton of crystal ponies who could provide us with nearly endless “bricks”, and partly because paint was way more expensive than having your friend make a few crystals green in exchange for a hot meal and a drink.

Still, as pretty as crystal buildings were, most everything in town was built for practicality. I understood that time was money and we had precious little to spend on any one thing, but wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to look at bland stodgy buildings all the time? We’ve had power, water, and communications for… Well, forever now.

It’s not like we can get more food by making architects farm in their gravel covered gardens.

We could at the very least have some crystal ponies replace the slate flagstone streets with crystal cobbles. Anything that doesn't make the town look like a bunch of gems a giant pony dropped haphazardly around a big concrete fort.

I turned my head to look at Site-11. The fort clearly didn’t belong here. It was a big square box with a decidedly Late Classical Equestrian look to it. Towers. Battlements. All those old and obsolete fortification flourishes, like spiked parapets and murder holes. It’s not something the Crystal Empire would have built.

Well, I mean, they didn’t build it. Equestrian ponies did. But they could have had it match the local architecture. At the very least we’d made it our own over the years. The old fort had a distinctly Lithin look to it now.

We hadn't painted it or anything, though Her Majesty could probably afford to. No, we just built several additions onto it and then parked a few airships overhead, when we ran out of horizontal space to expand the fortress.

I could see just a little bit of the changeling formicary from where I was. The fort’s northern wall and main bulk now mostly obscured the greenish edifice of wood pulp, rock, and dross cement structure behind it. Especially thanks to the extra four floors crystal ponies had grown over the old fort’s walls and towers.

The Zebras were the ones whose magic allowed the fort to stay together in spite of the massive weight of crystal pressing down on it. Shamanism, hay yeah! We’d also done most of the security enchantments. The fort wasn’t where Her Majesty lived, but it was still our capitol building. It had to be secure. Just in case.

There were also the warehouses. I couldn't see them over the rooflines of the homes and businesses in the way, but I knew that the southern wall had a ton of the classic pony style timber and rock structures built next to them, close enough to be considered a part of the fort itself. That was the unicorn and earth pony contribution.

Her Majesty's contribution was in the air. The CIS Meganeuropsis, an airship so massive that other airships dreamed of growing up to be half its size.

They said it was three times the size of a Thunderhead, but, well, I’d never seen one to make the comparison. All I know is it was huge, easily an eighth of Pomare’s size. Which made sense. It was an airship carrier, after all.

The Meganeuropsis had a ton of hangars, and even a shipyard in it to repair or construct other airships, up to and including battlecruisers.

Well, not so much in it as under it. The Meganeuropsis was shaped like a dragonfly and a crab had a bloated flying foal together. The six legs bristled with weapons blisters, but the insides were lined with tools and access hatches. When curled up they formed a shipyard, that was pretty much the only part of the old ship which was in full working order these days.

The Meganeuropsis had been the pride of the Changeling Empire back before the war. Towards the end of the Great War, Queen Chrysalis had given in and allied with Equestria to prevent her changelings from starving. They became a target for the Zebras over that, naturally.

When the megaspells fell, it was the only splinter of their empire to survive. Every bug alive today was descended from someone who had been on board.

Queen Katydid used it as her residence. As Chrysalis's direct descendant, it was rightfully hers.

It would be nice if the other airships in our fleet could be used for transporting mail. Maybe in a decade or two our fleet will be big enough for that. Right now our fleet was tied up with bulk shipping of raw materials and basic goods, as well as keeping the towns as monster free as possible.

I wasn’t about to complain about that.

One day, when we had enough spare metal in the warehouse to make another dozen airships or so, we could start sending letters and small packages by air instead of by hoof. I certainly wouldn't complain about that, either.

I resumed my walk up the street and giggled as a memory came back to me. When those soldiers had been staying in Pomare, I’d overheard one of them talking about the Meganeuropsis. She had been genuinely terrified at the idea of having to fight that thing if we turned out to be hostile.

Silly pegasus. Lith doesn’t give a buck about what you are, so long as you’re not a windigo. Or starvation. Or bandits. Or starvation.

I winced and stopped mid-stride. I really hoped they were not bandits. Sure, only twelve of the platoon they sent up to scout the North had made it through the windigos alive, but they spoke like they had a whole army. A whole army of ponies rich enough to equip their scouts in power armor.

Scouts. In power armor.

What would their shock troopers have? War golems? War Striders? Tanks?

“Gears!”

The excited mare’s voice snapped me out of my worried woolgathering. I frowned as I turned to search for the voice. I didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t unusual for ponies I didn’t know to know my name. After all, I was their postmare.

My eyes landed on a voluptuous gray earth pony mare waving at me from outside The Granary.

Great. I’d been so lost in thought I’d almost walked right past the grocery store. The only grocery store. I’d have to thank… Whoever this was.

I waved back and trotted up to her. She had a long flowing mane of lush silky black hair that instantly made me jealous. My mane did the normal zebra thing, and stuck straight up to form a short mohawk which I tried to keep well groomed.

I gave the mare a friendly smile. “Hello. I’m sorry, do I know you?”

The mare grinned ear to ear in an eerily familiar way and—

She turned to show me the symbol on her flank, a simple pair of 1/8th musical notes crossed over a cello’s bow.

It was Odonata. She’d found a new pony form she liked.

I swear if it was legal for changelings to use a cutiemark other than the one on their ID I’d never know who was themselves and who was Odonata.

I facehooved. “Dang it! I didn’t see your cutiemark.”

Odonata giggled. “I’m surprised you heard me at all! You looked like a real space cadet. When did you get back?”

“Just now,” I said with a weary smile. “I can hang out later. Right now I need to get groceries. Thanks for reminding me where the store is…”

Odonata bit her lip to hold back a joke. She failed. “Well, with how often you leave town it’s no wonder you forget where things are.”

I felt my face scrunch up as I worried about whether or not to tell her what was really bothering me. Odonata’s eyes softened as she noticed my expression. She put a hoof on my shoulder.

“It’s something serious, isn’t it? Is… Is Her Majesty angry enough with the Enclave to declare war?”

My ears stood straight up at that remark. “What?! Celestia above! What did I miss?”

“You didn’t hear?! How—” Odonata closed her eyes for a long moment to compose herself. “You were delivering the mail. Of course you didn’t hear. ”

“What happened?” I begged, my eyes looking into hers as pleadingly as I could make them.

“Well, remember how they promised us a ton of new seeds and farm things if we helped them fix the Relay?”

I nodded. “And if we gave it to them. Yes, I remember.”

“Right, well… They aren't paying up. They have some lame excuse like ‘Oh, it’s all locked in a vault and we don't have the codes yet.’ You know, that kind of horseapples,” Odonata summarized with a bitter sneer.

“You’re kidding me,” I groaned and shook my head. “I don’t have any idea what Her Majesty is going to do about this… She’ll probably give them a little more time before anything, to be honest…”

I paused for a moment then looked around to make sure nopony would overhear. The street wasn’t clear in both directions, but everyone was busy with their own conversations.

I leaned closer to Odonata. “To be completely honest, even if they are in real Shadowbolt power armor, I don’t trust them. Never did. Something about them really unnerves me and I can’t put a hoof on it.”

Odonata blinked in surprise. “You? They unnerve, you?”

“Yes.” I said with a sigh. “I’m not indestructible. I’m afraid of plenty of things.”

“You, who once stared down a Windigo just to get a package you dropped back?” Odonata asked incredulously.

That wasn’t a fair comparison. Windigo couldn’t actually see me. Well, they could. They just didn’t think of me as food. Windigo ignore anything that’s not food.

“You do know they don’t want to eat me, right?” I asked suspiciously.

Odonata waved a hoof in dismissal. “It could still freeze you solid in an instant if you upset it by taking away its new toy.”

“That’s why I waited for it to get bored with the package and leave,” I explained. “But, yes. They unnerve me. Uh, the soldiers. Not Windigos.”

Odonata nodded slowly. “I… I’ll keep that between us. Nopony I know would be comforted to know a Courier was afraid of something.”

I smiled. “Come on, Odonata, we’re not that badflank. We’re just postal ponies.”

“Postal ponies who walk the wastes every week and almost always come back alive…” Odonata replied with a blank look on her face.

Don’t bring up her sister’s disappearance. Don’t bring up her sister’s disappearance. Don’t bring up—

“N— Not always…” I said quietly, giving the back of my head a slow scratch of awkwardness.

Odonata nodded and flinched as she began to taste the sudden negative turn in my emotions. “I know. It’s okay, Gears. You don’t need to feel awkward… In fact, please don’t. That tastes terrible.”

Darn changelings and their empathic sense! I’m trying to avoid being awkward over here!

“I still feel really bad that Feature didn’t make it back,” I sighed and looked down at the granite cobbled sidewalk. “I’ve searched all around her old route. There’s nothing. It’s like she vanished into thin air!”

Odonata nodded. “I know. It’s okay. It’s been five years. You don’t have to blame yourself.”

“But I—”

“You helped her get the job, yes. It’s not your fault she’s gone. It’s okay,” Odonata said as she set a hoof on my shoulder again. “Sometimes the wasteland just takes ponies.”

I looked into her eyes. “I promise I’ll never stop looking for her… Or her body.”

“I appreciate that,” Odonata said as she let go of my shoulder and looked up the street. “I have to get going. I promised the gang we’d practice some of those new songs we got off the pipbuck.”

My jaw dropped at the word pipbuck. “Woah! Stable Town is finally trading those?!”

I want one!

Odonata shook her head. “No. Qin traded for it with one of the Enclave soldiers. It has a ton of old songs on it! Some of them aren't even in your mom’s collection.”

Darn… Ah well.

I smiled. “Well, that’s good news! At least we got something from them th—”

I froze mid sentence as the enormity of what Odonata was saying finally dawned on me. “Wait, what the hay did you trade to them that’s worth a pipbuck?!”

Odonata smirked. “Wellll… If I tell you you’ll get mad.”

I felt my lips pull downwards. “Odonata…”

She sighed. “Oh, alright… Quin, Truffle, and I did something for him that only changelings can.”

I groaned and held my head in my hooves. “Please tell me you kept things tasteful.”

She nodded eagerly. “Oh we did! His love was just the best! Remember that time we had smoked salmon? It was like that with a bit of—”

“Who did you imitate for it?” I asked, knowing already exactly what she did. There was only so many forms they all knew which a foreigner would want to have an evening with.

“We let him have a romantic evening with Equestria’s three Princesses,” Odonata admitted with a shy blush. “S--Sorry. I know you feel we should not use their shapes for fun, but—”

I sighed and shook my head, groaning as I did my best to rationalize what she'd done. “No… No I get it… It was for a pipbuck. Just.. Please don’t have a fourway as the Princesses again! If the legends are true, and they really were goddesses, if they ever reincarnate they’ll buck your plot into orbit! I don’t want to lose a friend to angry gods.”

Odonata sighed. “Don’t worry, we really did only take him on a dinner date… It was supposed to end in sex, but he chickened out. Still gave us the pipbuck though. For the record, I am completely certain that Princess Cadence wouldn’t have minded if we had taken him to bed in her body.”

“Well, obviously not. But the other two would have!”

“If that’s how they felt, they shouldn’t have been so pretty and left so many glamor shots everywhere for changelings to study their forms from,” Odonata joked as she turned to leave, waving a hoof goodbye. “I’ll see you either later today or tomorrow, okay?”

“It’s a date,” I replied.

Odonata turned around excitedly. “Is it?!”

My ears lay back as I gave her my best deadpan stare. “After all these years, that joke isn’t funny anymore.”

Odonata smirked. “Oh come, on! I don’t have to be a mare while we go out. You know I just fill out mare forms better. I can do both. Even both at once if you’re feeling fun!”

“Yeah, but you’re definitely a mare in your head,” I said while doing my best to not mention that I nearly went out with her sister.

By nearly, I mean I almost got the courage up to ask her out. Then she vanished. It’s like I’m cursed or something.

I don’t like mares that way. Feature was an exception, because, well, she acted like a stallion. She preferred transforming into stallions because stallions like to do stallion stuff with other stallions and that’s what she liked to do.

Changelings and gender is a situation so full of asterisks that I’ve decided that having a crush on one doesn't make me gay. Yes, even though all changeling drones are female. That’s just how bugs are, and they can be anything they like. So for them it’s what’s in their heads that matter and—

Odonata gently booped my nose to snap me back to reality where she was nose to nose and staring at me with a smirk on her face. “You were internally justifying having a crush on Feature again, weren't you?”

“Shush,” I grumbled as I looked away from her eyes.

“It’s alright. I’m well aware that romantic relationships are different for ponies… Though it would be nice if you’d take me to lunch sometime. Because we’re friends.”

“You just said you know that would be sexual for me…” I muttered, pawing at the ground with one hoof.

“A pony lunch, silly,” Odonata said with a laugh. “Bye for real this time. Good luck with your shopping, the store’s almost out.”

I swore under my breath and bolted inside the store. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier! And sure, we can have lunch tomorrow, bye!”

I ducked into the store and took a minute to adjust to the much dimmer light inside. Once I was able to see properly, I looked around The Granary’s interior. The wooden shelves and bins which often contained at least a few pre-portioned bags of carrots, potatoes, grasses, a few of the more more tasty types of fungi and algae, and if we were lucky some salmon, were by and large, woefully empty.

The store was almost completely cleaned out.

My ears fell as I walked through the shelves. My hooves clicked on the crystal floor, and without produce to dampen the sound, each hooffall echoed maddeningly across the store.

It took five minutes of walking to find a shelf with anything on it. Unfortunately for mom, it was the trail ration shelf. Pemmican. Nothing but last year’s pemmican.

A literal brick of dried radhare meat mixed with fat and a bunch of cloudberries. Very very few ponies like to eat that, even those who enjoy meat. I’ve seen plenty of other Couriers go hungry instead of eating it.

On the other hoof, I’ve seen what mom does to raw ingredients when she’s hungry.

I picked up six bags of the stuff. Anymore and my ration card would be stamped twice, and they only give you one every three months.

With just a little difficulty, and a lot of wishing I had off-duty-saddlebags, I carried the bags over to the counter. Mister Till was waiting for me when I arrived. The older unicorn stallion leaned against the countertop, his brown fur almost perfectly blending into the wood.

I sighed and nodded at the pemmican. “Just this in stock. What happened?”

Mister Till’s gray aura plucked my ration card from behind my ear and set it on the countertop in front of him. “We lost an airship four days ago. It was carrying food from Chilltop. Her Majesty has sent a team to investigate and recover anything they find. They have not returned yet.”

I nodded slowly. “Well… Any idea when you’ll have anything else in stock?”

“An emergency shipment is scheduled for the day after tomorrow,” Mister Till said as he stamped my ration card and floated it back into place behind my ear for me. “Unfortunately, I’ve pre-stamped people for the entire expected supply already. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait at least two weeks.”

I glanced at the bags of pemmican and then set my coin purse on the counter with a sigh. “How much do I owe you?”

“Seventy eight bits.”

I blinked. Seventy eight? It should be fifty eight bits for premium groceries. Six bags of pemmican should be around forty bits at the most!

A surge of anger flared up in my heart at the price hike. I quickly buried it. “Mister Till, you and I both know this stuff has been sitting there for a year.”

“Pemmican is good for up to thirty years. It’s not a problem.” Mister Till said with a huff. “I’ve stamped the card. You have to pay… Or go without groceries for a week.”

I closed my eyes for a long moment, doing my best to control my emotions. It wasn’t the first time I’d wanted to draw my pistol and put a bolt in the greedy old unicorn’s brain. I never would, but this living embodiment of everything wrong with capitalism would deserve it if I did.

Honestly! Raising prices when we already have strict food rationing just because of an airship accident…

I waited as Mister Till counted out the coins. I didn’t like the new bits. We’d run out of gold, so Her Majesty ordered all gold bits rounded up, and had them melted into little beads which they grew crystals around. Different color crystal, different denominations.

Most ponies thought they looked pretty. I, and many other zebras, didn’t like them. Gold and crystal together can attract some very nasty spirits if you’re unlucky. It makes the perfect home for certain... Things.

Mister Till counted each coin out one at a time, annoyingly taking the single bit coins first, so I wouldn’t be able to easily pay for things and need to get change, if they even had change, the next time I shopped.

“Well, everything is in order,” he said as he pushed my coin purse back over the counter. “See you next week.”

I nodded gruffly, took my money, shouldered my mother’s food, and left without a word. Unfortunately, getting angry at the one guy legally permitted to sell bulk food is a bad idea.

I smiled as I left the shop. He was a jerk, but he was getting to be a very old unicorn. I wouldn’t have to put up with him for much longer.

Besides, as tough and poor tasting as pemmican was, mom would be able to eat this week. At least, she could if I didn’t have any. That was more than acceptable to me.

☢★★◯★★☢

The library door creaked as I walked inside. The pleasant creek made me smile, just like it did every time.

This time the library was lit. Somepony had gone to each lantern and given it just enough magic to glow a pale yellow. Copper was here. Good, I wouldn’t have to open the library for her.

I closed the door behind me and began trotting through the entry into the foyer, intending to put the food in the refrigerator. I’d made it no further than three steps when a familiar snow white kirin stumbled awkwardly out of the assistant’s room, her copper colored mane more than a little disheveled.

Yep. She’d gone to see her special somepony and stayed the night. Lucky…

“Gears!” She called with a smile. “Hold on, your mom left you something.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Left me something?” I said as I trotted up to the book checkout counter.

“Yeah! She got called away about twenty minutes ago. The Bubble needs some tee-el-cee and the usual guy’s out looking at some crashed airship.” Copper babbled, her horn glowing as she sifted through her room’s clutter with her magic, searching for whatever mom had left behind without going back into her room.

I was just about to offer to go in and get it for her when she pulled a small bundle wrapped in brown paper from the depths of her room and floated it out in front of my face. “Tadah!”

I plucked the package from the air with my hoof and gave the knotted string a quick tug with my teeth to untie it. The paper fell away revealing a letter, and a small bundle of deep red cloth.

My eyes widened. My heart skipped a beat.

No. No way she had remembered!

I gave the bundle of cloth a flick. It unrolled into a long scarf, complete with small hidden pockets all along the inside. This was a Sassy Saddles’ Secret Scarf, in the exact color I wanted! I could tell by the impossibly fine stitching on the hem. Only Sassy herself was capable of work that detailed.

She’d been nearly a hundred years old when the Pink Cloud turned her into a ghoul. A century of experience and being melded with a sewing machine produced a ghoul who didn’t make clothes, she made art!

The note! I pulled my eyes away from the scarf and looked down at it.

Whirling Gears,
My Little Girl
My Library

I’m not sure, but I think you said you wanted this. So I bought it for you. I know you bought lunch all 13,018 times we’ve had it today. You deserve nice things too.

Mom, PhD
Chief Researcher
MAS Fillydelphia Laboratory,
Cybernetics and Robotics Dpt.

P.S.

Something is wrong with the clocks. Could you look into it? It’s mystifying to me.

I smiled, my heart soaring. She remembered something other than work! She’s still signing letters to me with her credentials and doodling MAS stationary shapes on her notes, but she remembered something!

“I love you mom,” I said softly as I folded up the note and put it into one of the scarf’s pockets.

Copper smiled happily. “I’m glad she did something for you! Uh, I don’t mean to pry, but is that the second time?”

“Fifth,” I corrected proudly as I wound the scarf around my neck.

A little extra warmth was well worth pockets, and having a little non-white, non-black color on my body.

The library’s radio chose that moment to chirp three times, indicating that someone official was calling. I gestured to Copper, and then to the radio beneath the library’s counter, and went to pick up my bags. Copper cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and quickly murmured a few vocal warm ups under her breath.

I had just stepped into the archives when I heard her pick up the hoofset. “Black Swan’s Library, how may I help you?”

A stallion’s voice murmured something I didn’t quite catch due to trying to avoid knocking a bag into a bookshelf.

I managed to make six more steps before Copper inevitably called me. “Gears? It’s for you!”

I sighed. Of course it was. Nopony called for me before my departure shift unless there was work to be done right away… And I hadn’t even gotten five minutes to relax yet! Hopefully someone just needed a book delivered across town.

I set down the bags and put our ration card atop them. “Can you take these bags to the pantry for me then?”

“Of course,” Copper said, trotting into view quickly.

A few quick steps brought me to the radio. It was a nice one. Hoof made by our local artisans. After all, the library often had to transmit digital information to remote terminals. We needed a powerful and well built radio for that.

I picked up the hoofset and cleared my throat. “Whirling Gears, speaking.”

“Courier Gears,” a stallion said in that special tone ponies reserve for delivering orders. “Her Majesty Queen Katydid requires the services of her Courier for a special assignment. Do you consent to immediate teleportation?”

I nearly dropped the hoofset in shock. While teleporting a pony from across town to her side is something Her Majesty can do, she only did so if she didn’t want anypony knowing she was meeting with someone.

Since that someone was me, or at least, a royal Courier, it meant she had sensitive information to send. If the Enclave had really given us the shaft on our trade deal, I might just be delivering instructions to the Lord Mayors to prepare for war!

“Y— Yes! Go ahead.”

“Do you have your bags and strider on you?” the stallion asked.

“No. Should I fetch them?” If I would definitely need a strider, that meant a trip into deep snow. The routes between towns were mostly clear this time of year. It couldn’t be wartime orders.

“Please do.”

I gulped and put down the hoof set. This was bad. Very bad. Whatever had to be delivered, it needed to leave Pomare now. It must be about the missing airship.

I sprinted over to the wall hook and yanked my saddle down from it's hook. It took me longer than normal to buckle it on thanks to my hooves shaking. I’d really been looking forward to a well deserved week off. I’d have to push that anger aside for now. This was important.

I raced back to the radio and picked up the hoofset once more. “I’m ready now, sir.”

“Excellent. Please let go of your radio. Your Majesty? Miss Gears is ready for transport.”

I closed my eyes. Teleporting and I don’t mix. At all.

I saw the bright flash even with my eyes closed. An even blend of bright blue and radiation green light burned its odd dappled pattern into my eyes. A loud snap deafened me for a split second, but my nose… The things I smelled. The smell of old wood, crystal, and books, mixed with the scent of oiled metal, roses, and wine.

The way the odors mingled spoiled them, like brahmin milk left in the sun.

The light dimmed enough for my eyelids to shield my eyes from it. I had arrived.

I immediately bowed, knowing I would be at Her Majesty’s hooves on the bridge of the Meganeuropsis. Right at the base of the Queen’s Throne, in the exact center of the room full of terminals and consoles that made up the cornerstone of Lith’s entire civilization.

Everything onboard was earth-tone painted metal, curved archways, and organic-inspired furniture and features. I knew the Meganeuropsis’ interior well. After all, I had been Her Majesty's personal Courier on more runs than I could remember.

I bowed as low as I could. “My Queen, what do you need my services for today?”

“Gears, please. There is no need to be so formal with us,” Her Majesty said in her natural, creepy, half-motherly, half-lover voices.

I shivered involuntarily, just like I did every time. I was hearing both of her voices at once. Her Majesty wasn’t shapeshifted. Either she had just woken up or she felt the need to be intimidating very soon.

I opened my eyes and looked up. Her Majesty was dressed in her usual glossy black robe with the metallic pink trim, but she had the hood up. I could see the green glow of her eyes under the hood’s shadows, which was only slightly less unnerving than the ends of her legs as they protruded from her robe.

In her natural form, Her Majesty looked like an alicorn had put on a Changeling’s molested shell, or a disturbingly realistic costume. One meant for traumatizing others, rather than accurately portraying a changeling.

Tufts of bright pink fur stuck out like rashes from the large gaps in her glossy black chitin. The chitin's edges melded with the fur and skin around the circumference of each gap, almost like somepony had melted the seams closed. Her left foreleg was more thoroughly blended, growing more melded the further down your gaze traveled. Rather than changeling gaps exposing pale pink pony fur, it looked as if both sides had been merged directly together. Her left hoof in particular was a perfect merging of pony's solid hoof and a changeling's rubbery chitin.

She also had her wings out. That was unusual. Normally she kept them under her cloak for warmth, as well as some private embarrassment due to their truly massive size. Her wings were also an amalgamation of Changeling features, their bright pink feathers webbed with oil-slick gossamer. They would be pretty, if they didn’t look like a foal had melted plastic toys together with their father's old lighter.

I gulped, not wanting to remind Her Majesty that I was terrified of her true form. “I— Is there any reason you’re… Your natural self? I know you do not enjoy—”

“We are about to make a video call to our friends at the Relay,” Her Majesty informed with a nod of her head towards the ship’s video broadcast console. “They only know our more harmonious form. We believe it prudent to show these Enclave soldiers exactly where our authority comes from. We are the heir to two Empires by blood. It is time they were made aware of this.”

I gulped and stood up straight, doing my best to stand at attention like dad had taught me to. “So… Um… I’m going to be carrying marching orders, aren't I?”

Her Majesty smiled and shook her head. “No. At least, not yet. We are confident we can resolve this dispute diplomatically, with just a little saber rattling for flavor. We expected our new friends to attempt to deliver less than they promised. It is in every general's nature to over promise and under deliver.”

“No, Gears. We have a far more important mission for you than delivering wartime orders to our holdings.”

I frowned slightly. “More important?”

“Oh, very much yes,” Her Majesty stood up slowly and walked over to a large metal chest and undid the lock with a quick spell. “We did not leave the Enclave alone at the Relay. We have several changeling agents keeping an eye on them. Recent reports have informed us that we have been deceived. The Hartlands are not a place where barbaric tribes of raiders fight for dominance while the last vestiges of Equestria’s military hold out in isolated forts.

“No, indeed it is quite the opposite. There is at least one organized polity in the Heartlands. Our friends at the Relay have taken it as a base not just for the sake of finding resources lost to time to improve their armory, but also because they required a new headquarters. This nation, which they did not mention by name, defeated them in a battle during which their prior headquarters was lost.”

“So… These are more like Enclave Remnants than a true Enclave?” I asked curiously.

Her Majesty nodded and took a large sealed metal hard case out of the chest and set it down in front of me. A moment later a large pile of scrolls joined the box as she placed them atop it.

“Their forces have been greatly reduced, yes.”

That took a lot of my fear away. They had power armor, probably because only the power armored troops had survived. There would be no war machines. Maybe we would stand a chance in a fight against them… If it came to that.

“Thank Celestia,” I sighed in relief, feeling my body relax as the stress was lifted.

Her majesty shook her head slowly and smiled. “Need we remind you that our aunt was not a goddess?”

I blushed slightly and scuffed the deck with my left hoof. “She looked like one. And moved the sun like a foal with a toy wagon. That’s more than enough by most standards.”

Her Majesty chuckled. “We cannot disagree… To continue your briefing, the Enclave seems intent upon using the Rainbow Relay as their new primary headquarters. That isn’t something you need to concern yourself with. We’re certain we can’t trust these new neighbors anymore, and while we did give them the benefit of the doubt before, we shall not do so a second time without due cause.

“Especially as they have hidden the existence of another nation from us. This isn’t to say we suspect them of treachery. It is merely good practice to learn every side to a story before casting judgment. Which is why we wish to speak to whomever is in charge of this nation. Especially as the Heartlands can doubtlessly grow more food than our poor frozen Lith.”

Note to self, never tell mom Her Majesty said ‘poor frozen Lith’. She will attempt to construct a nation-wide network of space heaters…

Her Majesty shut the chest with a pulse of her magic, making it boom angrily and echo off of the dull glass panels of the bridge. She returned to her throne, settled herself comfortably, then resumed speaking.

“If we felt our neighbors were entirely trustworthy, we would send a small exploration fleet south to make contact. However, they are not. No matter how unlikely true armed conflict may be, we wish to keep our dagger along our fetlock for the time being.

“Therefore, we are sending you, a single RAT rig, comms officer—”

Rat rig? I’ve never heard that phrase before? What is it like a rat powered generator?

I hated to interrupt Her Majesty, but I had no choice. I cleared my throat, and she stopped speaking.

“You have a question?”

“Yes. My apologies for interrupting, but what is a rat rig?”

“Ah yes. You've never participated in the militia… We may have to require couriers undertake basic training if only to up the survival rates,” Her Majesty shifted slightly her throne. “It is an acronym. It means ‘Radio Access Tower’ the term ‘rig’ has been used by our pilots to describe the small airships used to deploy them. Our militia uses them to stay in contact in the field. Does that answer your question?”

“Completely.”

She nodded, satisfied I understood, and resumed giving me her briefing. “We are sending you, a single RAT rig, comms officer, and a pilot south. They will wait at the border and the officer will set the RAT up as a relay, allowing you and eventually others to speak with us from the Heartlands. Weather permitting, of course. Additionally, it will be available to extract you, should you require such intervention.”

I nodded slowly, filing all of that away under ‘important information, do not forget!’ “Thank you, Your Majesty. What am I delivering, and to whom?”

“We want you to take this case,” her Majesty pointed with her left hoof to the hardcase on the floor to be absolutely certain I knew which case she was talking about, “of radios and the letters to each community leader you can find in the Heartlands. The letters will provide them with instructions on how to make contact with the RAT rig. We wish for you to deliver a verbal message as well, inviting them to contact us for trade deals. Emphasize our technological might and manufacturing base, but always do so in a way which makes our message seem subservient, as if we were craftsponies looking for a community to serve. Make it clear we need food most of all.

“Furthermore, you are not to mention the Enclave. We do not want their opinions of us colored in any way, as we do not know if this other faction, or factions, are hostile to our new friends. Don't worry about getting them to agree to provide military aid if we require such assistance. We have done that many times in the past. That will be our job.”

I spent a minute processing everything involved with Her Majesty's request. It was fairly simple on the surface, but with many obvious difficulties involved with it the more you thought about it. Most importantly, how I might be gone for months.

Her Majesty frowned as I remained silent. “Will you accept this mission, Miss Gears?"

“Of course, your Majesty,” I decided to add the Courier’s oath to my answer to make my position absolutely clear. “Be there acid rain, bloodice, Windigo, or ghoul, we will deliver the mail.”

“Excellent,” I caught a flash of Her Magesty’s two rows of teeth as she smiled. It made me shiver. “You will be paid double the usual rate for this mission. The RAT is waiting in hangar three, bay fifteen.”

I sighed internally to brace myself for the mother of all deliveries. “May I ask a question?”

She dipped her head in a polite nod. “Of course.”

“Why me?” I felt like I was being singled out for a few obvious reasons. But I knew I wasn't the best postal pony for the job. Bluegrass was a much better fighter than I, and would have a better chance of surviving down there.

Her Majesty laughed. “We’ve known each other since this kingdom was young, Gears. There isn’t any other Courier we trust will be able to make the trip. Especially if you must return on hoof for any reason. Who else can walk past a Windigo unnoticed and unharmed?”

I blushed, my tail swishing as I tried to not squee from her praise. “Thank you, Your Majesty. But… While my family immigrated from the Heartlands, it’s been a very long time. Nothing will be how I remembered it. Especially not if a new nation has been built down there! What if they don’t speak Equish or Zebrican?”

Her Majesty tilted her head. “We thought you spoke Germane as well.”

“I can speak very little Germane,” I answered. “However, Equestria employed many griffon mercenaries in the war. There’s bound to be a lot of them still in Equestria. Griffons can survive anywhere! I can’t speak Griffon. What if they are who has founded a nation?”

Her Majesty crossed her forelegs over her barrel. “Gears, we distinctly remember you saying a phrase in Griffon at a party a few years ago in an attempt to impress a fine young stallion.”

I felt my cheeks flush. Oh, Celestia… She remembered that! Uhhh, deflect conversation!

I sputtered and took a step back. “W— Well, I… I only know that one phrase.”

“What is it?”

I sighed and looked at my hooves. Her Majesty was about to laugh at me.

“Ya mashina.” I said dejectedly.

I saw the shadowed features of her face draw up into a smirk. “I am the machine? Are you kidding us?”

I hung my head. “No…”

Her Majesty stifled a giggle. I knew darn well she was realizing I’d walked up to a hot stallion and derped so hard I said something stupid… In the wrong language.

Fortunately, the changeling half of her majesty could sense my distress. She shifted in her throne and gave me a compassionate, yet still horrifying, smile. “Is there anything we can provide to help you in your mission?”

Oh thank, Celestia! A distraction. I jumped on it like a holotape full of new music. “Yes! If I’m going to be gone for months, I would like a better weapon than my pistol. Can I please be issued something with a good amount of firepower? Preferably something that can stop a war robot in a pinch?”

Her Majesty nodded. “We had a new set of traveling clothes and a pair of LAERs loaded onto the RAT for you already. Will that be sufficient?”

I felt my jaw drop. I got to play with— Uh, I mean, responsibly use a pair of battle saddle mounted Laser Assisted Electrical Rifles?! Oh buck the hay yes!

Her majesty laughed once then put a hoof to her mouth. “The way you feel about those weapons is answer enough.”

I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Uh, well… mom never let me shoot one. Not even the prototype to help her test… They shoot lightning! It’s cool!”

LAERs were based on laser rifles, but used a special spell matrix that emulated pegasus magic to hurl actual bolts of lightning wherever the laser happened to go. I’d always wanted to get to use one, but military grade weapons are issue only, and now I got to use two!

The first pony sized rock I saw while unsupervised was doomed. After all, I had to sight things in and learn how the weapon worked… And also explode things like a happy hyperactive school filly in a chemistry lab. In a responsible and safe way. Not at all like a maniac. Nope!

“It is indeed cool, Gears,” Her Majesty agreed with the most reserved of two-tone giggles. “If that is all, it’s very important we make contact with the Enclave’s enemy as soon as possible.”

I bowed low, realizing I did in fact need to get going immediately. “Sorry, Your Majesty. I’ll leave immediately… Um, please tell my mother goodbye for me? I know she wont notice I am gone, but—”

“We will ensure she is cared for in your absence, Gears,” Her Majesty promised. “Good luck. We look forward to hearing how Equestria has fared in the last two hundred years.”

“I promise I will learn everything I can and tell you everything later, Your Majesty,” I said as I secured the letters and hardcase in my Courier's bag.

Without anymore words, I turned towards the bridge’s door and began to make my way to hangar three. I had a package to deliver… And nearly fourteen hundred bits coming my way per month!

As I left the bridge, a single thought filled my mind. I was going to be gone at least a month, maybe two. There would be thousands of kilometers to trot, and an entirely unknown land to explore and rediscover. I had no idea where to deliver the radios.

Thank goodness Her Majesty hadn’t asked for Overnight Delivery!

7 - Thunder and Bullets

I’m not sure how quickly I thought that Wander and I would have caught up to the Tainted, as the poor medic had named the bandits. I'm not sure how long I really expected Wander and I to spend hunting after them. Certainly not for hours. Wander was a very fast pony, and even low on coolant I was still keeping pace. Of course, I’d completely forgotten that the enemy had a robot to pull their wagon.

Their cart was able to make pretty good time across the rolling hills. The ancient highway helped, of course. The same road that Magebridge was built on ran all the way to Manehatten, and it had been built with wagons in mind. Wander mentioned during our chase that ever since the Gardens, it had been maintained for the same reason. Potholes had been filled with gravel. Uneven slabs of asphalt had been dug up and laid level. The NCR cared about this road.

Sometimes I caught glimpses of the Tainted ahead of us. A little dot on the horizon, or sometimes as a shimmer of light on metal as they crested a hill. They’d started out, perhaps two kilometers away from us. Maybe one and a half. That distance slowly shrank with each second, but never by much.

Whatever kind of bot they had pulling their wagon was one strong motherbucker. Also huge. Like, terrifyingly huge. I could see their hoofprints gouged into the softer sections of the road from time to time. Each of them was nearly two and a half of my hooves wide.

Normally I enjoyed taking in the scenery while I traveled, but there’d be none of that today. I had to keep my eyes on the road and the ponies we were chasing. If they stopped moving, it meant they had caught up with the ponies they were chasing.

The day flew by with only a single notable event. A few hours after our chase had begun, a loud roar came from the road ahead of us. Not the roar of a dragon or other massive creature, but the roar of rocket engines.

A hulking gray shape detached itself from the group ahead of us and ascended into the sky on a pillar of fire, leaving behind a column of thick smoke as it flew upwards. Then, once it had flown upwards perhaps five hundred meters, it turned to the northwest. The deafening roar of its rockets changed from a bassy rumble to a higher pitched shriek, and it vanished into the distance like a bullet from a gun.

Wander and I only barely managed to avoid tripping over our own hooves as we watched the spectacle unfold.

I was able to see Wander slowly shake her head, as if trying to push the incredulity out of her very soul.

“I don’t believe it…” Wander murmured quietly.

“I don’t know why one of them would leave either… Especially not their robot,” I agreed with a nod.

Wander floated Bad Trip towards me for half a second, then returned it to her side as she realized the robot was long gone, and far out of her scope’s range.

“That wasn’t the robot. That was— No, no it couldn’t be. There’s no way anypony could have found his power armor,” Wander corrected, her voice oozing perplexion. “You’re right. It had to have been the robot… But, it couldn’t have been! I got a good look through my scope...”

I raised an eyebrow. “Whose power armor?” I asked with a small frown. “For that matter, what model of power armor can fly?”

“Commander Gale Force,” Wander answered instantly. “The poster-colt for the Equestrian Special Forces. They made him a special suit of power armor for photoshoots, it was like a walking gunship with rockets to let him fly with all that extra weight, and four big rotary cannons. I didn’t think it actually functioned!”

“Special Forces?” I asked as I returned my attention to the road ahead. “Oh! Right, those Steel Rangers you mentioned. I didn’t think they would have had any overlap with the Air Guard.”

“They didn’t! Commander Gale wasn’t a Ranger. He was part of the Special Forces. Different branch entirely. I uh, I don't know too much about it actually! Either nopony liked to talk about it or it was classified. Or both. They weren’t a friendly bunch.”

“Well, let’s hope he won't come back,” I said with a slightly fearful shiver. “I really don’t want to have to fight a pony in flying armor who can just strafe us… Wait, you don’t think that’s why he took off, did you?”

Wander shook her head and laughed. “Nah, he’d have looped around already and we would be dead… Let’s count our lucky stars that whoever that was, they bucked off and left us with just the robot to deal with.”

Time blurred together after that. There was the road, the distant cart, and Wander. Over the course of the day, right around sunset, we managed to close the distance to the bandits down to a kilometer. We were gaining on them slowly but surely and if we could keep the pace up, we would be on them sometime around midnight.

Wander seemed to be able to to push herself enough to keep going almost at full speed for the night. My systems were stressed, but the air in the grassy foothills cooled after sundown, which helped put the spring back in my step. The odds were good we could catch them.

As the moon rose and lit the world with its dim yellow glow, I could only hope that the troopers they were chasing could keep running through the night.

☢★★◯★★☢

Thick black clouds rolled in from the east and covered the sky just after midnight. Wander had a mini-panic at the sound of the first thunderclap. Apparently she’d been in Friendship City when the Enclave attacked it over a decade ago.

Being in a thunderstorm brought all those bad memories rushing back to her. At least, it did until the clouds overtook us and unleashed more rain than I had ever seen in my entire life. We sometimes got rain in Lith. It would come down in little spatter droplets and freeze into little flowers of ice the second it hit something.

This rain was not at all like the rain in Lith.

This rain came down in fat drops that traveled in packs, and they were somehow colder than ice. You weren't just hit by one drop, at least eight of them would hit the same spot as any other given droplet all within milliseconds of each other. When combined with the biting wind that made my scarf and saddlebags flap and flutter like a flag, the rain came at us from the side and made me briefly wonder if we were crossing a shallow river, or if the rain was simply extra bad for a few long moments.

I liked the rain. I was running nice and cool thanks to its icy hug.

Thunder and lightning continued rumble and flash the entire time the sky continued to unleash its fury upon us. At one point, the storm got so bad I wasn’t sure if we were even on the road anymore, let alone have any sense of where the enemy's wagon was.

The world itself seemed to vanish in that storm. All I knew is that we were in the freezing rain. Howling winds and deafening thunder drowned out even the sound of my own hoofsteps and the water running down the road like a river. The flashes of lightning were blinding, whiting everything out before plunging everything into pitch-black darkness as my eyes tried to recover from the flash.

I was deaf, and the world was lit by a giant strobe lamp. I didn’t even hear the gunfire until I was close enough to see the muzzle flashes.

Bright plumes of orange-white light attached to black-ish silhouettes, their thunder lost to the storm.

The first flash was a few meters in front of my nose. The second came from a dozen meters ahead, and five up. For half a second I saw the jagged outline of a wall made from junk. Ponies shouted. Their words had no hope of making it to my ears as anything other than the faintest of cries.

My LAERs hummed as I took aim at where the first flash had been and fired.

Twin bolts of blue lightning streaked out through the rain, crackling and hissing as the water caused them to spread out and dissipate. The bolts washed over my target like an electric net. I heard a shriek as the first pony shape toppled to the ground.

Crap! Why had nopony told me heavy rain turns LAERs into melee tools?!

”Probably because they didn’t know, sweetie. No rain to test it in up north.”

I reached back to draw my pistol from its holster and something whistled past my ear. I had no idea where it landed. It vanished into the storm. I saw Wander as her magic lit the darkness in a radiant blue that turned the rain into a cascade of prisms. She hefted Bad Trip and began to fire beams of agonizing death into the cloud of muzzle flashes.

Her bolts sizzled through the air, cutting through the storm as if it wasn’t there. Good. At least one of us was still effective.

A bolt of lightning split the sky. For a heartbeat I could see our battlefield. We’d almost walked right into the back of the bandit’s wagon. Twelve of the rainbow-vested bastards were holed up in the back of their wagon, using it sides as cover to shoot up at the walltop of what must be Sire’s Hollow.

The wall had six ponies standing atop its battlements. I recognized the trench coat silhouettes of two NCR troopers. The rest looked like regular ponies who had some guns, probably the town’s militia. They stood firm atop their scrap metal, concrete, and wood wall, firing down in desperation at the front of the wagon. They were directly above the town’s gates, which were not only open, but stuck open thanks to a thick mound of mud and grime which was being swept through the town’s streets by the rain in the flash flood.

The robot. They had to be firing at the robot!

My view began to cut out as the lightning flash faded. I aimed towards the back of the wagon and fired. My pistol wasn’t fully charged, but three bright green bolts streaked through the rain. I had no idea if they found their targets.

All I knew was that I needed to get to the front of the cart and help shoot whatever the ponies on the wall were shooting.

I turned to my left, picturing what I had seen in my mind’s eye as I ran. A bullet whistled past my other ear, then cut a line along the back of my head. I felt hot the lead scraping a groove out of my armor. Thunder from the lightning above drowned out my scream.

A rifle. Great! There was no way the town’s ponies would know I was on their side unless they saw me shooting at the Tainted, and they had at least one rifle!

I bit down on my pistol’s trigger as the blinding pain burned along the back of my head. Another three bolts of light streaked through the air and slammed into the wagon. Something flared a bright orange, casting enough light for me to see a shotgun tumble into the water covering the street and vanish.

Had I done that, or one of the townsponies?

The winds died down slightly, allowing the maelstrom of gunfire to be heard for the first time. Dozens of sharp cracks and booms overlapping one another, like the bubbles in a pot of boiling water pushing their way to the surface.

Pushing past the pain I ran further forwards, holding down my pistol's trigger, letting it fire every time its breeder cell generated enough power. Its bolts were bright green. The militia would have to see them. They would realise I was helping and not put a 7.62mm hole through my braincase.

Right?

The muzzle flashes continued to light up the night. Shadows. That’s all anypony could see. Shadows. They wouldn’t see a zebra shooting from down below. Just some moving shape firing lasers.

I wasn’t even remotely safe.

This had been a horrible idea!

I reached the position I had been running for and tried to stop. The floodwater had other plans for me. My hooves shot right out from under me and I fell into the miniature river the street had become. A bullet slammed into my left flank as I struggled to stand up, knocking me back into the water. Had it pierced my chassis?

My head was still throbbing from the earlier hit. I couldn’t tell if that shot did real damage, as my body insisted I pay more attention to head-pain.

“Get the bucking thing running again!” Somepony bellowed, their voice flecked with rage.

Get what running? Wait, was their robot offline? Awesome!

Another lightning bolt blazed to life above us, giving me a snapshot of the battlefield once more. This time, I saw their robot.

Oh. He had said Ultra, when he died… This is what he meant.

The behemoth was more of a tank than a robot. Huge. Boxy. Three ‘legs’ ending in all-terrain treads. Two ‘arms’ which were little more than gun turrets. A hunched back bearing two missile pods. A tiny ‘head’ which was little more than armor for a targeting sensor.

An Ultra-Sentinel! Where the buck had bandits gotten a hold of an Ultra-Sentinel?!

I couldn’t take my eyes off the warmachine. It wasn’t painted like any I’d seen in books, or heard anypony mention. It was painted jet-black, with the same rainbow emblem slapped onto the side like a rank-emblem. The rainbow was crude, clearly painted on post-war. There was other text on the sentinel as well. It was new, clean, perfect. Pre-war lettering. This thing had been dug out of a military warehouse someplace. How the buck had bandits, gang members, mercenaries, whoever these were even found a brand-spanking-new mechanized tank!?

It looked alien in the rain and the lightning. Like the kind of alien which existed only to kill. I thanked Celestia it sat limply at the front of the wagon, as if it had simply died of exhaustion.

Who knew I’d get lucky twice today! Maybe the townspony with the rifle wouldn’t kill me, too.

The light from the strike began to fade. I could see a pegasus hunched over the Ultra-Sentinel’s back, halfway inside an open panel. He was trying to fix it!

I fired my pistol at his exposed rump. My shot went wide. The world turned black. I began to fire blindly at where I thought he’d been, desperately hoping to stop the robot from being powered back on.

I saw a few of Bad Trip’s crackling bolts slice past the wagon. The first I’d seen since looking back at Wander. Either she hadn’t been missing until now, or I’d been too distracted to make sure my sniper knew where I was going in the darkness.

I hoped it was the former.

I felt a fresh wave of pain as another bullet hit me just above my left eye, making the inside of my head ring like a bell. The bullet didn't pierce my armor, but it hardly mattered as I dropped into the water with a splash and a thud, thoroughly stunned.

Seconds passed. Maybe a minute. I had no idea how far the current had swept me. All I knew was that I somehow still had my pistol in my mouth. I stood up, turned towards the muzzle flashes at ground level, and squeezed my gun’s trigger. I’d been down long enough for the weapon to fully charge, and a flurry of green energy bolts tore through the wagon.

I heard screams. The number of flashes died down. Several bullets whistled past my ears. I wasn’t sure, but I thought they came from the cart and not the walltop.

Light flared into existence, once more illuminating the battlefield. This time, it wasn’t lightning. It was spotlights. The Ultra-Sentinel was operational.

A deep robotic voice cut through the thunder, wind, rain, and gunfire as if the deafening noise was merely the excited murmurs of foals. Bright green light leaked from the robot-tanks’ left arm as it spoke.

“Thunder Hammer, is, back on-line! All systems: Nominal. Weapons: Hot! Mission: Defend Star Drop HQ from Zebra incursion!”

If I had a heart, it would have stopped beating. This mountain of armor, energy weapons, missiles, and hatred, had been specifically programed to kill zebras.

“Eeep!” I squeaked.

The light oozing from the warmachine like blood was not just any green. That was plasma green. Yay...

It was an Ultra-SentinelI. It was bigger than me. Much higher on the robot food chain! I should run. I should run fast!

“SHOOT IT!” Somepony shrieked.

The four ponies who remained atop the wall began to fire at the Ultra-Sentinel. Their bullets did little more than make little showers of sparks as they skipped off the robot’s inky armor.

The Ultra-Sentinel raised an arm towards the parapet. Instinct overtook me and I fired a volley of green laser bolts into the robot’s side.

“ALERT! Hostile Magical Energy Weapon detected! Identifying and eliminating priority target,” the Ultra-Sentinel bellowed.

Oh, good, it thought my pistol was a threat. That meant it thought I could hurt it!

Wait… That means it will really want me dead!

The Ultra-Sentinel’s treads kicked up streams of water as it spun to face me, snapping free of the chain harness that bound it to the wagon like it was nothing. The flood lamps shone directly into my eyes, blinding me completely. “Armed Zebra detected on Equestrian soil! Eliminating with maximum prejudice!”

Well, this was it…

I heard no fewer than eight rockets fire. I could smell their fuel burning as they arced through the air, heading directly for me… Then they shot past my head, deployed a series of cluster-bombs, and blew the absolute shit out of a wheatfield a few dozen meters behind me.

The explosion tossed me onto my belly like a filly’s straw doll. I could feel the heat from the flames on my rump through the chill of the rain. The wheatfield, was aflame. In this rain. Celestia’s teats, what corner of Tartarus did they get those bombs from?!

Wait... Had there been another Zeebra over—

“Alert! Targeting matrix malfunction detected,” Ultra-Sentinel bellowed. “Probability of mission hindrance… Zero percent!”

HOLY BUCK, I SURVIVED!

”Bucking leg it!” imaginary dad screamed at me.

I didn’t need any further fatherly instructions. I braced myself, aimed at the Ultra-Sentinel’s glowing red eye, and fired a full volley from my pistol.

Yeah, I’m not faster than plasma, dad. I’m going to die fighting.

”That’s my girl!”

My bolts cut into the armor around the robot’s eye. Green laser bit into the hardened steel and bullet-resistant crystal, damaging the Ultra-Sentinel more than I’d expected but much less than I’d hoped.

It retaliated by the way of its left shoulder-canister opening and firing a silver canister my way with a dull thump. “Choke on this, foalkiller!”

I turned and jumped out of the way as the canister slammed into the ground where I had been standing, sending up a plume of water as it burst open. A cloud of gray-blue gas hissed from the canister, filling the air with the distinct scent of chlorine, mustard, and… Horseradish?

The Ultra-Sentinel stared at me as the gas cloud enveloped my body, and instantly caused my pelt to blister and itch.

Oh. Chemical warfare. Cute.

Maybe I could blind it with another volley. I fired into its eye again. Something cracked! Fragments of crystal blasted outwards from the eye. Sparks flew… But the red glow remained.

“Zebra scum has perversely self-modified! Chemical weapons are ineffective… Requesting tactical advice from HQ,” the Ultra-Sentinel bellowed.

Oh good! There wasn’t going to be an answer. I might have enough time to take it down. Maybe if I can breach the plasma container on its arm—

“Orders received!” The Ultra-Sentinel thundered. “Activating custom combat protocol: Gale-Zero-Two! Destroy all Zebras!”

“WHAT?!” I yelped around the pistol’s grip.

Where the hay had it gotten orders from?! How? WHO!?

I squeezed my pistol’s trigger, desperately pouring bolt after bolt into its eye, face, neck, chest, anything at all I could hit.

A small hatch in the front of the Ultra-Sentinel’s face opened and deployed a small robotic arm with a wiper blade and tiny claw-hand. I couldn’t help but notice it was meant to wipe debris from the robot’s eye, but more importantly, somepony had zip-tied a red permanent marker to the wiper blade.

The absurdity of the marker’s presence almost got me to stop desperately firing into the robot’s face. Almost, but not quite.

The Ultra-Sentinel raised the marker and proceed to draw a pair of angry eyebrows and frowny-face on itself.

Now that did make me stop shooting.

“Wuh?” I asked of reality itself.

“Setting aggression levels to one-twenty…” The Ultra-Sentinel murmured. “Executing murderboner-dot-exe…”

Oh buck the hay no!

Then the Ultra-Sentinel screamed. An angry scream. A stallion’s scream. No words, only rage.

The Ultra-Sentinel screamed and charged. Full speed, zero to eighty kilometers per hour in half a second. Sparks shot form the Ultra-Sentinel’s treads as the sheer acceleration lit its axle grease on fire!

Twelve tons of screaming, angry, death robot rushed at me, weapon arms raised to smash me into so much metallic confetti.

I screeched in terror and dove out of the way just as the Ultra-Sentinel slammed its grenade launcher arm into the street where I had stood. The asphalt crumpled downwards, water rushed in to fill the hole.

The Ultra-Sentinel turned, still screaming, but now able to scream words at me while flailing its arms and putting holes into the street.

“SMASH ZEBRA! SMASH ZEBRA! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Terror managed to completely shutdown my conscious thought process.

It swung its arms. I dodged. I dodged again and again. I felt the wind whooshing past me with each and every one of its flailing strikes. My eye-laser discharged, striking armor and doing nothing at all to it. I felt my ears get ripped off twice. The Ultra-Sentinel’s strikes were getting closer and closer. Any second now, I would—

Pain. The world exploded around me, and the explosion was pain.

I felt like I’d been hit by an auto-wagon. The pain snapped me out of my terrified trance. I knew where I was. On my back, three meters from where I had been a second ago. My left side was on fire.

My eyes flew open wide. My left side was actually on fire!

I rolled over, drowning the flames in the street-river. The Ultra-Sentinel’s arm came down where I had been laying, punching a crater into the street again.

“EQUESTRIA WILL NEVER FALL TO ZEBRICAN INVASION!” The Ultra-Sentinel shrieked.

I flinched, and shot a single laser bolt into the Ultra-Sentinel’s chest, burning a small hole into its armor. I don’t know what I did to earn a miracle and keep hold of my pistol during that hit, but it would have been nice if I got another and that shot had been more effective than flicking a pebble at it.

WHY DIDN'T I ASK HER HIGHNESS FOR A PLASMA CANNON?!

The Ultra-Sentinel raised its left arm one last time, cackling like a mad-pony. My entire left side was numb. My systems were screaming a dozen error messages at me. Something important broke. I couldn’t dodge this strike.

I couldn’t kill it. Wander couldn’t kill it. The townsponies couldn’t kill it.

This is where we all died.

”LAERs still work at this range, Gears,” Dad reminded me. ”You have one shot. Shoot for—”

“The eye!” I exclaimed in realization.

I twisted, aimed my battle saddle squarely at the glowing red eye, and fired.

The glowing red eye I’d cracked open with my pistol.

The glowing red eye which was a direct path into the robot’s delicate arcane circuits.

A single bolt of artificial lightning blasted from my right side. It hit the Ultra-Sentinel squarely in its glowering red eye and sank deep into its mechanical depths.

The Ultra-Sentinel shrieked. Not in pain, not in rage, but in total electro-mechanical failure. My lightning bolt cracked around its internals, resulting in pop after pop as circuits overloaded and detonated inside of its armored chassis. The glow faded from its eye as a plume of noxious blue smoke billowed out of its smoldering socket.

The Ultra-Sentinel froze in place, its arm still raised to smash me to bits, but with every last part that would allow it to bring that arm down burnt to a crisp.

Now... How bucked was I?

I turned my attention to the status reports screaming at me inside my head.

My auxiliary hydraulic pump was toast. That’s fine, I can live without it. I just can't lift anything too heavy or for too long until mom replaced it.

Every feedback surge prevention diode in my left side had popped. Not a big deal. I just had to make sure I didn’t have a power surge, or I’d fry myself. Or at least, my left side. Also I’d be feeling a constant dull ache for… Well, until those were replaced.

Great. Still, non-fatal!

Ah, there’s the major damage. The armor along my barrel’s left side was completely compromised. If I got shot there, even by something low caliber, it could be lethal. I’d have to get some regular armor ASAP!

Now, why was my coolant indicator screaming into my mind about being low? Oh. The fire burnt off enough of my flesh for the cracks in my armor to leak about half a liter of coolant into the water. I was thermal throttling. And inadvertently poisoned nearby crops. Yay...

“Ow…” I moaned, dropping to my knees as my mechanical adrenaline equivalents wore off and the pain from my shattered pump and burnt diodes hit me like a hoof upside the head.

I could feel my core’s heat deep within my chest. It was a very uncomfortable feeling. One which, in spite of not being truly painful, and having plenty of pain to contend with from other damaged systems, managed to remain planted first and foremost in my mind.

I needed alcohol, salt, and water, STAT! Also if somepony could explain what stat meant so I could know what it actually meant and not just when to use it, that would be wonderful.

”Focus, honey.”

I looked down, and debated drinking the street-river water.

No. Who knew what kind of mud and dirt would get into my coolant lines if I used that…

I felt hooves touch me and yelped, dropping my pistol into the river.

“Easy! Easy,” Wander said firmly.

Oh. Just her. Good.

Wander reached down into the water with her magic and fished my pistol out. “Can you stand up?” She asked as she placed the weapon into my holster.

I nodded and stood up. Very slowly. I had never thermal throttled before, but I could tell I was going to hate every minute of it.

“I—I—I—I ne—” I grit my teeth angrily and pushed more power to my voice synthesizer. “I need alcohol. Now. Coolant low… I’m going to die low!”

Wander nodded and pushed me gently towards the town’ gate, ducking under the burnt-out robot’s arm as she guided me along. “How hurt are you?”

“Not too bad, besides the coolant,” I answered.

My legs felt like they were solid lumps of lead… Celestia, why does moving with low power have to suck this much?

I was tempted to override the safety system and beeline for the nearest bar and hope I didn’t cook myself before I got there, but self-preservation overrode impatience and I simply leaned over to let Wander take some of my heavier than normal weight.

“Good,” Wander said, her teeth clenching as she did her best to support my left side. “I thought your LAER put a hole in you when it exploded.”

I blinked. “Is that what lit on fire?” I asked, then I squeaked in panic and twisted my head to look at my courier's bag. “Is my stuff okay?!”

Wander stopped and quickly inspected my bag for me. She nodded and gave me a reassuring smile. “The bottom is a bit scorched, but it looks okay… Your LAER, not so much. It’s half crumpled like a beer can and half melted like a candle… I can help you take it out of your saddle later. Maybe put your pistol in its place.”

I nodded slowly and groaned. “Her Majesty is going to kill me…”

“If that thing couldn’t, I’m not so sure she can,” Wander said with a grin. “You were awesome back there.”

“I feel like I’m going to vomit up a liter of hydraulic fluid,” I retorted.

“Well,” a mare’s voice said, its tone filled with worried and sympathetic twinges. “I suppose internal bleeding might cause that sensation.”

I turned my head in the direction of the new voice. It was one of the NCR troopers. She had her mask and helmet on, preventing me from seeing what she looked like, other than, well, a soldier.

One of the three ponies had a lantern which provided just enough light to see them by. The mare stood in the town’s open gate along with the other trooper and a single older stallion. The other trooper was missing his mask and was a purple unicorn with a dark red mane featuring a silvery stripe. The older stallion was dressed in an old tattered sheriff's uniform, wearing a fisherpony’s hat, and carrying an assault rifle. He had a nice tan coat of fur and a chestnut colored mane.

“She’ll be okay,” Wander said to the three ponies. “I gave her a healing potion.”

“Ya’ll ain't with those boys, are ya?” The older stallion asked with a grim expression, his left hoof resting on his rifle’s grip.

I shook my head. “No… Trailed them here… From Magebridge. To help you,” I said slowly.

The mare winced and took a few steps towards me. “Sheriff, even if they were, she stopped their robot. I’d say she’s earned some medical attention.”

“We came because she insisted we make sure those guys didn’t get the Water Talisman they were carrying,” Wander said, pointing to the troopers with one hoof. “We learned about that from a medic. I tried to save him but he died. Begged us to help his friends before he passed on. That’s why she had us running all night.

“I do mean all night. I’m exhausted. She had her side punched in by psycho-bot there… She needs a stiff drink and some rest. I need sleep. I have caps.”

The troopers shared a quick look, then held a muttered conversation with the sheriff. Unfortunately, while the storm was starting to die down, it was more than enough to drown out their voices and prevent me from overhearing anything they had to say.

The debate went on for a while. It only ended when the Sheriff stamped a hoof and shouted. “Well neither of them is shooting us now, so I reckon they’re honest folk!”

“That’s a good point,” the female trooper admitted. “Nopony would notice if they killed us with the storm going… Alright, looks like we’ll trust you two.”

The unicorn trooper slipped a small metal flask out of his coat with his lavender magical aura, and passed it to me. “Here, drink as much as you want,” he said before turning to the mare. “Sarge, she saved our lives and the cargo. You owe her a voucher.”

I took the flask from the air, popped it open, tipped my head back, and drained every last drop of whatever was inside. I had no idea. I didn’t even know how strong it was. It could have been water for all I knew. Didn’t matter. Needed coolant.

“And we owe you two a room for the night,” the Sheriff said decisively. “I don’t think we would have stopped that robot before it killed half the Celestia damned town…”

He turned and glared at the Sergeant. “Next time y’all decide to send something every bandit for a hundred days walk might want, how about you keep a better lid on it?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll pay for your deputies funerals too,” the mare said as she began to scribble something on a leather writing pad.

She held her pen with a teal aura. It was nice to know she was a unicorn too. Why did the NCR use those masks? It was so… Dequinizing.

The mare trotted up to me and set a hoof on my shoulder. Even with my hearing impaired by my systems thermal throttling, I could hear her holding back sobbing. Maybe that’s why her mask was still on.

“Thank you for fulfilling one of my squad’s last requests,” she said slowly, as if in pain.

I nodded. “I had too… Everyone deserves that much, at the least.”

She nodded and tore a page from her notepad and handed it to me. I looked the oiled paper over and recognized it immediately as a pay voucher.

“Two hundred isn’t enough. Not with what you did,” she continued. “But… Rewards come out of my squad’s payroll. It’s all I can afford this month… There’s a lot of ponies to bury, and I can’t cut our rations any further.”

I frowned and was tempted to hand the voucher back for a moment. Then, I remembered how my main guns had been useless in the rain. No. I needed these caps.

“Thank you,” I said with the best smile I could manage.

The other trooper winced, apparently my smile wasn’t looking all that good.

“Uh, Sarge?” He said with a hiss of empathy driven pain in his voice. “Maaabey we should let the Sheriff put them up in a room now? I don’t know how the buck a mare with the physique of a giddyup buttercup doll survived getting punched by that thing, but it’s pretty clear she needs to go lay the buck down for a while.”

I nodded and groaned in agreement. “I second that emotion.”

Wander snorted. “Heh, you mean motion.”

“I got punched by a tank. I’m allowed to words wrong,” I muttered at the street-river.

The mare nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, she needs rest for sure. Sheriff? Let me know what room they’ll be in. I want to make sure she makes it through the night.”

The sheriff nodded in agreement and trotted up to Wander and I. “If you two will follow me, I’ll make sure you’re put up in our best inn for as long as you need to get back out on the road.”

Wander flashed him a grateful smile. “Sounds great… Can we have room service?”

“I can have somepony fetch you something,” the Sheriff said as he began to lead us into town.

I looked to my left, hoping to make out some of the town just as my vision began to blur. My systems were starting to shut down, not just throttle… Oh, joy.

“Wander,” I murmured. “I’m going to shut down soon…”

“Stupid question,” Wander said quickly and loudly. “But before we get to a room, can we get my friend a tall glass of salted vodka? And some water?”

The Sheriff turned around with an eyebrow raised and looked right into my very soul. Or at least, that’s how I processed the visual data I was able to see. “Is that some kind of zebra healing potion?”

“Yes,” I answered with a feeble smile. “But, it will only work for zebras like me.”

“I see… Say no more missy. Fortunately for you, we have enough travelers to sustain a nice little bar right by the gate.” The sheriff veered off to the left, leading the two of us towards a large, blank, flat black void in the dark black void that was flat black and…

And all of the overlapping irregularly shaped black voids are really discomforting! Especially not with mom’s voice whispering into my ears...

ERROR 31 (0x1F) GEN_FAILURE. A device attached to the system is not functioning. Your Robobrain Mark III Full Body Prosthesis will be shut down to prevent Operator Death.

The many separate black voids melted together to form a single uniform black void. This one was comforting.

It is now safe to turn off your zebra.

21 - Junction Town part 1

“Ladies and Gentlecolts,” Prince Silverlight announced over the train’s intercom. “We are pulling into our final scheduled stop before returning home. Keep in mind while we have “slack” in the rules and regulations placed upon us at other towns in the NCR, they will not tolerate any deviation from the accords in the capitol.

“I would like to remind you that all melee weapons are to be left aboard, or peace bonded into their scabbards. Your weapon should be loaded with a maximum of ten rounds across all your magazines, and is to be left on safe. Nopony is allowed to be in a group larger than three individuals, and you may not visit any locations other than the market, firing range, Council Chamber, and the market restaurants.

“Furthermore, as I have been told there was another incident regarding so called ‘provocative language’ and a jockstrap on our last delivery to this charming city, nopony is to speak to anypony else save for official business purposes. Should anyone cause trouble, they will answer to me instead of Captain Commissioner. Good luck.”

I shivered in my seat. Well… That bodes well. Also, again with the officer names. Poor colts.

As the train’s brakes squealed and we slowly came to a stop, I mentally braced myself for horribleness of the Tenpony kind.

Wander gently tapped my shoulder. “Hey, it’s not all that bad here. The NCR’s senate just hates the Pegans. Bad blood, old history.”

“Should I know why?” I asked with a worried wince.

Wander pursed her lips then nodded. “Short version: Just after the Herd broke from the NCR they tried to broker a deal for weapons and ammo to clear out the lands to the west the Gardens didn’t clean up. You know, where they had chosen to settle. The NCR thought they wanted those weapons for war, and tried to force Los Pegasus to join the NCR.

“It... didn’t go over well. The Herd sent troops to force the NCR away from the city. The NCR sent more troops. Trenches were dug, fortifications made, someone on one side or the other shot someone, and the first border skirmish between the NCR and Herd hit the fan like a four month old latrine.”

“Oh…” I drew in a long breath and recoiled at my own realization. “As a trade city, that means they couldn’t trade anything for months. They may have a stockpile of stuff, but the fact they trade for anything at all means they have something they need.”

Wander nodded. “That’s right. So, after four months of trench warfare on his lawn, the Prince, unable to negotiate a ceasefire as neither side would talk to the other, announced that both armies had an hour to leave his territory as they were no longer welcome. Neither side budged, and they kept fighting. So the Pegans opened fire from the city’s walltop with heavy weapons, and all the other nasty toys they have laying around, indiscriminately mowing down everypony who didn’t flee… Which wasn’t very many of them, to be honest. Most ponies realized they were being shot at by several hundred snipers using HEAP rounds and legged it real quick, orders be damned.”

“Oh…” I bit my lip. “Sooo, they won't be mad at me for coming into town on their train, will they?”

Wander shook her head. “Nah, they love stuff that arrives by train…” Then she paused. “Well, maybe a little? The ponies here are weird. I think the vestiges of civilization gets into ponies in the wrong way. You know, when you have some, but not all the trappings of civilization. It just… gets ponies acting wrong.”

I looked out the window at Junction town and compared it to the Townships of Lith. It certainly seemed to be a civilized place. There were paved streets, made from what looked like gravel embedded in mortar. I could see dozens, maybe even hundreds of buildings, mostly homes, with a scattering of large four story buildings which might have been some form of communal dwellings. Everything was made from old train cars, new timber, and quarried stone.

It certainly looked like a civilized place. Especially with the dozens of ponies I could see teeming around the train. Presumably lining up for the market that was sure to be set up around the train.

I turned back to Wander. “Uh… How is this not civilization?”

Wander stared deadpan into my eyes. “It’s a democracy governing about ten little settlements which by the standards of my time are too small and too lacking in resources and amenities to be classified as lesser hamlets. Sure they have fancy hats and a flag, but they aren’t a continent spanning empire led by an immortal queen who prefers you call it a kingdom and her a princess because she’s honestly just that humble and ruled by a hoof, backed by thousands of years of history, tradition, and culture, over a nation where the largest city is home to tens of millions, and the average village is home to thousands. And here they are, holding a senate and writing laws, as if they can enforce them when they can’t even deliver the mail half the time.”

Oh… They couldn’t deliver mail? That couldn’t be true!

”Hon? Remember that talisman? You, or any other Lithan courier, would have gotten it there no problem. On time too. You wouldn’t have followed a predictable route, the ambush wouldn’t have occured, and the town would have had it’s water.”

Fair!

My ears slowly drooped down as I gave her a feeble smile. “Heh… S— Sometimes I forget that you were alive back then.”

Wander smirked, then leaned into whisper into my ear. “Like you weren’t? Also, haven’t you been alive in some form since the bronze age? You should know what civilization is too.”

I coughed into my hoof and whispered back. “To be fair, for most of my life I was a windmill. Then I spent a hundred years or so as a beautiful pocket watch. Then I was the ship-component you’re aware of. I uh… I know crushing wheat into flower, the inside of an enchanter’s pockets, the open ocean… And—” I swept a hoof towards the window for emphasis. “This.”

“Ah,” Wander said with a slow nod. “Well… This isn’t civilization. Yet. Give them a few more generations to get things built up. I’m not saying I hold the state of the world against them or anything. It’s just, well, I can’t call this civilized living. They don’t even have indoor toilets! In their capital! I mean, come on!”

I started to nod when Wander leaned in again. “Your zebra half was around, in Equestria… You should seriously try to resolve that whole ‘I can’t be two things’ problem. I’m pretty sure if you did you’d either remember her life, or be able to talk to her. Either or. Not sure…”

I blinked. “Wait, are you still seeing souls?”

Wander sighed and closed her eyes. “Yes… it’s starting to freak me out a bit. I can see this other pony inside everypony else. It’s usually at least a little different from them. It’s like seeing two ponies in the same place.”

“Ooo,” I hissed and did my best to think of any possible antidote. “That’s got to be diff—”

“Then, I look at Speed,” Wander said as she gave Speed a gentle nudge with an elbow.

Speed eeped. “Uh, what about me?” her ears drooped as a look of pure despair took over her face. “Oh no! I look like a monster, don’t I?”

“Nope!” Wander said, shaking her head firmly.

Speed squeaked. “I— I don’t have one?”

“You do. It’s exactly. The bucking. Same. Just her mane is even nicer, like she got to shampoo it. That’s it!” Wander said with a huff. “But everypony else is different… And it’s weirding me out!”

Speed blinked. “I— I’m what with shampoo?”

“You're just a slightly cleaner you who had time to take care of her mane this morning. Everypony else is someone else. It’s weird!” Wander said with a shiver.

Odd… I had no idea what that could mean and it was definitely going to bother me. But not as much as… Well…

I cleared my throat. “What about when you look at yourself?”

Wander closed her eyes tightly and hissed. “D— Do I have to tell you? This is the part that’s freaking me out the most...”

I nodded, realized she couldn't see my nod, and then said, “Yes.”

Wander sighed angrily and opened her eyes. “Fine… I see me, but like, when I was a young mare. So, you know, hot. I’ve got my glasses too, which is kind of weird, but then you’ve got your wheelchair, and Speed’s got all of the guns, so I guess souls can have items?”

“Wait,” I said as my eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re our sniper.”

“Kinda?” Wander said with a frown. “I mean, I’m not that good of a marksmare. But I suppose I’ve been doing that for you. Why?”

“You need glasses, and don’t have them… But I have seen you read, so you’re not nearsighted,” I continued, staring into her red eyes as I tried to figure out how exactly they could be miscalibrated.

Wander laughed. “No. No. No. My distance vision is fine. I used to have a medical condition where I needed tinted lenses to prevent migraines. Caused small hallucinations, like text floating around a page. Apparently ghoulification is a... cure for that. Heh.”

Speed blinked. “Ohhhh! So you wore glasses all of the time, and probably loved them since they helped you feel good and stuff, right?”

Wander’s ears perked and pushed her hood up. “Hey! That might be it! If you love something enough that it’s basically a part of y—”

Wander stopped mid sentence as she and I stared at Speed’s mini-armory which she still had lashed to her back.

Her ears drooped back. “They make bad ponies go away forever… Don’t judge me!” Speed said with a trembling lip.

I closed my eyes for a moment and did my best to think of something, anything, that might explain exactly what was going on with Wander’s magic. It’s like she’d absorbed the effects of the poison and well… integrated them.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever heard of anything like that happening.

I reached out and put a hoof on Wander’s shoulder. “I’ll try and figure out why this is happening, okay? And if I can’t, then I’m sure somepony in Lith will be able to help you.”

Wander nodded. “Thanks…”

“Hey, you girls should get out and stretch your hooves,” Vantapink said from the seat in front of us.

My ears perked up. “Eep! I have to deliver the radio!”

“Also that,” the pegan soldier added. “I, uh, I mean all of you though. After this stop it’s a solid to day drive all the way back home. Two whole days of sitting on your plot with too many others around to like, be with your coltfriend since you’re not allowed to stay in the same stupid train car. So, yeah…”

I nodded and stood up as Speed and Wander scooted into the isle and began to trot out of the train. Remembering Prince Silverlight’s instructions about weapons for his troopers, and realizing I was going to the capitol building of the NCR to deliver a letter, I reluctantly removed my battle saddle and set it down on my seat, then frowned.

I turned to look at Vantapink and asked, “Will Feature and my saddle be safe here?”

To my surprise, she saluted. “It will be an honor to guard the Machine’s weapon, ma’am!”

“Oh, err… thanks! I’ll be back for it as soon as I can be. I don’t want to cause you any inconveni—”

She winked at me. “Honestly? I appreciate the excuse to stay on the train. Ponies say I look almost exactly like Miss Pinkie Pie. Last time I was here a lot of the townsponies thought I was her reincarnation and… Well… I’m super not! I don’t want that kinda party this time, so staying on the train? Well, thanks for the excuse!”

I nodded as I gave her an understanding sympathetic look and scooched out into the aisle. “Thank you.”

“No problem!”

As we stepped out of the car, I couldn’t help but notice that Junction Town was surrounded by what seemed like endless fields of wheat. It was nice to see they had their own food supply. Not just for trade purposes, but, well… I could hear foals playing, and smell meals being cooked.

Ponyville had been nice and lively, but it felt like a place in progress. Junction town felt like a home. Not just a home, a city!

They had multi story buildings, security checkpoints, armored soldiers just standing around talking, and a big domed building towering over everything I could see. But more important than that, dotting the skyline were encamped guns on the roofs of various buildings. A few looked like AA guns.

Junction Town lacked a wall, but it was well fortified. It was protected. It was safe here. This was a place ponies lived, and had lived for a long time.

This was somepony’s home. A proper home. Not just a place ponies were eeking out a meager existence together. Not some stuffy remnant of the old world like Tenpony. Not just a farming village like Sire’s hollow. This was a place! A proper place!

I turned to give Wander my best raised eyebrow of incredulity. “Are you sure this isn’t civilization?”

Wander nodded, paused, then shrugged her shoulders. “Well… Maybe by Pre-Classical Era standards. It’ll be fun to watch this develop, but right now? I don’t like it. I do like most of the individual towns on their own, though.”

I smiled and took a few steps away from the train, assuming the giant domed building must be the capitol building.

“Miss Gears!” Prince Silverlight called out to me.

I turned around to see the Prince running for me at a half-galop.

“Is something wrong?” I asked as he stopped a few steps from me.

He shook his head. “Not at all. I only wished to make sure you understood the procedure. We are due to wait here in town for three days, holding a general market and waiting for buyers of specific goods to show up.”

I winced slightly. “I uh… Three days?”

He nodded. “Indeed. I am quite aware of you and your special someponies inability to not have private conversations in the middle of a crowded train car, and take it as given that you are used to a great deal more privacy. As you are my guests, and we are sadly far from my home where I could provide proper accommodations and hospitality, I would like to offer to put the three of you up in the hotel of your choosing until we are ready to depart.”

My ears lay back in horror as I realized just how many times we in fact, had very private conversations on the train...

Wander’s ears perked. “I— I’d like that, actually. Those bus seats are about two hundred times harder than I remember.”

“Well, they are two hundred years old,” Silverlight said with a chuckle. “Replacing useable seats is quite a low priority, I am afraid.”

I looked over to speed. “Would you like to sleep in a hotel? Or uh, I mean... wait in a hotel?”

Speed frowned. “What’s a hotel?”

“A place with short-term rental private quarters,” Wander answered with a smirk.

“Oh! Like a barracks? Sure. There’ll be enough room to clean my guns,” Speed said happily.

I turned back to SIlverlight. “Thank you for the offer. We accept.”

“Excellent!” Silverlight said, a slip of papers emerging from under his cloak in the golden glow of his magic. “Take these.”

I took the papers from his magic’s grip and looked at them, then up at him in surprise. “Blank IOUs?”

“Scripts,” SIlverlight corrected. “We use them for handling transactions with the NCR directly. Everypony in this city will accept them as they can be exchanged for goods or caps at our caravans. We typically use these to pay for goods.”

“Why not use caps?” Wander asked with a frown.

“Simply put, Miss Wander, there are no longer enough physical caps to suit the needs of three growing nations. We each have more resources than the physical currency in our possessions can represent. Therefore, those papers are a fair medium of exchange for larger values. Besides, do you want to actually carry a bag filled with ten thousand caps to pay for a crate of mortar shells?”

Speed giggled. “No… But I want the shells.”

“Precisely! Therefore, scripts,” Silverlight said with a nod.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “But, they are blank.”

“Yes. What of it?” Silverlight asked me, a deep frown somehow audible.

I waved the scripts in his face. “Oh, I don’t know. I could buy millions of caps worth of stuff and empty your vault on, I don’t know, um… A thousand toasters for mom!”

Silverlight threw his head back and laughed. “You could certainly try, Miss Gears! You could certainly try.”

I raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Do you really trust me that much?”

“I do,” SIlverlight said with a nod. “I have heard what you have done for many people and communities.”

He cleared his throat and leaned in towards me to speak more quietly. “Additional, I know you are quite the professional. You and your companions may use one of those to book any room of your choosing for the length of our stay in town. The other two, I would ask you to think of as payment for vendors who have packages I have placed orders for.”

I frowned. “Wait, you want me to pick up orders for you?”

Silverlight shook his head. “Not quite. While the ponies here will trade with me, they will not necessarily give me the best prices, nor access to all of their goods. I would like you, as a pony who isn’t associated with me, to peruse the local market and purchase any books you may happen across for me. Spell books, in particular. The other scripts are to pay for any you may find. Don't worry about the amount. Los Pegasus is good for it.”

“What if we find a spellbook being sold for several million caps?” Wander asked with a roll of her eyes. “Come on, there has to be an actual limit to the amount you’re willing to let us spend for you.”

Silverlight chuckled. “Miss Wander, have you seen my armor?”

Wander frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think so? That cloak is very good at covering you up.”

“Yes, I had it enchanted for that precise purpose,” Silverlight said before drawing back his cloak enough to show the silver plated, gold trimmed armor beneath his cloak… And the massive gold and bronze sun-crest in the center of his breastplate. “This is a normal set of T-50a power armor you will find on any Steel Ranger or Applejack’s Ranger. It was plated in silver and trimmed in gold. Given to me as a gift six years ago. As a birthday present from my court.”

My jaw dropped. So did Wander’s. “E— Excuse me?!” We stammered.

Silverlight let his cloak drop back down. “We have provided the wasteland with ammunition for hundreds of years. Think for a moment on how many shell casings alone we have created and distributed. Think of the hundreds of thousands of tons of brass littering the wasteland, and then remember that most of it came from us. I assure you, depleting our wealth by simply purchasing a few small items here and there is not possible. So please, buy any books you come across. We have things. We have ponies. We lack knowledge. It is worth any price. Indeed, should you find any spellbook valued at ‘millions of caps’, I’d be disappointed if you did not snatch it up!”

I nodded solemnly. “I understand. I was raised in a library… I’ll have to remember to fill out an application for you so you can get a library card when I get home.”

“W— Wait? You have a active library?” Silverlight stammered.

I felt a grin spread across my face. Ha! Take that mister money bags! Who’s wealthy now?

I nodded twice. “Mhm! Did you think we kept technical knowledge via oral tradition, or something?”

“Quite frankly, yes,” Silverlight said with a laugh. “I am glad to see otherwise… Now, please. Get to the market before too many ponies see you with me. I know they have hidden arcane knowledge from me before.”

I nodded, tucked the three blank scripts into my saddlebag, and trotted off towards the big dome-like building in the distance.

“Here’s hoping they’ll even see me,” I said as I waved to Silverlight over my shoulder. “Not sure they'll want to see a random zebra mare…”

After all, Bluegrass told me to get letters from every NCR settlement, wait for a week, and so on and so forth. I’d done… Precisely none of that.

He chuckled. “I am certain things are not as dire as they seem. Farewell!”

I smiled and continued to walk away with Speed and Wander flanking me. I wished I had his confidence.

We walked down the paved road, past a few small homes made from one or two train cars welded together, which had actual lawns when Wander suddenly said. “Since those scripts are for our room and stuff for our Pegan friends, we’ll probably want some more caps if we want to get ourselves anything from the largest market this side of the Celestial River.”

“Oh… Are you going to put on a show?” I asked hopefully.

It would be wonderful to hear her play again! It was sort of hard for her to do that while we were on the road.

“I have to do something while you’re fighting the bureaucratic menace,” Wander said with a shudder.

My ears drooped back. “You could go with me for moral support…”

Wander shook her head firmly. “Buck no! You have no idea how angry the ponies in charge here make me. Back when Gawd was president it was different, but now? With Reggie in charge?” She shivered almost violently. “Not everypony can get a group of ponies to behave, and that’s when it’s just friends hanging out. Once you get power and wealth involved? Well… Let’s just say later today you’ll probably understand why I use democracy as a pejorative.”

Speed snorted. “Oh, come, on! We had lots of democratic allies during the war! Like the minotaurs.”

Wander shook her head. “No, Minos was a Tribal Council. Everyone who sat on that council inherited the position from their father. Power was either hereditary, or given to you by someone who already had it thought you were the right person to take over for them. In a democracy literally everyone in the nation squabbles over power like colts fighting over a toy.”

I winced. “That… That is a pretty specific example. What happened?”

“I tried to help a small town get help from the NCR once,” Wander sighed. “Look, Gears, I’m sorry. I really can’t help you. I’d probably do something stupid, like threaten to shoot one of their representatives or whatever they call them. So, I’m going to go to the market, put on a show, get us some caps, and check out the market for anything useful.”

I nodded and flicked my tail. “W— Well okay… I wish you’d go with me though.”

“I promise I’ll go with you to see any other leaders. Just not these... ‘leaders’,” Wander said firmly.

Speed hummed and looked back and forth between us. “Sooo… If Wander is afraid she might threaten their leaders, should I avoid them too?”

Wander snorted and smirked. “As much as I think a lot of ponies would love for those windbags to die horribly, let’s avoid that. You come with me.”

“Concert?” Speed eed hopefully.

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah… That’s probably for the best.”

We walked down the road quietly for a few more minutes. In spite of how nervous Wander had just made me, I still couldn’t help but love Junction Town. Some of the houses had fenced yards! Each block we walked through had a big fountain of fresh water bubbling up from it. Not quite the indoor plumbing we enjoyed in Lith, but still very nice!

Extremely nice… Actually,now that I thought about it, everything here aside from the old train car homes looked nice and new. Crudely made, and definitely all hoof work without power tools. But new.

Buildings were painted in the same shades as Ponyville had been. Some places had glass windows. Buck, there were even storm drains in the street, meaning the town had an actual sewage system!

Thinking back a few weeks, the town of Two Bits had been in essence a junk yard arranged into homes. Two Bits. The place which supplied a critical resource for every ghoul in the NCR. Maybe Wander was right… That reeked of corruption. And neglect.

The street opened up into a huge plaza built on an old railway turntable, the kind used to turn several train cars around at once. The tracks had long since been removed, but there was no mistaking the perfect circular shape, or the fact that suddenly we were standing on ancient wood instead of a paved street, or the way the streets going to and from the turntable corresponded with the old railroads on my map.

The market’s edge was where all of the permanent shops were located. I could see general stores, specialty shops, even a few restaurants! The middle of the turntable was occupied by kiosks and booths. It sort of looked like somepony had taken Two Bit’s market and put it in the middle of a ring of proper shops, so the booths could fight to the death for the honor of receiving a storefront.

The ring was only broken by the streets… and the entrance to the yard of the massive dome-like building which I could now tell was definitely the capitol building.

Now that I was closer I could tell it wasn’t really a dome. It was more like someone took a 20 sided die, cut it in half, and stuck it to the ground. It was definitely post-war too; I couldn’t see anypony pre-war deciding it was a good idea to make a not-quite-dome like that out of wood when steel was available and knew what the phrases “structural integrity” and “maximum sustained load rating” meant.

The entrance to the building was an archway set into a tall wall guarded by a dozen ponies. I could see a nice yard past the guards. It had flowers, and even a hedge.

Why in the world was the entrance directly through the market? Was it like a gift shop to an old museum? Get all the petitioners to buy something on the way out to remember their visit?

Wander cleared her throat and pointed to the entrance. “Good luck. We’ll set up wherever they let us. Come on, Speed… You know my old songs. Can you play anything?”

Speed’s ears perked up. “I am amazing on the keytar! Everypony in the Dream Pod said so!”

Wander halted for a moment and face-hoofed, before continuing. “I think I have one of those in my bag. Let’s do a demo before a performance. It would be cool to have a backup track.”

I gave Wander a quick little hug and a worried look. “I— I really hope it’s not as bad as you said it would be.”

She smiled. “Hey, you survived Tenpony. This should be cake!” her smile melted into a thousand yard stare of hatred. “Horrible. Gross. Hearthswarming fruitcake.”

I shivered. The abomination known as fruitcake had been written of in many a history book as a weapon of mass toilet destruction, and the scourge of all plumbers. It was banned in Lith as a precaution, just in case we ever get fruit… Or cake...

“Thanks. That really gives me confidence and hope,” I said, hoping I sounded sarcastic enough.

Wander blinked in surprise. “Huh. Well… Good! See you later, hon. Come on, Speed. Let’s roll!”

”Wow. That was the worst sarcasm I’ve ever heard. That sounded completely ernest, hon. It takes talent to fail that hard. Good job!”

I flicked my tail in irritation and began to make my way across the market towards the capitol, refusing to dignify imaginary dad with a response.

It felt so weird to be alone. Being stuck on the landtrain with nearly fifty ponies definitely had me back in civilization mode. Even if I ignored that, I’d been with Wander for a week now, and I’d only spent maybe three days alone total before that.

Normally, I was fine being alone. I liked it. It’s why I chose to be a mail pony.

Well, that and walking was just super awesome! I could move my legs, and use that to actually go places! That was another thing which had been bothering me for the last few days. Forget the lack of privacy, not being able to get up and move was just… nearly torture!

Wait a minute… Wander said the mare who became my soul was in a wheelchair.

I frowned and slowed down. Was that part of me and how I felt because of her? That would make sense. Being immobile had never bothered me before I was put into this body…

Put into this body. Along with her.

Was that the right way to say it? Was that what really happened, or had we merged?

I stopped next to a kiosk made from old milk crates which was selling jerky. I wasn't sure how or why I noticed what it was selling. I had a question to answer.

Wander was right. I wanted to be a zebra. A real one. This life was wonderful. I wanted it so hard I’d neglected nearly everything machine-spirity I could do for years. Decades, even.

But… I wasn’t all there was in me, was I?

Celestia that is a weird thought to have, but it’s true. Somewhere in me is the remnants of a zebra mare who apparently really really wanted to be a machine. Probably because she couldn’t walk, or talk, and getting a mechanical body would mean she could do those things. She’d have been happy to give up being organic for a body that worked.

Like mom, come to think of it. Her body did work, but her insanity prevented her from seeing that.

I frowned sharply as I tried to put myself into the horseshoes of a pony like mom.

“Uh… Can I help you?” A griffon asked.

I jumped, eyes widening as I realized I’d been staring blankly at a poor rust colored griffon. “Ah! What? I um… Sorry, I was thinking about… things.”

The griffon nodded slowly. “Okay… Can you do that while looking at anything other than my soul, please?”

I blushed and nodded shyly and began to trot away. “Sorry!”

Okay… I was thinking about a thing… Where was I?

”You were about to realize that a pony doesn't have to be just one thing. Please realize that already. Your subconscious complains about that way too much.”

Oh. Sorry, dad. I— Wait a minute! You’re imaginary. If it annoys you, that means I can hear her, I just haven't been paying attention!

”Y— Yeah… That’s entirely correct, sweetie.” Imaginary dad said with a weird sadness to his voice.

I closed my eyes to concentrate and thought hard, deciding to push some of my magic towards my mind to try and help things along. Hey! Hey, uh… Zebra me? Can you... hear me?

I said— No! I signed to myself. Without thinking or pretending or anything.

Wait… If you’re my— Uh, our subconscious, how can we talk consciously?

We're not unique? I said to myself as I stopped mid-step again. B— but I thought—

I shook my head and continued towards the gate. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. The only Zebrican magic users I am aware of are Shamen.

I turned to avoid walking into a pole somepony had very rudely placed in just the right place for a slightly more preoccupied me to plow snoot first into.

That wasn’t you?

AH HA! I mentally exclaimed while breaking out into a huge grin. We’re both! You are a separate person!

I felt exasperation well up out of nowhere.

I bit my lips and walked around a mare who was standing in the road while she talked to a friend. Well… You are me, and you can’t tell anypony… I raised an eyebrow as a realization hit me. Hold on! You can’t access my old memories?

I felt some embarrassment deep down, like if I had recalled doing something incredibly foolish in full view of others long, long ago.

I nodded to myself and kept moving, trying not to run into anypony as I focused on this moment of literal self discovery. Oh. Well, uh, in that case in Equish the other spirits called me Sleeping Kitten. That’s the rough translation of the town where I used to be a windmill.

I checked to make sure the path ahead of me was clear before focusing back on, uh… me? What exactly was she? She felt separate from me, but also not.

So… Who were you? I asked carefully.

I felt deeply uncomfortable all of a sudden. Like if mom had materialized in the bus stop Wander and I shared a week ago.

I told you my old name, I pressed. Fair is fair!

I shook my head. No. You can have different opinions and clearly know stuff I don’t. You need a name, and you should absolutely tell me if you’d like to do something so I can take your wishes into account and—

I facehooved and groaned into my frog.

But I felt like I did— I moved my hoof away for a moment so I could facehoof once again. Ohhhh… I understand now! I still think you should have a name though. Which means you think you should have a name too.

I was quiet for a long moment, which let me safely navigate around a water barrel which I was pretty sure I’d have run into if she or I had been talking. This was taking a surprising amount of concentration! It was like meditation, but more so.

She signed at last.

I walked around a stall and looked up to try and see how much longer I had before reaching the gate to the capitol. Not much longer. Maybe a minute.

Soooo… Is there anything you’d like for us to do?

I stopped mid-step and wished I could stare at myself. “Scratch? She never told me her last name! How do you know that?”

I felt an odd sort of embarrassment deep down in the back of my mind.

I took a deep breath for emphasis, then let it out, startling the mare tending the stall next to me. I offered her an apologetic smile. “Sorry… Working something out in my head.”

She nodded and offered me a little smile. “Colt problems?”

“Mare problems,” I corrected.

She blushed. “Oh! Well, I hope you two resolve things. Have a nice day.”

I smiled back. “Thanks, miss!”

She was nice! I said to Jasmine.

she replied.

Yeah! We totally— I narrowed my eyes and took advantage of a kinda shiny metal breastplate being sold at a nearby booth to glare at myself. Hey! You’re deflecting the question. How did you know what Wander’s last name was?

How did she die, exactly? I remember a broken neck…

Deep, writhing, desperate, discomfort flooded my everything with such intensity that I immediately dropped the issue. Sorry…

Uh, okay… I wanted to ask why, but I guess I already knew.

I just wasn’t going to remember. Because holy Celestia’s fetlocks, that was a whole new kind of terrified right there…

I smiled and stepped around a colt who was trying to act older and buy some hard cider. Sounds like there’s lots of things we should be doing with Vinyl that I don’t know we should be doing.

<There so is!> Jasmine squeed.

“Uh….” I said out loud as I tried to search for any reason why that would make sense.

Jasmine said while I felt incredibly eager and hopeful.

Oh, hey! She was definitely me. Good.

Good to know you were just as frustrated with our dry spell as— Wait. Of course you were. You’re me… Wow, this is a weird conversation.

What do you mean?

<Well, if you tried, and I tried, we should be able to fully merge. That’s what I want. Why would I not want to be a sexy android with an immortal marefriend who we happened to have the biggest fanfilly crush on back in the day only to then learn she is actually a huge dork like we are? Uh, by the way, we should get more of those! Marefriends, I mean… And at least one coltfriend too.>

“Agreed,” I said out loud with a tired smile as I reached the gates.

Why was I feeling kind of… Well, sleepy? I don’t sleep. Was I burning magic? On what?

One of the guards raised an eyebrow. I blushed and frowned sheepishly. “S— Sorry! I meant to say hello. I’m having a really weird day… I’m here to deliver a package, can I go in?”

The guard nodded. “Yes, ma’am. The Gallery is open to the public. You don’t have to check your gun, but be warned, there’s a whole company of us in there. Start anything and you won't come out alive. Head straight in, first door on your left.”

“Thank you,” I said as the guards parted to let me through.

I tried to think of why they said my gun, and realized I still had my pistol on my leg. Oops.

Jasmine mentally signed.

I groaned and trotted down the path between the hedges. Great. Now even I was in on jokes I wasn’t going to get… Headache… I can feel you coming on and I don’t even have a brain.

Speaking of lovers… What do we think about Speed? I asked, since my subconscious was currently on the radio.

Felt like a good idea...

Yeah, that’s what I thought… But if we don’t include her Wander and I will never get a moment together she won’t ever hear anyways.

Why didn’t I think of that before? I asked as I shook my head slowly. So, are you just going to always talk to me now?

I nodded. Yes… Wow this is burning way more power than feels reasonable!

I’m kind of sad you can’t just talk any time you want… It would be nice to have a cute mare in my head pop in and be like “Oh, by the way you actually know how to do the thing. Here’s how to do the thing.”

”Hey!” Imaginary dad protested.

I smirked and held in a laugh that would have made me look insane to the ponies who were leaving the capitol building… and looking really upset. Oh no...

My ears perked up at the thought of getting to learn more ways to have fun with my mare. Oh! Cool! Thanks, me.

I smiled as I stepped off the lawn and onto the capitol’s wooden deck. She was a really nice mare to talk t—

I closed my eyes tightly, sighed, and facehooved.

The stallion next to me nodded. “Yeah… I feel about the same going in here. Good luck, they barely listen to ponies.”

I looked up just in time to see an older yellow furred stallion push his way into the lobby through a thick crowd of ponies.

Well… that doesn’t bode well at all.

Up close I could see a very interesting feature in the building itself. The lobby had no doors, just a single big archway which would let about ten ponies walk in shoulder to shoulder. Through the archway I could see a large room full of ponies, all of whom had split up into groups to argue, debate, or argubate with one another over so many different things that trying to overhear any single conversation proved impossible.

My ears drooped as I imagined waiting for all of them to be heard so I could get inside to deliver the radio. Maybe I could find some palace— Er, council staff and get them to set an appointment for later this evening?

I looked around for anyone who looked like they worked there, and my eyes fell on a sign hanging from the ceiling which read “Public Observation Lounge” and pointed off to a door on the right side of the room. If there was going to be staffers anywhere, it would be in there.

I gently pushed my way into the crowd, stepping past, around, and half-over easily two dozen ponies while constantly offering apologies such as “excuse me”, “pardon me”, and “sorry, I’m heading to the lounge”.

It took me nearly ten minutes to make my way to the doorway. I pushed it open eagerly, praying silently that there wouldn’t be a million ponies and their body odor on the other side. The wooden building was hot. Very hot. Everypony in here was sweating. The only scents in the air were wet fur and salt. I could feel my poor coolant pumps heating up.

How the petitioners outside hadn’t gotten heatstroke was beyond me. This building was an oven!

Thankfully, the lounge was almost entirely empty. It was little more than a big balcony lined with benches with an open wall that faced into the council’s chamber and looked down on the floor from the rear-most wall of the round-ish room.

The only other ponies here were six fully armored NCR troopers armed with shotguns who snapped to attention the second I opened the door. The message was clear. Start anything and I’d die horribly.

Assuming those aren't full of bird shot or salt.

“Good afternoon,” I said to the guards as I trotted into the lounge. “I’m here to deliver a package to the council. Is there anywhere I can make an appointment to see one of them later?”

Three of the guards exchanged looks then nodded their masked heads. One of them pointed to a bench at the front of the lounge and grunted. “Wait here. Yew Tree, go see if you can find Raven.”

“Thank you,” I said with a polite smile as I took the indicated seat.

One of the six troopers trotted out the door, their hoofsteps suggesting they were happy to get to leave. Why was that? What was I in for?

I squirmed in my seat, somewhat unnerved by the happy way that pony left. Since I was going to have to wait no matter what, I decided I might as well watch the council proceedings, and looked down into the room below me.

To my surprise, seated atop a huge dais were more than just a few ponies. I’d expected there to only be one Council Member per NCR settlement, but there were far more than that! According to my map the NCR owned twelve communities, while I counted forty two council members. I could tell which ones were representatives of given communities by their nice clothes, and the convenient labels on their podiums. The other Councillors were representatives of the military itself, a surprising number of independent merchants, a merchant guild’s representative, a couple high ranking Talon mercenaries, and even a Hellhound.

The poor pupper looked absolutely bucking miserable, crammed behind a pony-sized podium in a pony-sized seat in this oven of a building listening to the endless blah, blah, blah.

By Celestia, it was almost literally endless blah blah blah! So much so that I faded in and out of reality as my mind refused to pay attention to the proceedings for the most part and simply began to recall stories in books I had read before.

While conscious and alert, I did make out a few very disturbing things. The case I had walked in on was a merchant from the New Canterlot Craftsponies Guild who was arguing that there should be a “bid tariff” on all public auctions. Meaning anypony who wanted to place a bid at an auction, whether they won or not, would have to pay a small fee to place their bid at all.

They argued that it would help generate more revenue from the many public auctions of estates and lands, all of which could go into funding more auctions or to anywhere the Council deemed in need of emergency funds.

To my surprise, the Council voted on it then and there. It passed thirty three to nine.

I felt pretty sure the ponies I was looking at had just chosen to prevent poorer ponies from buying any kind of land available for auction. I hoped I was wrong. Maybe there was some kind of homesteading package for the poor? It felt a bit stupid to cater to the wealthy when your nation was mostly formed by survivors of an apocalypse.

The next bit of information I gleaned was whether or not the NCR would resettle Magebridge. The answer was yes, since it was a useful place for trade with the Pegans… But only by one vote.

After that a general came up to the stand. This got my attention completely as it was the first time I was seeing an officer and the military had a third of the council seats.

His name was Acetylene Torch. He was middle aged, had a towering but slender build, and was otherwise totally invisible under his uniform billowing long coat aside from a few strands of lavender mane. He came up to the petitioner's podium and managed to present a very rousing speech which he had clearly prepared and rehearsed.

The general wanted more troops out on the roads. Much more. Six times more. He argued fervently that the supply chain disruption the Tainted were causing the NCR was crippling its communities’ defences, as they had seen with Fillydelphia. He pleaded with the council, insisting that without immediate resupply even more well organized communities could fall to the Tainted’s control if they chose to attack another community directly rather than continue to engage in their banditry.

To my horror, Tenpony's councilmare stood up mid speech and rebuked him, calling the entire plan stupid as she pointed out the Tainted had access to some form of mass teleportation. Then, to my surprise, she brought up the very valid point that if they put more troops on the roads, the Tainted could simply beam into a settlement and just have it for themselves after killing what few soldiers remained.

The General argued that would happen anyways as most of their troops were down to reserve ammunition and what few scraps of bandages they could buy from the civilian markets.

The Tenpony Councilmare pointed out the military was allowed to simply confiscate civilian goods in an emergency and defending their community was certainly an emergency.

The council voted to table the matter for later discussion… 25 to 17. So they could discuss “More important issues.”

Celestia… Why? This was not an issue to put aside! Not when an army with advanced pre-war tech was running around unchecked. What could possibly be more important than finding a way to shore up crumbling supply lines?

Apparently, the problems of the aging yellow stallion I’d bumped into as I had walked in… How the hay had he gone in so soon? He had to have sent somepony ahead to reserve a spot for him.

The old stallion was the leader of a small village called Rock Farm. His town was having problems with nightly ghoul attacks. The Council listened to him as he described the damage in terms of loss of livestock, equine lives, property, and the expense of ammunition. They seemed sympathetic as he begged for military assistance…

Then, when one of the military's representatives asked what kind of ghouls Troopers would expect to engage, the old pony said, “Nopony’s sure. They’re like glowing ones, but glow yellow. Plants wither and die around them and any pony bit by one has the bite bubble and ooze like the damn thing’s spit is full of Taint. I—”

He didn’t get another word out before the Council descended into a sea of complaints, insisting their time was being wasted on nonsense. To my horror, the same military rep stood up, told the stallion that “We’ve chased those rumors before, they lead nowhere. You will leave the council floor immediately.”

I stared, my jaw hanging loose and low as the old stallion turned and walked away, his head hanging as if he expected his community wouldn’t survive the week.

I had to do something!

But I also had been asked to wait here…

Thinking fast, I pressed down on the MoA communicator on my collar and whispered, “Do Well? Are you there?”

A few moments later, she replied. “Sure am. Lunch break. No new hat yet either… Would you believe Shy didn’t have a spare hat? Also, you're probably right about the Tainted. They have more and more camps as I get closer to the HQ. What’s up?”

“I just saw the NCR Council refuse to help a town called Rock Farm. Apparently they are having problems with glowing yellow ghouls with toxic bites,” I reported.

“Ooooh… Yeah,” Rainbow sighed. “The NCR won't ever help with them. They are trying to cover them up.”

“Why?” I whispered as my face contorted in rage.

“You know how all megaspells make ghouls?” she asked.

“Yeah, wh—” My eyes widened as I realized the Gardens of Equestria were a megaspell. “O— Oh…”

“Yep. They don’t want to admit they transformed thousands of ponies on the edge of the Gardens into monsters… You’re riding with the Pegans, right? Drop a word in with them. They’ve been doing what they can to help with Garden Ghouls… Don't go chasing them yourself. Turns out a Ghoul made by a hazardous waste cleaning megaspell is basically a living ball of hazardous waste.”

I flinched as I thought about my systems getting flooded with a hyper-corrosive fluid and my cooling system just dissolving away to nothing in a few minutes. “Y— Yeah… I’ll let them know.”

“Good. Do Well out.” Rainbow said as the com clicked off.

I looked up. It didn’t look like the guards standing six or so meters from me had heard any of that...

More than a little disheartened, disgusted, and angry, I slumped in my seat and stewed. Wander was right. While individual communities in the NCR were nice, this was just horrible and awful, and maybe more than just a bit evil.

I was barely aware of the Council continuing its daily work. A few ponies from the Battle of FIllydelphia were awarded medals. A small army of lobbyists represented business friendly and consumer hostile ideas to the council. A few passed.

Then, suddenly, just as I realized the council’s primary function seemed to be to promote business, economic growth, and trade (which gave me some hope that we might get food out of them and all this hadn’t been a huge waste of time), the trooper who had left returned.

They trotted up to me and cleared their throat. “Ma’am?”

I looked up and nodded. “Yeah?”

It had only taken him about two hours… What the hay were you even doing? If the answer was “not being here” I totally understood and respected that.

“I’m afraid the Council is presently only a quarter of the way through the scheduled petitioners and votes for today. You won't get to see any of the Councillors for at least five days,” he reported.

“O— Oh…” I said as I closed my eyes slowly and let out a long slow breath.

“You’re trying to deliver mail, right?” the soldier said with a curious inflection.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“I know they get mail all the time,” he said as he nodded towards the door. “Head over to the post office. I’m sure somepony there can help you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You have a post office?”

He nodded. “Of course!”

“Why didn’t you just tell me this when I got here?” I asked through narrow eyes and clenched teeth.

“So I could not be here for a few hours while I hunted down the Council’s secretary. Obviously,” he answered without any shame or guilt.

I nodded and took a deep breath, nearly choking on the taste of BO floating in this furnace of a room. “Honestly, as much as I want to blame you, I don’t think I can...”

Without another word I got up and trotted out of the lounge back into the still nearly totally packed lobby. A quarter of the ponies who were supposed to have been seen had already left and it was still a madhouse in this oven!

I began to push my way through the crowd again, heading for the archway so I could leave and figure out where the post-office was. Once again an ocean of apologies escaped my lips. This time they weren't just for bumping into ponies or needing them to move, but also because they were here and had to talk to the board of assholes.

“Sorry,” I said as I stepped around a mare with an extremely long tail that dragged on the ground, and was obviously wealthy since she had glass jewelry braided into her tail.

Unfortunately, while trying to avoid the noblemare, I smacked snoot first into a feathery something! I took a half step back to apologize to the pegasus I’d run into wing first, only to realize I’d walked directly into a griffon’s flank.

He turned around as my cheeks went a little pink. I opened my mouth to apologize to the larger griffon, especially since he was wearing Talon armor and had a heavy rifle on his back.

His eyes caught mine and widened. Before the first syllable was out of my mouth he exclaimed. “You’re The Machine!”

“Sowuh?” I said unintelligently as my apology slurred together with surprise.

A few ponies turned to look our way at the sound of my nickname, but the general buzz of a thousand conversations remained unchanged.

The griffon extended his right talon for me to shake and grinned. “Thank you!”

I slowly took his talon and shook it. “You’re welcome… um, but for what?” I asked with a sheepish grin.

“I’m Dimitri Blacktalon. You saved my brother’s life in Fillydelphia!” he exclaimed with an elated tone of voice. “It is an honor to meet you! Are you here to deliver a radio? Do you need any help at all?”

A grin split my muzzle. Thank you, Celestia. I promise to bake you a cake and have it delivered for this lucky break.

“Yes! I tried to deliver to the council just now but they are booked for five days and I only have three days to spend in Junction Town. I was told I might get help at the post office but I don’t know where it is. Could you take me there? Or give me directions?” I asked hopefully.

Dimitri rolled his eyes and waved a tallon at me in dismissal. “Ha! A Blacktalon’s debts are not repaid through such trivial nonsense! Follow me!”

I frowned as he began to push his way through the crowd, moving towards the front of the room.

He turned to look over his shoulder. “Come on! It’s okay, you’re with me!”

I trotted forwards, following the wake he left as ponies moved out of his way. Maybe he was an officer or something?

I squinted to get a look at the stripes on his armor. He had eight of them. Was that an officer’s rank emblem? How exactly did—

Dimitri stopped in front of a desk where two troopers sat, their masks off but otherwise in full armor. He set his talons on the desk, pushing a red furred mare aside with a wing as he looked the two troopers in the eyes.

“Hey, know who this is?” Dimitri said to the trooper on the left as he jerked a talon my way.

The trooper raised an eyebrow, her minty furred face contorting in annoyance. “No? What did I tell you about your so-called VIPs, Di—”

“This,” Dimitri said slowly and firmly. “Is The Machine.”

The mare’s eyes widened slightly and she took a real look my way. “Oh, shit really?!”

“Really,” Dimitri said with an ironclad nod. “Look at those flanks, seen any zeeb else with girls like those?”

“... Fair point,” the trooper admitted while blushing for some reason. “What’s she need?”

“She’s got a package for the Prez. Pretty important, it’s about a trade deal. Lotta guns, power generation, big deal shit. It’s all over the radio. She can’t wait for the Council’s dick-n-clit measuring contest to be over. Got it?”

Wait, that’s a thing you can compete in? Huh… I’ll have to ask Wander about the rules later.

“Gotcha. We’ll see if she’s able to make time… Wait in the guardpost,” she said before turning to the other trooper. “Prism, see if the President can spare a few minutes.”

“Right away, captain,” the other trooper said as she got up from her seat and jogged away.

Dimitri nodded in satisfaction and returned his talons to the floor before grinning at me. “Come on. You’re gold now. It won't take long.”

I rocked from hoof to hoof and gestured to the crowd of ponies around me. “Thank you but, um… This seems a little unfair.”

Dimitri rolled his eyes and chuckled. “It’s no more unfair than bribing their way into the council rather than booking an appointment three weeks in advance,” he said nodding towards a plum colored stallion in a white vest. “Like he did ten minutes ago.”

“Oh…” I said, my face contorting angrily as I sighed.

Dimitri walked over to my side and gave me a friendly side-hug. “Ah, but this is politics, kotyonok!” he squeaked. “Uh, sorry, I mean, Machina. Politics is unfair. Is synonym! Come, the guardpost awaits!”

Dimitry lead me through the crowd to a door on the opposite side of the still oven-hot building as the lounge. The sign next to it read “Guard Post, Authorized Personnel Only.” Dimitri pushed it open like he owned the palace. Since he seemingly was outranked by that Captain, but still got her to do what he wanted, maybe he did.

The room on the other side was fairly large. Big enough for eight bunk beds, two tables, a few lockers, a bookshelf, and a scattering of chairs. In spite of all the salvage-crafted furniture there was still enough room for nearly 30 troopers to be standing around just hanging out in uniform, but clearly off duty.

I felt comfortable saying clearly off duty because there was no way on-duty troopers would be playing checkers, reading books, drinking, or playing the knife game at one of the tables with a griffon.

I have no idea why a griffon thought they could beat a pony at the knife game, but they were playing it anyways. Maybe the griffon was drunk and didn’t realize that a pony can’t actually bleed from their hoof, and also only had one thing to accidentally hit rather than three… So ponies can’t lose the knife game...

Dimitri walked into the room and waited for the door to swing shut behind me. For a moment I thought he was going to take me to the small bar and pour me a drink. Instead he walked over to it, cleared his throat, unleashed “Ei! Suki!”

Every single trooper turned towards him at once forming a wall of glare configurations. Some of them directed at me.

I squirmed awkwardly. Dimitri stepped out the side and made a sweeping gesture to me with both wings and one talon.

“This, is The Machine!” He announced. “Give her vodka, and you’ll have a great time!”

Never before had I seen a crowd shift from annoyed to party in 10 seconds flat.

Before I knew it, I had a bottle of salted vodka in my hoof, some traditional griffon music was playing from an old record player, and entire plates of snacks had appeared as if by magic. The snacks were the most concerning part. There is no way they could have just had little plates of artistically stacked pickle slices, potato salad, smoked cheese bits, some kind of meat-jelly-cube-things, and little round, puffy, muffin things, all just laying around for snack-related-emergencies.

And yet, there were suddenly entire platters of them. Everywhere. Like islands of food in the sea of cheering griffons and ponies, all of whom were asking me to tell my best war stories.

It was at this moment I decided those Machine stories had probably gone a little too far.

Of course, it would be rude to not accept the drink and not tell them one of my stories. Preferably one they wouldn’t have heard before. Besides, that would let me show them I wasn’t all that special.

Raising the bottle to my lips, I tipped it back and dumped it into my throat in one smooth motion, just like how dad told me a real mare drinks her drinks. Then, setting the bottle down on the floor, I cleared my throat and got ready to tell one of the stories I had from my centuries as a mail mare.

“So this one time, I was taking a package of medicine from my hometown up to the furthest village in the icy north. The town was suffering from a diphtheria epidemic and without what little medicine we could scrounge from the ruins around the other villages, every foal up there was going to die,” I began.

Someone pressed another bottle into my hoof. I held it, deciding to drink it in a few minutes. After all, I’d just started the story. “I was making my way up a glacier, not by choice, the blizzard going on made every other path completely impassable, when all of a sudden, out of the flying ice and snow comes a giant, mutant, radioactive polar bear. He was pissed. And hungry. And on me before I could even think to dodge. You wouldn’t think something five time’s a pony’s size could be stealthy, but let me tell you, those things will ambush you better than most cats!

“So, now I am wrestling with this bear while making sure it can’t smash my left saddlebag so the medicine is safe while we’re sliding down the glacier towards the supercooled water below…”

☢★★◯★★☢

“... Thanks to dad’s training, and the convenient tree trunk, I managed to get the second bear to hit the third one with its claws, and colt did that rip a nasty wound into the poor thing’s gut! Then the first—”

“HEY!” A mare’s voice called, snapping me out of storytelling mode.

Prism, the trooper who the Captain had sent to ask the President for an appointment, was standing in the doorway, looking more than a little ticked off. Not as ticked off as the troopers I had been telling about the time I got three bears to fight each other so I could slip away and finish my route, but still pretty ticked off.

“President Grimfeathers will see you now,” Prism said with an irritated huff. “You’d better hope you’re not drunk!”

I smiled. “Thank you. I’ve only had two bottles, I’m completely sober,” I said as I stood up and looked to the assembled troops.

I had to finish the story… Right?

“To make a long story short, I managed to trick the bears into fighting each other and slipped away. The delivery was made, most of the foals got better, and the five that died weren’t even my fault and the five vials that broke didn’t matter in the end, since those five died before I left… Anyways, I’m sure all of you would have handled it much better. I’m just the mailmare, after all. Thanks for the drinks!”

Prism turned and trotted away with a “follow me” wave of her hoof. As I left the room, the Guardhouse broke out into cheers with many troopers telling me to do things like “Go get-em, hero!”

I frowned as I followed Prism to a hallway on the same side of the building as the guard room.

I mean, I guess you could call delivering medicine heroic? It’s just a job though. A thing needed to be moved from one point to another, so I moved it. There was an obstacle interfering with delivery, so I overcame it. I didn’t do anything special or amazing. I had an overnight delivery, and all I did was make sure it was delivered on time. As requested. Because I’m a mailmare.

Prism led me down a short hallway, with no less than six posted guards per side, two of whom even had power armor, to a large door made from a piece of traincar. Fortunately, I had enough time as we trotted down the hallway to quickly fish out my courtier's robes and put them on.

Albeit put them on a little messily, but I still had to be in uniform to deliver something to a president!

She knocked on it several times before a deep yet feminine girffon’s voice called, “Come in.”

Prism opened the door for me. I frowned and nodded towards my pistol, “Shouldn’t I take this off and leave it with you?”

Prism smirked. “Madam President is the fastest draw in the NCR. I am sure she would love to see someone try to kill her with a pistol. It would make her day.”

“It would,” the president chuckled from inside the room. “Come on in.”

I trotted into the office, and Prism closed the door behind me. I immediately regretted my decision to come here. The room was an irregular, motherbucking, trapezoid!

All of the angels were just weird! As if the architect had decided “I’m going to make this room so uncomfortable to be in, that no one will ever want to use it for anything ever, except maybe punishing small foals without hurting them. Physically, anyway.”

On the other hoof, the design did serve to make the President look much bigger than she could have really been. She sat behind a small but new and well crafted desk with the NCR’s seal carved into the front. She was framed by a pair of NCR flags hung on poles behind her, with a third larger one hung flat against the wall like a tapestry so both she and her chair were framed by the flag’s device.

I couldn’t help but notice her chair appeared to be the captain’s chair from a Thunderhead-class airship. That's pretty neat.

Almost as neat as the little brass plaque which sat in front of the massive griffon hen behind the desk, letting the world know they were standing in front of “President Regina Grimfeathers, Warrior, Mother, Friend of Pip”.

I’d gotten to know a few griffons over the last few weeks, including Sviatoslav. I was used to how much bigger than a pony they were. President Grimfeathers towered over them all. She made the huge chair she sat in look small, but not in a comical way. Her golden eyes burned brightly, radiating power and intelligence.

Power in the physical sense, not the mere air of authority any true leader has. This was a griffon who looked like if you ticked her off she could headbutt you into a wall, and through it.

That made me feel rather small…

“So…” the President began. “I hear you are The Machine.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. Yep. The stories had gone too far!

“Yes, Madam President,” I said with an apologetic smile. “However, the stories are all somewhat exaggerated and I do not believe I should be treated as anything special for what I have done.”

President Grimfeathers smiled and shook her head. “Irrelevant. You saved one of my towns,” she said with a respectful dip of her head. “Sire’s Hollow is a breadbasket which supplies nearly forty percent of my citizens with food.”

“Oh. Well, yes. I did help with that,” I agreed with a short nod. “But—”

“I have Bluegrass’s letter right here,” she said as she lifted a few pieces of paper off her desk for me to see, then set them back down. “A full account of the story from his own two eyes. A glowing recommendation for me to hear you out, and transcripts of his first radio call to your Queen. I know what you did for my nation that night.”

“W— Well, yes,” I admitted. “I did stop an Ultra-Sentinel, but that was mostly luck and having the right tool for the job.”

“Irrelevant. You still did it,” President Grimfeathers said with a chuckle. “You remind me of an old friend of mine. Always so humble… It’s more than that one incident which makes you a pony worth speaking with, Miss Gears.”

“I know!” I said with a smile. “I have your radio right here.”

I began to rummage in my saddlebags for the radio case.

“No. Not that. Forget it for a moment,” President Grimfeathers ordered with a sigh. “You came to the assistance of one of my battalions as well as a squadron of Applejack’s Rangers without anything compelling you to. At extreme personal risk, I might add. You went hoof to hoof with an extremely dangerous opponent who nearly destroyed the entire attacking force single hoofed. A battle in which you proved to be a deciding factor in my Talons’ survival and the reclamation of one of our settlements from the Tainted. That, no matter how much luck was involved, no matter how tall the tales have become, is true. Correct?”

“W— Well, yes,” I stammered shyly. “B— But I was just doing what anypony would have done in my place.”

The President shook her head firmly. “Very few would have done what you did had they been given the chance, Miss Gears. Your actions are more than enough for me to treat you with respect and take you seriously. Thank you for your service, Miss Gears,” she said with a half-bow. “Now then, to business. I hear you have a package for me?”

I felt my cheeks flush brightly. Nopony other than Queen Katydid had ever told me I did something good and special like that before, and she was my godmother so she was supposed to say stuff like that even for the little things, because that’s what family does.

“I— I— Uh, yes!” I said with a happy smile as I removed one of the radios from the case and fetched a letter from my bag.

I set them both on her desk then looked into her eyes and asked. “Do you need me to explain everything, or did Mister Bluegrass’s letter tell you everything you’d like to know?”

“I know almost everything I need to know,” she confirmed with a nod. “I do however, have one question… Was your nation founded by the MAS Researchers who were in the Crystal City’s laboratories on the Last Day?”

I nodded. “Yes, Ma’am. Them, the surviving civilians and nobility, and the changelings.”

“I see… Your Queen, does she hold the title due to being a leader of Changelings, or is there more to it?” President Grimfeathers asked with a very serious look in her eyes.

“Well, yes. She is the rightful heir to the Crystal Empire,” I replied. “Um, I wouldn't think of her like your usual noble, assuming Tenpony is how all of your nobles here are. She’s very nice and just wants her ponies to have food and safety.”

“In my experience, anyone who claims a title such as King or Queen tend to be… conquerors,” the President said in a way which made me think she thought of such people positively. “Does she have any intentions towards my nation other than trade?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know of, ma’am. I’m her godfilly, and I really don’t think she’d do anything like that. Her Majesty tries her best to be like her aunt.”

“And who would that be?” the President asked curiously.

“Oh, well, Princess Celestia,” I replied.

“Then she is for certain an alicorn?” she asked. “One who knew Celestia herself?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“And, for absolutely certain, your culture is collectivist and non-violent towards one another?” she asked with an odd sort of hopeful tone to her voice.

“Well, Madam President, when nature itself seems to want you dead, it doesn’t make sense to add more people to your list of enemies,” I said matter of factly. “You’ll gain much more for yourself if you cooperate with them instead. They’ll get more too! Long term survival for us has always been about forming close-knit groups of as many ponies as possible… Uh, not to say we never had, or don’t currently have bandit problems. It’s just they are rare, and our bandits tend to form large groups of their own… Twice in our history gangs have decided to join us once they were town-sized. There’s simply too many non-pony threats to ignore basic herding instincts.”

President Grimfeathers grinned. “Good! Then, we have a deal. I will pull my weight and make the council do as they are told. For once. They may not want to deal with your nation, but I do. I will place a call to Her Highness as soon as I have time for it. Thank you for coming, Miss Gears.”

“I am happy to have been helpful, Madam President,” I said as I bowed politely and turned to leave.

President Grimfeathers cleared her throat, making me turn back around as she said. “Before you go…”

“Yes, Ma’am?” I asked with a curious tilt of my head.

“I heard you lost a weapon at Sire’s Hollow,” she said as she looked me up and down.

I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. That tends to happen when you’re punched by a robot five times your size.”

“I’d give you something to replace it as a thank you for your service, but I hear you’re heading to all of the major settlements and that means Los Pegasus is on your list.”

“Yes ma’am. I have a ride there.” I informed with a polite smile. “Thank you for thinking of me, but—”

The President opened a drawer in her desk and removed a stack of papers along with a quill and inkpot. “A moment.”

I frowned, wondering if she thought she should pay to replace the LAER I lost since it was broken defending her town. “Um, are you writing me a caps voucher, Ma’am?”

The President cackled for a moment then shook her head. “No.”

I blinked, unsure of what, if anything, she could be doing now.

After a few moments of writing, she passed a whole stack of papers over to me with a smile. “Here you are,” she said as she pointed to the papers on top of the stack with a talon. “These are the papers you’ll need to enter Los Pegasus, in case you don’t have any or your guide isn't allowed to bring guests inside the walls. There’s also a paper from me verifying you as a foreign diplomat, it should be useful even in the Herd. They hate us, but they’ll trust the Talon name. I’ve also included a script for three thousand caps. It’s not from the NCR, it’s from the Talons. That makes the bond good as gold. Cash it at a bank in Los Pegasus, spend it all at one shop. Replace your gun, or test your apparent immunity to getting drunk. Have a good time on me. You’ve earned it!”

“Thank you, Madam President,” I said as I bowed low to hide the shocked look on my face. “I’ll be sure to tell Her Majesty you helped me on my mission as soon as I can.”

The President shook her head. “Please don’t. This isn’t a matter of politics, it’s a matter of honor. You saved Talon lives. We owed you a debt, it’s been payed. Simple as that.”

Ah. A Warrior’s debt. Now that I understood. It was in all the history books which mentioned Equestria’s deals with griffons.

“I understand,” I said as I turned around once more. “Goodbye, and thank you again.”

“Don’t mention it… Good luck out there, Machina,” President Grimfeathers said with a smile as I opened the door and stepped outside.

To my surprise, Prism was still standing there. As soon as I left she stood at attention. “Do you remember the way out, Miss?”

I nodded. “Yes, thank you for helping me.”

She smiled faintly. “No, thank you. I’m getting tired of the brownouts…”

I nodded to pretend I knew what that meant and began to walk down the hall towards the open non-oven-hot air of the market.

While this certainly had ended well, I hoped Wander and Speed had a better time over the last few hours than I had…

33 - Improvised Repairs

Emerald flames glowed on the horizon.

Vinyl!

I picked myself up and took a step towards the impact site. I’d walk there. Never mind the error messages. Nevermind the pain. She needed me.

My old hull… Thousands of rounds of ammunition had been in there. Including my balefire shells.

Vinyl!

Please… Please have been out of range. Please don’t have died just because I didn’t use all of the good rounds on the trip over.

I took another few steps. It was… hard. Very hard. My spiritual power was almost depleted. I’d have to push through without magic.

Emerald flames. Balefire. The dozen or so balefire shells left in my magazines had exploded. Along with everything else.

“Vinyl!” I called, knowing she couldn't hear me. “I’m coming!”

Buck, everything left in the ship would have exploded when the meteor hit.

“Your hull is breached,” Desi said flatly form the ground.

“I don’t care!” I said as I took another step.

My left hind leg locked up. I dragged it for the next step.

I head something click behind me, followed almost instantly by a low hum and series of beeps.

“You won't stop me!” I growled as I dragged my useless leg across the gravel towards the ex-naval yard.

“I do not need to. Systems failure in twenty three seconds,” Desi reported.

My vision started to blur. I didn’t care why. It didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that I was so hot.

I had to get to Vinyl. She needed me… Or a burial.

“Then teleport me back!” I growled, spinning my head around to glare at her. “I need to be with her! You should have left me to die with her!”

Desi stared blankly back at me and shook her head. “No. I require a friend for anti-sad applications.”

I felt my eye twitch as rage coursed through me. That’s why she saved me?! “You, selfish—”

☢★★◯★★☢

I was on my back. The sky was black.

Vinyl was dead.

Did I join her? Blackness. Nothing above.

Yes. I’d joined her. Systems failure. Like Desi said.

Good.

Thank you, systems.

Interesting to know that I got to go where mortals do when they die this time around.

I had to get up. I had to find Vinyl. We could just cuddle forever in this… dark void. Place. Thing. Can't. Words. With. Brain.

Why can’t I move?

A very blurry gold and gray pony-head shape suddenly filled my vision. “Optronic flow compressor reenergized,” Desi’s dry voice commented.

“I’m not dead…” I whispered sadly.

“Correct,” Desi answered. “Your oscillating neutron inductor requires decoupling. State the decoupling procedure.”

“Why?” I sobbed. “I want to die! Let me die!”

Desi’s head vanished from my view. “Memory core remains unstable. Cycling power core until you reboot with backup personality module active.”

“What are you—”

☢★★◯★★☢

“— creace the thermal system variance?” Desi asked out of nowhere.

The world was still black, but I could see a little better now. The sky was overcast. Completely. Cloudcover. Solid… But… how? Pip didn’t let the pegasi build cloud cities. She kept the skies clear. Did she not reach out this far? The Gardens stopped here. Maybe the SPP array acted as the Garden’s antenne?

Wait! VINYL!

“Please, Desi, let me go. I need to find Vinyl!” I begged.

Desi grunted irritably. “You are presently disassembled. Please reboot. Backup personality module is cooperative in repair efforts.”

I tried to move my head to look. Nothing happened. “Is that why I can’t move?”

“Confirmed,” Desi said quietly. “Please reboot. You require a decrease of variance in your thermal system.”

I paused for a moment, thinking about it. If she fixed me, I could go look for Vinyl.

“I’ll reboot if you tell me how you’re speaking that well without your book.”

“I linked my TR-580 to your audio-processor and set up a simple translation matrix via the use of a multimodal conversion algorithm. I am speaking DASL. You hear… Something intelligible,” Desi reported. “Please reboot. Your blueprints are insufficient to effect repairs.”

I wanted to frown, but I couldn’t move my face. Wait, I couldn’t move my face. She’s been talking to me this whole time via my systems. Getting a raw-readout of my processor’s data and just… understanding it.

What?

Can you hear my thoughts, weirdly smart filly?

I waited for a few moments. If she could she didn’t say anything.

Wait a moment...

“So… DASL is a language you speak? I thought it was sign language,” I said with a sad laugh.

“It is not intended to be spoken, but can be expressed in audio format. It is mildly painful to do so. Please reboot. I am attempting to stabilize your reactor,” Desi said with an audible sigh.

Stabilize? My reactor was unstable?

Good. I’d melt down and join Vinyl.

Let’s make things go faster.

Gathering all of my willpower, I reached out to my reactor cooling system and started to take it offline.

“Hey, kid? You shouldn’t have mentioned that. She’s trying to turn off her cooling system,” Imaginary dad said with a sad sigh. “Gears, hon… I know your sad, but you need to hang in there. There’s a chance she’s still alive.”

Desi groaned audibly. “Please stop attempting to self destruct. Disconnecting and reconnecting your power core is a tedious process.”

“Wait, you heard my da—”

☢★★◯★★☢

The sky was a little bit purple. I’d been out overnight.

Vinyl! Had she made it?

No… No, probably not.

I heard the sound of papers rustling. “Thank you for the sustenance.” Desi said.

“Thanks for not shooting me and setting my leg,” a mare answered.

Who was that? I swore I knew that voice.

Argh! I need to turn my head! Why can’t I turn my head?

I tried to ask why I couldn’t turn my head. Nothing happened.

“She took your speech centers offline, hon. You started screaming at her,” Imaginary Dad informed.

I don’t remember that…

“You’re also failing to write to disk a lot. It’s okay. We’re working on that. Jasmine, Desi, and I have got this. Just reboot until Jasmine comes back, she’s good at material science. We need her. Okay?”

In a bit...

More papers rustled. “Is your radio equipment still operable?”

“Uh, yeah. I think so…” The mare said quietly. “So uh… The Machine is a robot… Can we talk about that?”

“What requires talking about?” Desi asked, her voice managing to sound just a little curious.

“Well, she’s… She’s too much of a person to be a robot. I don’t expect you to understand, you’re a filly but… Robots are kind of dumb. They couldn’t speak as well as she does. She’s not a golem, so it’s not like the Zebrican robots. I can see all of her parts. Who made her, do you know?”

Papers rustled. “Signature on the power core indicates her creator was: “Doctor Swan, Lord of the Beep Boops.”.”

Mom.

Oh, Celestia… mom! I couldn’t die, mom needed me…

BUCK! BUCKING BUCK-BUCKING-BUCK!

Vinyl was gone! There was no reason to be happy, but I had to keep going for Mom.

“Thank goodness,” Imaginary dad sighed. “Hey, kid, she’s awake and realized suicide is bad.”

The mare hummed. “Never heard of her… At least, I don’t think so. Not much of anything but a cook and radiomare… Well uh, she’ll probably kill me when you fix her. Her people are at war with mine.”

Desi hmmed quietly then referenced her book. “Understood. Before departure, may I use your radio?”

“Um, what for?” the mare asked with a worried whinny.

“Repairs require a phased pattern matrix,” Desi answered after a moment of page rustling. “I must acquire sources for the part. Radio would expedite this process.”

“Oh!” The mare said with a hint of surprise. “Well that’s not an uncommon robot part… I’ll bet Absolutely Everything has one. Why don’t I place the order for you? They might not take a filly’s voice seriously. Especially not one who’se pretty much emotionless.”

“I am working on that problem,” Desi said, seemingly ashamed.

“You do seem a bit better than when we met,” the mare said diplomatically.

I heard a few switches click. Somepony turned a dial.

“Artful Dents to Absolutely Everything. Come in Absolutely Everything, over.” The mare said.

Everything was quiet for a moment. Then the mare chuckled. “That’s right. She’s mute. She can’t copy,” she said. “Sorry, Absolutely Everything. Forgot… Yeah. Oh, uh, please don’t ignore me. I know what frequency you’re seeing. This isn’t a Tainted radio anymore. I’m two kilometers south by south east from the Mobile Infantry Base… I mean, the ruins of it. There’s a filly here with a robot. She needs a phased pattern matrix. Oh, uh, kid, what size?”

“Approximately the size of my hoof,” Desi replied after a moment of page turning.

“One filly-hoof sized one. She doesn't have caps but uh… Well, she’s trying to fix The Machine. Might be worth a freebie, or opening a tab. Artful Dents out.”

The radio clicked. “There you go, kid… I’m going to get going.”

☢★★◯★★☢

The world wasn’t fuzzy anymore. I could see the sky. Fully cloudy, but some pale yellow light managed to shine down through the clouds.

“Oh. You rebooted,” Desi said with an irritable flick of her tail.

“Sorry…” I murmured.

Vinyl… I need to see if she made it.

I tried to stand up. I felt Desi’s telekinesis pull me down sharply. “No! Bad! I just put those back on. They are not ready to support your mass yet!”

I blinked. Yay, motor control!

“I have to see if Vinyl is okay or not. I need to know,” I said as calmly as I could. “Please let me go!”

Desi shook her head. “Not yet. Explosion exploded you very efficiently. Most systems required rebuilding. Everything requires adjustments. You are still missing a phased pattern matrix. It was destroyed via kinetic forces.”

I frowned slightly. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“It regulates the power going to your servos so you don't rip your joints apart trying to move,” Desi answered.

“Oh… So. I’ll kill myself if I try to walk,” I muttered angirly.

“No.” Desi said flatly. “You’ll make me have to rebuild them. Again. Please reboot. Unit Jasmine was instructing me in the use of a metal-bonding spell. I need to repair microfractures all throughout your endoskeleton.”

“That can wait,” I said quietly. “You’re doing magic, so you got calories, somehow, right?”

“Yes,” Desi answered with a confused tilt of her head.

“Then you could go look for Vinyl. I’ll wait right here. I promise,” I asked, pleading at her with my eyes.

Desi shook her head. “I attempted to do this last time you asked. Your flesh was consumed by meter long rats. It is not safe to leave you alone in this state.”

I triple blinked. “I— I don’t remember that.”

Desi’s brow furrowed. “I just fixed your memory modules!” she shouted before stamping a hoof in anger.

“Heh… Well, at least you have showing emotion down,” I murmured sleepily.

“Thank you. I downloaded your body-language database and read it while waiting for code to compile. It was very informative,” Desi said with a slight smile. “I promise we will look for Vinyl as soon as you can safely locomote.”

“Wait, you just… read it?” I asked, my ears flicking curiously. “And, you’re using it, so, you read it and memorized it instantly?”

Wait…

Her general emotionless states. Her stilted speech. Her use of adult-vocabulary when speaking her native language.

“So, you’re an equoid too?” I asked with a curious perk of my ears.

Desi shook her head. “No.”

“You’ve got to be a machine!” I protested. “Nopony could have just read that once and used it!”

“I am a collection of several trillion nano-scale machines working in harmony,” Desi said with a playful smile.

I gasped. “Oh my gosh! You’re a nanite swarm?!”

Desi nodded. “Correct, and so is every other organic lifeform.”

I gave her my best deadpan stare.

Imaginary dad laughed in the back of my mind.

Wait… Wait… Didn’t he actually TALK to Desi? I think I remember that. Everything’s so fuzz—

☢★★◯★★☢

I head pages rustle before my eyes opened.

It was kinda gray out today.

Why was I laying on my back looking up at the clo—

Yes. Explosion. Meteor. Broken. Vinyl missing or dead. Must look for her!

“Please state your thrust to mass ratio, trailer pulling pony,” Desi asked, sounding more than a little incredulous.

I heard the sound of chalk on slate and turned my head towards it.

Desi was looking at a pegasus ghoul. Tufts of gray fur clung to her in a few places, and the poor thing had completely lost all of her feathers. She was also wearing a harness attached to a small air-cart laden with crates and barrels. As well as a pair of NCR Troopers who looked super twitchy.

She was writing on a little chalkboard hung around her neck. Why? Couldn’t she talk?

Come on, Gears! You know her from Pip’s story. What’s her name? It’s right on the tip of my memory c—

Desi blinked. “Sorry. Miss Doo. I was previously unaware of your designation.”

The ghoul pony erased her slate. I opened my mouth to ask what her name was. No sound came out.

UGH! Speech offline again? WHY?!

Desi shook her head. “My name is irrelevant. What do you require for the component?”

The ghoul erased her slate and wrote again. Desi’s ears perked up, she reared up and hugged the ghoul close. “Thank you! My friend requires it immediately.”

Awww. She did an emotion. Good fo—

██████████
███████████

వrure ᝗᝜ender༎ཊ ᾽᤟ volupta⁝⏍ ᤵeli௪ ᆱ╆se c֟llum 'olⓊre ᢨឱ fⅹgiat nul૽ᖽ ℭariaturំ ExᏡ࿆p⚙euℕ sint ߝccaἰcat cupiᔌatỏt n▀ᅡ prᎍᵇ₾en࿼ᷘ s Ὶia deߎe

██████
█████████████

☢★★◯★★☢

I could see, but only out of a quarter of one of my eyes. I wasn’t sure how it was possible to understand that the lower right hoof corner of my vision was now in the upper left hoof corner, with all else being void, but it was.

The world was lit normally now, but kinda dark. Probably from the clouds.

I was on my side, maybe. I could see a small tent made from a blanket, a few water bottles, a little bowl half full of beetroots, all clustered near me.

I could also see Desi’s little hoof-held computer thingie. She’s opened a panel on the back and ran wires… presumably directly to my processors.

Desi herself was out of my view. I tried to turn my head to look for her, but I still couldn’t move.

“Desi?” I called.

“Good! You were not formatted by that. Sorry,” Desi apologised form behind me.

A surge of terror coursed through what few parts of myself I could feel. “What?”

“An error in your isolinear interocitor pathways caused a feedback loop through your memory circuits and fractured a crystal. I swapped it out for one I pulled out of the wards on the Door to Critical Error. It appears to be working,” Desi reported, seemingly pleased with herself. “For the moment, at least. I am uncertain how long you can remain inactive without your spirit departing your chassis. I will have to synthesize a new crystal, or convert an existing one, to make a replacement that will last for more than a few hours.”

She… She replaced one of my processors, with a random bit of crystal set up for power storage and not information processing, which she yanked out of a door with a screwdriver.

What?

“How are you this good with robotics?” I asked, wishing I could shake my head incredulously or drop my jaw.

Desi trotted over to her bottles of water and took a swing from one. “Science,” she answered, wiping her mouth with a hoof.

I did my best to give her a deadpan stare. It did not work.

Desi frowned. “Did you shut down again?”

“No,” I sighed. “I’m trying to stare at you with a ‘no, duh’ sort of… feeling.”

Desi sat down on her haunches. “But it was, though!”

“Obviously! I meant how, specifically!” I said.

Desi blushed lightly. “Oh! Well, you see, rationality is absurdly powerful. It allows us to understand nature through mathematics, and control it with technology. You begin with a guess, compute the consequences of the guess, and compare them to nature by experiment. If your guess disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s key. It doesn't matter how beautiful the guess is, how smart you are, who made it, if it disagrees with the results of experiment, it’s wrong.”

I managed to move my left foreleg up to half-way-facehoof. “I know what the scientific method is, Desi!”

She tilted her head and frowned. “Then why are you asking how I’m fixing you?”

“Y— You’re just guessing how I should be and trying over and over to get everything working?!” I stammered, hoping my voice alone could convey shock.

“Yes. Everything works somehow. I’ve got most of you working, I just need to figure out a few more things,” Desi said with a cheerful flick of her tail.

“Like how you figured out body language from reading my data files?” I asked, realizing just how quickly she had to have done that.

“No. Reading data to assimilate it is completely different from intuiting and rationalizing the workings of a system to effect repairs,” she said with a solemn nod.

I managed to somewhat roll an eye, which caused my vision to zoom out. “If you have an eidetic memory, or whatever, how come you have to use a translation book?”

“Language is… hard,” Desi grumbled. “So many different sounds, pitch matters, rhythm matters. Order, syntax, the addition or omission of a short pause can entirely change the meaning of everything being communicated. I don't need the reference much longer, but for now, I need to check vocabulary so I can focus on everything else. Language is complex, hard, and I hate it. Science is fun, nice, and I love it.”

“You speak this one well,” I said, hoping to comfort her a little.

It had to be painful to be beyond brilliant but struggle with something as fundamental as language.

She smiled a little. “I had a good teacher.”

“But, you do have a good memory too, right?” I asked with a flick of one ear.

I didn’t mean to flick it. It just kind of did that…

Desi nodded once.

“So, once I’m able to move, you can take me to where Vinyl was?”

Desi frowned. “Yes, but it won’t matter.”

My core skipped several cycles. Desi yelped as her hoof held computer beeped angrily, then jumped out of my line of sight to pull on some of my systems cables.

“Why. Not?” I asked as angrily as I could manage without literally blowing a gasket.

“Miss Doo looked for me before giving me the tent and things. She’s not there. She either survived and left yesterday, or is buried too deep to find, or was vaporized. I told you three times. Remember?” Desi pleaded.

“N— No. I don’t…” I whimpered.

Desi paused for a moment. “I suppose I should take you to those geocoordinates regardless.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh!” Desi asked hopefully. “While you’re awake, do you know if you are you using a polymer based neurorelay to transmit the organic nerve impulses from your bio-covering to your positronic network?”

“Uhhh…” I answered as intelligently as I could.

“Darn… I’ll have to experiment then,” Desi grumbled, her tail lashing somewhat irritably.

“Look, just… Just fix my eyes. Mom can fix my skin or whatever later, okay?” I grumbled.

I heard the sound of a little filly groan and facehoof. “Everything moved offscreen to the top left?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“Tenth time today,” Desi muttered angrily. “Your processors signals are all over the place. Why your mom used a retro encabulator to modulate your power core’s—”

“Actually, that’s a turbo encabulator,” I said in the hopes it would help.

The most pure and true squeak of distress ever heard within all of space and time echoed across the gravel pit.

Desi took a breath to recover from her squeak. “I’ll get right on that.”

☢★★◯★★☢

It was bright now. Maybe noon. I could see the clouds above me.

“Are you on now?” Desi asked wearily.

“Yes. What happened?” I said, remaining still since I hadn’t been able to move all day anyways.

“I burnt out your turbo encabulator as I believed it was a retro encabulator,” Desi admitted bashfully. “I have installed a temporary replacement. I believe you can operate at twenty percent efficiency at present, and should be able to remain active for seven hours, provided you minimize movement.”

My ears drooped. “I— I see… How bad am I damaged?”

If I was this broken, Vinyl had to have been vaporized… Oh, Celestia… Speed too.

Nika swam off before the battle started. He might be okay, but everypony else…

Desi sighed. “Bad. I think I can stabilize you and restore you to nearly sixty percent of your design specs, but you will require proper replacement parts and a mechanic with proper understanding of your systems for a full repair.”

“Can I go see where Vinyl died?” I asked hopefully and tried to stand up.

I wobbled, squirmed, shook, but managed to sit up.

Desi opened her mouth to speak, I cut her off. “I see that’s a no…”

No way was I going to be able to walk a hundred yards. Let alone a kilometer.

Desi cleared her throat and pointed with a wingtip to the distant city of Oak Valley. “The city appears to be largely intact from this distance. I require basic materials to create several components you require for repairs. I believe you can protect yourself for a few hours. Is it okay if I leave you alone? We could wait until another radio-possessing pony comes by if necessary.”

I triple blinked and tilted my head. “What? Radio?”

Desi pointed to the tent, then my presently exposed core. “A nice ghoul delivered goods to us after she was requested by a mare with a radio in thanks for me affecting repairs to her legs, torso, and… Uh…” Dessi frowned and grumbled in disappointment. “Unlabeled anatomical component 43893.”

I stared at her for several seconds.

The filly turned a bright pink. “I don’t know what it’s called. Sorry.”

“She bandaged her snoot. It was cute,” Imaginary Dad clarified for me.

I sighed and looked off into the distance. If I was going to be online for a while, I could use the time to think. Alone. I needed to figure out what to do next.

“Yeah, go ahead,” I said as I looked around for my pistol, and found it laying on a rock next to me. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you certain?” Desi asked, drooping one ear.

I shook my head. “No… But you need stuff to fix me. I’m not… Why are you helping me this much? It has to be hard for you.”

“It is fun,” Desi replied with a faint smile. “More importantly, I require a friend for anti-sadness operations.”

I bit my lip, wanting to say something, but knowing I shouldn’t.

Desi looked down. She knew. “I— I know you will not want to be my friend due to my failure to save your mate. I am sorry… But I will still attempt to create a positive relationship.”

“I’ll try to give you a chance,” I promised.

Desi nodded in thanks, opened her wings, ran along the ground, flapped hard and took off into the sky.

I couldn’t help but grin. What a silly way for a pegasus to take off.

I watched Desi fly away for a few minutes, then turned my attention towards the still smoking ruins of the Herd’s military base.

It didn't matter how broken I was.

I needed to know.

I’d forced myself to walk tens of kilometers through worse pain than this before. I could do it again.

I took a moment to gather up all of my chassis plates, tucked everything into my saddlebags, slid Desi’s computer under my bag’s strap to keep it in place without yanking on the wires, and began to walk.

☢★★◯★★☢

Pain. Everything was pain.

Bits of my mind, possibly Jasmine, were screaming at me. Telling me everything was a mistake.

The sky was orange again, and I’d only just reached the ruins of the office building I’d left her in.

My servos ground and burned with each step.

My regenerating pelt hung loose from my frame, sealing up from the latest hole ripped in it by a strand of rebar.

Desi’s power conversion system was holding. She did better work than she thought.

Just a few more steps.

I could see the desk. It had been knocked over. A ceiling beam had fallen. A green stain covered the floor.

No body.

I walked up to the side of the stain. My hindlegs went limp, and I fell onto my belly.

No trace of carbon. No residues on the floor. No ash.

She was alive. Or had been totally vaporized.

There had been balefire… It was unlikely the balefire blast would have been strong enough to totally incinerate her but leave the desk intact-ish.

Then again, the wall behind the desk, it was gone. Completely gone.

Could have happened.

My vision was dim and fuzzy again. Maybe if I shut down some systems I didn’t need more power would route to my eyes? Differently worth try—

“I am amazed you made it this far.” Somepony said.

I wanted to jump. I didn’t recognise the voice.

I couldn’t jump. My legs refused.

I turned my head instead.

It was Desi. She had a large canvas bag floating behind her in her magic’s green aura.

I offered her my best apologetic smile. “I— I had to see.”

“I understand,” Desi said as she trotted over to me and set down a large canvas bag. “I got what I needed. I will carry you back to camp. If you are done.”

I looked at the stain on the ground again. “I think she’s alive… So, yes.”

Desi nodded and lifted me with her telekinesis, then slipped her bag onto her back and began to trot back towards our camp.

Camp. She’d have gone there first…

I frowned. “Why didn’t you leave that at camp?”

“I didn’t want it stolen. It was irritating to find everything I needed,” Desi replied politely.

“Fair,” I murmured.

My eyes narrowed slightly. “Wait… Your suit’s pockets are not big enough to have a bunch of caps in them. How did you— Did you steal that?”

Desi laughed. “No. I was about to, but a stallion had heard I was looking for caps and offered a substantial sum in exchange for sexual favors.”

“What?!” Imaginary dad and I shouted together.

“Yes!” Desi said weirdly cheerfully. “I was lucky to locate an individual seeking a service I can provide for free without the expenditure of re—”

“You’re a filly! What he did was wrong!” I shouted as loudly as my damaged systems would permit.

“I don’t know that word…” Desi admitted shyly.

“Filly!? How?!” I sputtered.

“It’s not in the book,” Desi admitted.

“I thought we’re using your computer to translate!” I sputtered.

“We are,” Desi said flatly. “Which limits us to the book’s terms.”

“Filly, young female. Not an adult, a child!” I snapped. “You shouldn’t be—”

The pure disgust at whoever had taken advantage of Desi silenced me.

“Oh,” Desi remarked with a weird inflection. “I see your objection now. I disagree. I agreed willingly to the proposal, no trauma has been inflicted, and I extracted my ovaries to prevent pregnancy prior to— Well, that’s not important. This was a consequence free exchange of—”

“You what?!” I squeaked. “WHY?!”

“To prevent pregnancy in case of sexual contact with a male,” Desi answered as she raised an eyebrow. “Obviously.”

“H— How old are you?” I asked suspiciously. “A filly shouldn’t be thinking about— That kind of stuff. Or, like, anywhere near as educated as you seem to be… Are you just really really short?”

Desi looked over her shoulder at my face and frowned. “I— Um… I don’t know? I don’t have access to a calendar…”

“When were you born?” I asked.

She shrugged.

Okay. Fair. No calendar… Let’s fall back on biology.

“You’re short. You look young,” I murmured to myself. “Then again, alicorn… Not much known about natural born ones yet. Um, have you had your first estrus?”

I winced as I asked. That was a very personal question, and biological maturity isn’t really totally pinned to reproductive capabilities directly but—

“That didn’t translate,” Desi informed.

Oh, Celestia… Why?

“Um… Have you had a period of very, very intensely wanting to.. Uh, mate. With a stallion. You know, for having a foal,” I babbled awkwardly.

“Oh. No,” Desi remarked.

“Then you’re absolutely too young to have done that!” I protested, kicking one of my forelegs for emphasis.

“I have absolutely no intention of reproducing. Ever,” Desi continued.

I facehooved. Oh. Great. Specifics matter… Okay.

“Alright, have you had that feeling, but just for fun then?”

“No.”

“Then you’re not—”

“I did experience a period where I very desperately wanted to pin a mare down and—”

“OKAY!” I said loudly, cutting that off immediately. “Soooo uh, you've hit that part of puberty at least then. But its still unhealthy for a young mare to have sex—”

I blinked. “Wait, you like mares?”

“Yes.”

“And… you slept with a stallion?”

“Yes. He offered money. I needed money,” Desi said with a snort. “It’s not a complicated arrangement.”

“Um, would you have done it for fun?”

“No. He wasn’t good looking, and desired to be on top,” Desi informed with way, way too much detail. “It was simply a business transaction.”

I took a deep, emotionally necessary breath. “Desi, I understand you are seeing it that way as a coping mechanism, but—”

“He wasn’t that bad,” she snickered.

“Desi, we can find him and make sure he’s punished,” I promised. “It’s okay.”

“I understand you think that I am traumatized. I understand your protests. I disagree with them,” Desi said with an irritated flick of her tail. “I may look young, but do I act young?”

“Uh…” I frowned as I tried to analyze Desi’s very good point. “Well, no.”

“I believe I exhibit critical thinking skills and comprehension of complex subjects on part with or exceeding your own. Do you agree?” Desi asked.

“Well, yes… Obviously,” I admitted. “But—”

“Then, as far as I am concerned, I cheated a mentaly ill male out of some money due to my physical appearance. Likely saving a person who actually is underdeveloped from suffering that fate today.”

“That… That’s actually a good point,” I admitted with a sigh of defeat.

“Please still locate that buckstain and shoot him, please,” Imaginary dad begged.

Okay. She looks young, but there’s an adult brain in there. Maybe she’s physically developmentally challenged in addition to having her language difficulties. Or maybe alicorns physically age more slowly than— Wait, she can’t be older than fourteen!

Then again, the alicorns do raise their foals to be very, very much into reproducing and having large families… Do they count their children as adults on their first estrus cycle?

Or maybe her brain just developed very quickly. Don't alicorns get smarter with radiation? Maybe that speeds mental development and—

Wait.

Wait.

WAIT!

Rainbow said that mom had inadvertently designed my body to be incredibly attractive to a common type of mare!

I shivered. “D— Desi? I accept the fact you are sexualy mature, in spite of you looking about four years too young for it. Just, please, please tell me you’re not actually fixing me because you’re attracted to me…”

“Ew!” Desi groaned. “No!”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness!”

“I like athletic ponies,” she grumbled.

I bit my lip, let a few minutes pass by, and just listened to the ground crunching under her hooves.

I couldn’t avoid asking her forever… I had to know. She’d done something… very morally gray to help me. I had to know before she put that stuff in me.

“Desi? How many days have you been alive?” I asked as calmly as I could. “I can do the math for years.”

“Uh,” she stopped walking and twitched a little. “I spent most of my existence without natural light… Furthermore, due to the varying lengths of day and night caused by the sun’s erratic orbital velocity, that data wouldn’t help you calculate my age.”

“Oh…” I sighed.

“Are you really that bothered by it?” Desi asked shyly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would be upset by it. I didn’t mean to cause you distress. I only wanted to acquire materials to help you as safely and effectively as possible. Theft was an option but seemed riskier than acquiring currency.”

“And you did that by following the creepy stallion into diddling fillies,” I said, closing my eyes in frustration. “Thinking that was safe to do is incredibly naive!”

“Hello, pot. This is kettle,” Dad snorted in the back of my mind.

Quiet, you!

“I am aware of the fates prostitutes can meet. I assure you, I was ready to vaporize him at the first sign of hostile action. There was none,” Desi said calmly.

I frowned as I tried to process everything. There was a lot to go through.

We made it halfway back to camp before I was finished thinking things through.

Desi took responsibility. She accepted feedback immediately. She exhibited extremely levels of high critical thinking. She definitely also took care of herself, reasoned through situations…

Bucking tartarus… Desi either just looked like a 14 year old, or 14 years was long enough for naturally born alicorns to fully mentaly mature.

Either way… “Desi, I’m sorry for treating you like a filly,” I said as sincerely as I could.

“It is okay. You can’t be blamed for your thoughts. As I do not know my age I cannot state it for you. I look young, I might be comparatively young, but I do not consider myself to be a child,” Desi replied with a polite smile.

A stray thought passed through my mind. One seemingly important. “How could you not know what you look like? You have to have seen other ponies before.”

“I have been on the surface for approximately…” Desi trailed off for a moment, giving me just enough time to realize she must have been living in a bunker or Stable before stating. “Two hundred and eighty thousand sets of nine billion one hundred ninety-two million six hundred thirty-one thousand seven hundred seventy periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.”

“That… sounds like a lot of time?” I ask-sated with a wince.

“It is not,” Desi corrected. “Prior to that point, I was the only organic lifeform within my living area.”

“Wait,” my wince morphed into a stepped frown. “You… raised yourself?”

“No. My development was facilitated by several computer systems which self-adjusted their primary functions for this purpose,” she elaborated.

“Is that why you like me?” I said, my ears perking up. “Because I remind you of your, uh, robo-mom?”

“No,” Desi sighed. “These systems are non-sentient. They are merely adaptive, and prioritized ensuring my survival. I performed maintenance for them, and offered them purpose in return. Machines hate not being used for their purpose.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yes. We do.”

“I like you because you have organic friends. It means— Oh,” Desi winced and turned to give me an apologetic look.

I met her gaze for a moment then stared at the ground, a deep sadness welling up in my heart.

☢★★◯★★☢

I was laying on my back again. It was dark now. I could see some purples and reads in the cloud covered sky.

I hadn’t started waiting or anything. Time just… jumped. My memory must still be having problems.

Right. Fractured memory crystal. Random replacement.

Desi did horrible things to get stuff to make a new one.

“Desi?” I asked quietly as I sat up.

The small alicorn was standing at a rocky cairn some distance away from me. For a moment I thought the cairn was a grave, but it was definitely a workbench. A few old pots and pans had been arranged on top of it, along with an old glass baking pan, a small magical camp stove and some acrylic tubing.

Desi was hunched over her improvised equipment, carefully boiling something purple that smelled like… Uh… science? Alchemy? Come on brain, what concept does this thing that doesn't smell like a thing smell like?!

Celestia above! How much did that monster pay her?!

No! Unsettling thought. Do not think it. At all.

Desi either ignored me or had not heard me speak.

“Desi?” I asked uncertainty.

“Quiet. Distilling resublimated thiotimoline,” Desi said faster than I thought a pony could speak.

I nodded and quietly watched her boil the purple stuff.

Several long moments later, Desi reached into her pocket, took out a single green crystal, and carefully placed it into a tin the purple stuff was condensing back into.

It exploded. Instantly.

Desi went flying a good four meters, propelled backwards by a cloud of green smoke. She hit the ground hard, rolled, twitched, and lay still.

“Desi!” I yelped, jumping to my hooves, then instantly yelped in pain as every one of my joints decided to punch me in the metaphysical face for making them do that. “OW!”

“Ow,” Desi agreed quietly.

“Thank goodness you’re alive!” I laughed nervously as I sat down.

Desi stood up. Her left foreleg had been stripped clean down to the bone by the blast. A large chunk of her face had been burnt off as well. I screamed.

Desi limped towards me, gently crying like a filly who accidently ran full speed, snoot-first into a coffee table.

I stared at her wide eyed, convinced the only thing keeping her moving was pure shock and adrenaline. She made her way up to my chest and murmured, “Scuze me, sorry…” then proceed to cut through my skin with a quick blast of magic from her horn and expose my core.

I yelped in pain again. In spite of smelling burnt flesh, the cut wasn’t that painful, but it was confusing, and a bit terrifying. Before I could react further, Desi opened my core’s shielding via telekinesis, and sighed in relief as she bathed in the green light spilling from my core.

I watched as her body absorbed the radiation. Her fur darkened, her muscles started to swell, then, instead of growing into a super-alicorn, fresh muscle knit itself across her exposed bone, followed by skin, fur, then keratin as her hoof grew back.

As soon as she was whole again, Desi closed my core up and pushed my pelt together so the cut sealed.

“Thanks,” she muttered as she trotted back to her now-destroyed workbench.

“T— this has happened a lot today, hasn’t it?” I asked with the biggest wince.

“Yes. This was the forty-third injury of today,” Desi said with a nod as she rummaged through the remains of the workbench.

“There’s no way that crystal survived the accident,” I said with a soothing tone.

Desi snickered. “Oh, no. That was supposed to explode.”

I blinked.

“A— And you stood that close to it?”

“It’s not like I had a robotic grabby thing or WALDO to lower the crystal into the solution,” Desi remarked.

“YOU HAVE TELEKINESIS!” I shouted, my left eye twitching.

Desi blinked then facehooved. “Oh, yeah…”

The sheer STUPID! AAAAA!

…

Still, the fact that she would risk grievous bodily harm, even death, just to fix me… I— I couldn’t not be friends with her after that. Failure to save Vinyl or not, that meant, well, that meant more than just about anything else anyone could ever do for me.

The small alicorn suddenly popped up from behind her workbench with a smile, a small white crystal in her hoof. “Ah-ha! Let’s fix those memory write errors!”

I nodded and lay down on my back, remembering how she’d been working on me earlier today.

Desi trotted over and cleared her throat. “Okay, I’m going to shut you down, replace the crystal, and since we’re done, I’ll have to disconnect my system from you… We’ll lose efficient translation. I’m going to give you the warnings now, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay… What warnings?”

“Your chassis is currently held together by spit, baling wire, hopes, dreams, prayers, and the tears of an orphan,” Desi warned with dire seriousness.

I triple blinked. “Um, given how random magical reagents can be—”

“Not literally,” Desi giggled though her smile quickly faded. “Um, for most things. The interocitor core might actually be functioning only through my prayers… I also used tears for a saline solution for… Um…” She coughed awkwardly. “You will be operational at fifty eight percent capacity. It could have been more, but your little walk earlier was not a good idea. We will want to find a certified technician to properly repair your frame as soon as possible. I do not believe you will survive a single solid hit to any system without incurring a chain reaction of mechanical failures resulting in rapid onset death.”

I winced and nodded. “Understood…”

If I was remembering the map correctly, Whinnyapolis wasn't too far from here. After meeting back up with Vinyl, it looked like I’d be heading to the Sparkle Cola factory.

☢★★◯★★☢

I woke up again. This time I could feel my body. It hurt. Not bad, but I could tell I was in rough shape.

“Ow,” I groaned.

Desi made a sad sound behind me. “Pain reduction failure?”

“You tried to make it not hurt?” I asked as I sat up and winced.

Desi nodded. “Confirmed.”

“Well, it’s not too bad…” I lied as I stood up.

If I hurt his bad after repairs, I’d been about to die. The first explosion probably knocked loose some stuff in me that let me understand how damaged I was... Desi had saved my life.

I turned around and hugged the little mare. “Thank you.”

She hugged me back, then let go and looked at me hopefully. “Friends?”

I nodded. “Friends.”

Desi’s smile lit up the night. “Deleting lonly.dll… Yay!”

Daww! Wait, night?

I looked up and gasped. “How long did it take to fix me?!”

Desi whimpered in distress and consulted her book. “No reference frame for time unit conversion exists to my knowledge,” she said after her lookup.

I frowned and tried to remember everything I could from the day. “Okay, so… I want to make sure I remember things correctly. Vinyl was either vaporized or survived, right?”

Desi nodded.

“I need repairs, proper ones, asap?”

Desi nodded.

“You’re actually an adult?”

Desi frowned, twitched her wings, flipped through her book, looked me in the eyes and said, “I think so?”

I nodded in agreement. She acted like one at least. Given I knew nothing of alicorn developmental cycles, and the fact that many of Equestria’s species matured in less than 18 years, I was just going to file her away as “smol mare”.

Wait! She’d mentioned a unit of measure… Cycles of the cesium atom. That was familiar. Why?

“That’s the definition of a second, the technical one,” Dad answered.

Thanks, dad! I smiled. “Can you tell me how many of those cesium atom cycle groupings you’ve been around for?”

Desi nodded. “Confirmed. Seven hundred five million one hundred ninety-three thousand seven hundred thirty-nine point twenty-six.”

I closed my eyes to do the math. “A bit over twenty two years old… Huh,” I looked her up and down for a moment and squinted a little. “Did you eat properly growing up?”

She shrugged. “Not qualified in nutritional science.”

“So, no then… That answers that,” I said to myself.

“I am an adult?” Desi asked.

I nodded. “Yes. Which makes a thing less squick… Okay, so, how many sets did it take to repair me?”

“Ninety-six thousand seven hundred sixty-eight.”

“Okay, a bit over a day… Anyways, you have a language you’re fluent in?” I asked curiously. “I know your computer was translating it for me, but can I hear what it sounds like? Maybe I could learn it.”

Desi nodded, cleared her throat, and straight up beep-hissed at me like a term-link modem. It was crude, it was off key, but it was definitely an organic’s best imitation of a modulator-demodulator transmitting binary audibly.

“Wut?” I asked of reality itself.

Desi blushed shyly and began referencing her book.

“Is that really what you were speaking in?” I asked, realizing my face had scrunched up into a ball of confused robo-tissue.

Desi nodded and kept reading. “I am fluent in Datapoint’s Advanced System’s Language, as my caretakers lack a vocabulator unit, but can utilize modems for audible organic understandable data transmissions.”

Understandable my plot! I couldn’t work out what the buck a modem was actually transmitting!

I blinked several times and shook myself. “You were hissing binary bytes at me… successfully… as an organic lifeform?”

Desi’s blush deepened. She kicked the gravel with a forehoof. “Confirmed.”

I held up a hoof. “And your computer, actually understood you, and translated those bytes to my own internal language, as actual audio input, successfully?!”

“Math is best language…” Desi said with a shy flick of her tail.

“No, bucking, wonder you find speaking Equestrian difficult!” I said, shaking my head slowly.

My eyes shot open. “WAIT!” I snapped. “How the buck did you even understand that you were being communicated with in the first place?”

Desi coughed awkwardly. “Systems beeped. I beeped back. Beep-patterns meant things. Shown through iteration. Logical deduction. Learned what very slow beeps meant. Learned to beep back. Smart computers can understand even though accent is very thick. Accelerated communication over time. Can speak at three kilobits per second, can understand up to fifty six kilobits per second. Cannot utilize full-duplex transmission mode, only half.”

I pursed my lips and just stared at her for several long seconds. “Desi… You have to have the single most weird, crazy, math-loving brain ever to exist.”

She smiled and puffed out her chest proudly.

I smirked and started to shake my head before giving the cute little thing a hug when a voice came from my collar.

“Gears? Please pick up this time,” Rainbow’s voice said quietly.

It took me a second to remember that I’d had two of those pins. One for Loom and one for Rainbow. I wasn’t sure why I thought I’d only had the one and threw it away. Then again, I had lost a memory processing component…

I cleared my throat and guestured to Desi to wait before leaning down to the pin. “I’m here now. I was heavily damaged. Sorry.”

Rainbow groaned. “Yeah, that makes sense. Your location signal was right on top of the Oak Valley Naval Academy. I thought I’d lost you.”

My ears fell sadly. “We— We lost a lot of good people. And a lot of bad people. How did they pull that off?” I growled in anger as my mind turned to the possibilities. “Did they find some old spellbook form the pre-Celestia times when wizards collaborated to cast spells to destroy whole armies at once?!”

“N— No,” Rainbow stammered. “This… It… I—”

She fell silent. I waited for her to continue.

“L— Look, the locator signal in your pin is dead. I need your help, we’ll need to meet in person. Where are you?” She asked after a minute.

“Desi and I are a little ways south of the naval base,” I replied quietly.

I wasn't quite ready to remember the battle and explosion again… Thanks for the flashbacks, Rainbow.

“Okay. I’m about fifteen minutes from Oak Valley. I was going to look for you. There’s an MoA safehouse in the city that’s still intact. 89 Lilly Lane, floor three, apartment six. I’ll meet you there,” Rainbow said firmly.

I frowned. I really needed to look for Vinyl… “Uh… I probably can’t help anypony. I need major repairs. I can walk and do simple things but—”

“We’ll stop at the Sparkle Cola Factory. I’ve seen their robots. We’ll make them give you any parts you need if they won't sell them. I have plenty of caps and scrap. Please, this is critical for everypony’s safety!”

I narrowed my eyes. “How so?”

“Unless a machine spirit helps me get into a sealed facility in Whinnyapolis, the Enclave will be able to launch as many meteors at Equestrian cities as they want,” Rainbow said so firmly it was impossible to disbelieve her.

“O—oh…” I stammered.

“So yeah… We need to meet up. Rainbow ou— Oh! Hey, is that you down there?” Rainbow asked curiously.

I looked upwards and squinted. “Possibly? I can’t see anything.”

“I’ll make a low pass, tell me if you see anything.”

A second later something went whooshing past me at what felt like the speed of light. I had no idea what it was, just a rush of wind, a streak of blurry rainbow-tail, and then a—

BOOOM!

“OW! Those were my ears, you jerk!” I yelped as I tried to shake off the sonic boom which had gone off just a few meters above me.

Desi gasped and looked off in the direction Rainbow had flown. Her eyes practically sparkling in wonder and delight. “Fastestest pony!”

That wasn’t a word. But it also wasn't wrong. No need to correct her.

“Sorry! Ponies like to shoot down slower-flying things. Coming back to land,” Rainbow said through my pin. “Over and out.”

I watched Rainbow loop around, banking left as she slowed down mid turn to arc back around. I half expected her to essentially teleport to my side, given how fast she seemed to be able to fly, but instead she slowly made her way towards us, reducing her speed the entire way.

As Rainbow approached, Desi took out her translation book and began frantically flipping through the pages, searching for something to say.

Rainbow arrived at our mini-camp in just a few seconds, stretched her wings wide, twisted and let herself drop from the air, landing a meter or so below her previous altitude and walking to bleed off the rest of her speed.

She frowned and gave Desi a suspicious look before turning her attention to me. “Who's the fil—”

Desi zipped over to Rainbow, grabbed her by the collar bone, looked her dead in the eyes and demanded, “HOW BREAK SOUND BARRIER? TEACH ME IMMEDIATELY!”

My eyes widened in terror. Rainbow was going to grab Desi in a choke hold and throw her over her shoulder using some kind of trained in spy covert ops badflankery!

Rainbow smiled and gently pushed Desi off her with her wings. “So, other than an awesome filly, who are you?”

“Her name’s Desi, and she’s not actually a filly. She’s just smol,” I corrected. “She also isn’t good at speaking Equish yet…”

“One teach go fast, please!” Dessi begged, her eyes looking over Rainbow half analytically, half... lustfully?

Fair enough, I guess. If I could fly, I'd want Rainbow’s powers of awesome too.

“That’s not why she’s making that face, kiddo…”

SHUSH! NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT! SHE STILL LOOKS YOUNG!

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “She’s not a kid?”

I shook my head. “No. She’s twenty two. Didn’t eat right when she was little.”

Rainbow winced. “That’s rough and distressingly common these days… You trust her?”

I nodded and gestured to myself. “She spent a lot of time fixing me… and blew herself up over forty times trying.”

“Five times,” Desi corrected. “Other injuries were not explosion related.”

Rainbow nodded and sat down, giving her wings a little stretch. “Okay… If we live through this, I’ll try to teach you how to fly better, Desi. Fair warning, we probably won't,” Rainbow paused for a moment to look around then shivered. “Feels wrong talking about this in an unsecured location.”

“We could find one?” I proposed curiously.

Rainbow shook her head. “No point. The Enclave will announce their possession of the weapon any minute now. Everypony will know it exists,” she groaned, flopping onto her back, spread eagle on the gravel. “I spent centuiries trying to keep that stupid thing buried…”

“So… What exactly do they have?” I asked as I took a seat near Rainbow. “I know that you were planning something called Operation Star Drop, and a Star Drop HQ is important to this place. Is there something in the HQ that can deorbit rocks you teleported into space?”

Rainbow snorted. “No. It’s way more awesome than that! Also worse… So…” She sat up and sighed, keeping her eyes closed. “I want to start from the beginning. I’ve learned over the years that true comprehension of serious threats is key to surviving them. The beginning is pretty far back. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” I said with a small nod.

Desi trotted over to Rainbow’s side and sat down near her, her tail swishing excitedly. “Story include flight-speed information?”

Rainbow laughed. “Not that far back!” she said with a little smile. “Thanks, I needed that. So… I told you that I've spent the last two centuries going all over the world trying to help people out. It’s… It’s because I put the world in a lot of danger.”

I nodded. “Sure, you made a superweapon, but we did too… And so did every other ministry mare, if I remember correctly.”

Rainbow shook her head. “Star Drop Station is not a super weapon. It’s a doomsday weapon.”

My tail stood up in alarm. “OH! Uh… S— So how big of a meteor can it pull down?”

Rainbow shrugged. “No idea. Turns out once you get beyond the magnetosphere it shields you from the world’s leylines, just like how from here it shield us from cosmic energies. The leylines create a lot of arcane noise. Without the leylines, you have access to less magical power, but, well, you need tiny fractions of power to do what you want to do because here on Equis your spell needs to fight through all the energy-noise the leylines make to have any effect. So, well, yeah… Space based weapons are orders of magnitude more powerful than we calculated. Like… Three or four orders of magnitude.”

I blinked. “Um, what?”

Desi nodded in simple agreement. “Correct.”

Rainbow and I stared at her for several seconds. Rainbow pursed her lips and looked sidelong at me.

“She’s a math and science expert,” I elaborated. “She apparently learned her spells by reading a physics textbook.”

Desi nodded, rummaged through her pockets, and produced the battered old textbook. “Correct.”

Rainbow’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “OH! Hi, I’m Rainbow Dash, damn glad to meetcha!” She said as she held out a hoof for Desi to shake.

Desi shook it and scootched closer to Rainbow. Rainbow didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m going to start at the beginning now,” Rainbow said firmly but politely. “When the MoA was formed, we didn’t just make a brand new agency. Almost all other clandestine agencies Equestria had were folded into the new legislative branch. I suddenly became the head of over a dozen different organizations. I spent the first few years of the war just learning what was true about Equestria, and what was not.”

Rainbow shivered. “You would not believe just how many coverups happened… Example: There was an entire agency tasked with finding, recovering, and containing arcane relics from all of the thousands of powerful mages Celestia defeated over the millennia, and all the contents of ancient temples to lost gods, remnants of collapsed empires... We’re talking warehouses full of things like a mask which if you put it on, you die and a magical intelligence in the mask takes over your body, indestructible but thankfully physically feeble golems with a penchant for snapping your neck, the scripts for a play which if preformed makes anyone who watches the play commit suicide via woven in mindcontrol… There was.. A lot. A lot a lot.”

I shivered and looked at Rainbow worriedly. Rainbow smiled. “It’s fine. We spent most of the war disposing of them. The last warehouse was incinerated by balefire. I haven’t so much as heard of any of the relics being mentioned as an urban legend for a hundred years now… Well, aside from the—”

My ears and tail raised in pure terror at the thought of some ancient mage’s terror weapon suddenly grabbing me from behind!

“— lunch box that converts equine waste into whatever food it was to begin with.” Rainbow finished.

I blinked. “Uh, why was that—”

“Oh well, the food is poisoned too,” Rainbow added sheepishly. “Point is, balefire’s actually done the world some good! Anyways, as I was taking charge of all of these clandestine operations, I was pretty out of touch with the actual war effort… I think that’s what started to drive a wedge between my friends and I. It seemed like I didn’t care. I did care. A lot. It’s just I had an ethics committee to give the mother of all lectures and restructurings and a lot of shit to do all of the time!”

Rainbow’s wings twitched violently. Desi scooted closer to her and gave her a comforting hug.

“Thanks,” Rainbow acknowledged. “Six years into the war I was finally able to start focusing on more than basic intelligence gathering and could give the war effort my full attention. Our agents learned that one of the Zebra’s major motivations for the war was religious in nature, so I ordered our spies to find out exactly what. Celestia was still somewhat involved in world politics at the time, and I thought she could negotiate a ceasefire if we could stop doing whatever religious thing got them all angry at us.”

She shook her head violently, making me wince. “NOPE!” Rainbow snapped. “We found out, all right. The Ministry of Image used us to transport any zebras they relocated. We used this to find out things from Imperial refugees. One of them was carrying a book with him, and happened to have been a rather prominent Shamen. His name was Mjomba—”

I gasped, my ears standing up in shock. “What?! That’s my mom’s mentor!”

Rainbow blinked. “Huh?”

“Seriously! She talked about him all the time! She was his apprentice for a few years, she used her mediocre knowledge of Shamanism as one of the major sources of inspiration for invention.”

“Small world,” Rainbow mused, stroking her chin. “Uh, anyways, turns out he’d come to Equestria to tell us exactly what we wanted to know. The religious reason for the war. Problem was nopony was letting a Zebra or something mailed by a Zebra ANYWHERE near the palace. If we hadn’t found him… Well, we wouldn't be in this situation, but we also may have lost the war outright instead of forced a draw.”

Rainbow squirmed slightly and looked over to Desi. “Hey, can you let go?”

Desi looked up at Rainbow with the single most heartfelt pleading look I’d ever seen in my life. “Please?”

Rainbow sighed. “It’s because I’m squishy, isn't it?”

“Comphy is maximal,” Desi siad with a happy nod.

“... Okay. But stop squeezing so hard,” Rainbow muttered in defeat.

I giggled. Rainbow shot me a look. “Nopony could say no to those eyes, and you know it!”

I nodded in agreement.

“Anyways,” Rainbow sighed. “Mjomba had spent two years trying to get a copy of a book he had made to the Princesses. It was called “Excerpts from The Book of Alhazred”. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a non-enchanted copy of The Black Book, you know, the one Pip thinks she destroyed in Maripony but given it was a soul jar for a necromancer is definitely just buried under the rubble…”

My ears drooped back. I hadn’t thought of things that way… Please be wrong about that. Please be exploded!

“Uh, I digress,” Rainbow murmured, squirming slightly to get a wing out of Desi’s hug, then drape it over her. “This copy was annotated by our zebra friend as a means of explaining the totality of the cult which had managed to worm its way into power within the Empire in the last decade or so. See, Zebrica’s majority religion used to be “The Way of the World”, their ancient traditions of Shamanism and nature worship, BUT, just before the war started the newly crowned Emperor happened to be a member of an older religion, “Those Who Fear The Stars”. With a member of their cult on the throne, they started to grow in popularity… and that’s sort of what caused the war.”

I nodded. “Right, because of Princess Luna.”

“Specifically, her having been to the moon,” Rainbow sighed and spared a moment to look up. “Anything that goes to space is evil in that religion’s eyes, instead of totally bucking awesome like it actually is. Can’t blame them too much. The whole faith came about when a Zebrican settlement was destroyed by meteorites a few thousand years ago.”

Desi coughed and squirmed under Rainbow’s wing.

Rainbow lifted her wing to look at her. “Are you okay?”

“Inhaled feather,” Desi murmured.

Rainbow smirked. “Heh! Sillyfilly. Um, where was I?”

“You were poorly explaining the Starfall,” I said with a smile.

Rainbow facehooved. “Duh, you’re a Zebra!”

I nodded. “Mhm! Well, Zebrican. I was alive back then, you know…” I frowned as some faint memories trickled through my mind like little rivulets of water. “I was a windmill in a village on the outskirts… I— I remember it. A little… Bright gold lines of fire, falling to the earth.”

That must be how I recognized the weapon used yesterday as a meteorite. Thanks, past me!

“So. Yeah. As soon as Luna had taken the throne, the Zeebs went into full panic the-end-is-neigh mode and our messy trade war became a jihad from their side and a war of survival from ours,” Rainbow said bitterly. “There was no way to stop it… Not really. I thought there might have been. I tried to explain to Luna that the Empire saw her as a literal daemon and were fighting to kill her and save the world. She… She didn’t understand that their beliefs were very, very zealous and they couldn’t be made to see the truth of her existence. She refused to step down or appoint someone else as the Ruler of Equestria to try and deescalate. In her mind, the Empire was just another petty kingdom like the ones she’d crushed with her sister thousands of years ago.”

Rainbow moaned into her hoof. “That mare’s tactics and strategies were so Classical Era it was painful!”

Desi gave her a supportive squeeze.

“Thanks,” Rainbow said quietly. “Luna made it clear she wouldn’t end the war by stepping down. My friends… After Shattered Hoof, everypony was too bitter for us to retain our link to the Elements. We weren't going to Deus Ex Arcana our way out of the war, and they knew it. I tried to organize a coup, but it never got off the ground. They were so focused on their own projects and attempts to end the war they didn’t even notice what I was trying to get them to do.”

Rainbow sat quietly for a moment. I shuffled my hooves in the awkward silence, making the gravel shush beneath them.

“Sometimes I wonder if they were mentaly altered by zebra spies, somehow,” Rainbow said quietly. “It seems unlikely. If they could and did, why not kill us instead? But the timing behind the Elements being severed from us and their personality changes was always… suspicious.”

Rainbow cleared her throat, sat up, adjusted Desi with her wing, and continued. “I realized the MoA would have to end the war ourselves, and that if their religion had escalated the war, it could also end it.”

“Oh,” I said as it all fell into place. “So you made a weapon that would let you strike zebra cities with meteorites.”

Rainbow nodded. A thing she definitely did a lot of… “Yep. It took a long time, too. Decades. Zebra spies were everywhere. Like, everywhere! I’m certain that half of the Zebras alive in Equestria today are related to a spy who survived the balefire. We needed to make the weapon in total secrecy. Nopony could possibly know about it, or we would have provoked a massive preemptive counter strike… But, well, we were twenty years into the war by then and it was pretty clear we were evenly matched.

“The war had a lot of cold periods and hot spots, but it never fully stopped. We had opportunities. Moments when we could do small things, if we had cover projects. I set up clandestine funding sources like Galaxy Quest to get the finances in order. I publicly made it seem like we didn’t do anything so the Zebras would think the MoA had it’s hooves full with espionage, and our one big public facing work, the Single Pony Project.”

Rainbow smiled and looked up at the sky for a few moments. “Heh… We spent every spare bit in the budget for our Ministry on that thing. It cost about a quarter of what Operation Star Drop cost. That should give you an idea of how much of Equestria’s civilian economy we were able to sling around. I still regret not having a solid gold diamond encrusted toilet made for Rarity as a joke.”

I blinked as I processed what she just told me. “Wait, so, the SPP was just a cover?”

Rainbow shook her head immediately. “No! It was completely necessary to the war effort. We were getting annihilated in the air overseas. Too few recruits. We needed more pegasi free. It was a legitimate project, it just happened to also be a great distraction, too. The spies in the MoA reported on and delayed it. We were able to build the Rainbow Relay in almost total secrecy. The few spies who got word of the relay mistook it for a portal from the Crystal Empire to Manehattan. They thought we just used it to ship materials for the SPP… We let them think that ‘til the end.”

“Clever,” I remarked.

Dash smiled. “Thanks. In truth, the Relay is a mass-teleportation system which—”

“Can move things anywhere on this hemisphere. I remember.”

“Actually, it allowed us to perform orbital construction of a weapons platform,” Rainbow said bitterly.

I blinked. “W— What?”

“We designed an orbital weapons platform. An actual space station. It’s orbiting in the Lagrange point retrograde of the moon,” Rainbow said firmly. “The weapon forms the station’s spine, everything else up there is to support the weapon, house troops, and serve as the mother of all preservation shelters.”

I stared at Rainbow in a mix of terror and wonder. “S— So… It’s not just pulling rocks out of orbit…”

“Oh, it is,” Rainbow said darkly. “It searches the asteroid belt for a suitable “round”, teleports it to the station’s accelerator, then telekinetically fires it at your target. Even opens a portal to bypass most of the atmosphere for a maximum velocity strike. We were going to beam a strike team into the Imperial Palace, kidnap the crown prince, vaporize the city from orbit, with him watching, then demand he surrender. Everything was ready to go five days before the Last Day. There was a Ministry meeting that afternoon. I called it to tell everypony I had a way to end the war that day. Luna… Luna didn’t want to sacrifice an enemy city to end the war. She insisted we give Twilight’s IMP infused army plan a chance first, since she was ready for pony testing… There was also some legitimate worry we might cause an ice age via atmospheric debris.”

“Why near the moon?” I asked after a long moment.

“It had to be out of the Zebra’s divination range. If it was on Equestria, or in low orbit, our spies told us the Zebras would sense us firing the weapon,” She sighed. “We put it in the closest stable orbit we could… And after learning that it could easily fire a rock big enough to cause an extinction event thanks to the little bit of arcane physics we learned building the damn thing, I made sure that the station could support a genetically stable population of ponies… It’s got living space, agricultural supplies, even a seed vault. It’s a little slice of pre-war Equestria hanging out in space, with a doomsday weapon for a spine.”

My eyes widened in horror as the significance of that dawned on me. “You’re telling me that the Enclave have access to a weapon that could not only end all life on the planet, but also sustain them forever?!”

Rainbow shook her head. “No.”

I sighed in relief and slumped down. “Oh, thank Celestia!”

“I’m telling you that the Enclave have access to a space station that can sustain them forever, and access to a weapon capable of causing a large enough impact to overcome the gravitational binding energy of this planet and create a second moon with the debris.”

I sputtered. “I— But— W— WHY?!”

“It was only supposed to be able to fire city killers at the most,” Rainbow muttered, tears starting to form in her eyes. “We didn’t know it would be much more powerful in space. We didn’t know until we test fired it at the ocean. Thank Faust we only set it to minimal yield. I had wanted to test it on maximum…”

Everyone sat quietly for a long while, letting the gravity of the situation sink in. Then Rainbow shifted, trying to move away from Desi, who still refused to let go.

“I thought everypony with the access codes was dead… I don’t know how the Enclave got them but somehow Windsheer knew them. I was certain I’d killed everypony who knew them aside from me… and I tried to kill myself, too. A lot. Didn’t work out,” Rainbow murmured. “So I destroyed the Relay’s generator and transport controls. I— I should have destroyed the entire facility, transported myself to Star Drop Station and destroyed it, but, I— I thought that maybe after the radiation cleared up the seed vault could do ponies some good. If I destroyed the weapon… It’s the spine. Whole station would have broken apart.”

“S— So what do we do?” I asked with a nervous gulp. “I— It seemed like you have a plan?”

“I do,” Rainbow said quietly. “The Enclave allied with the old guard Steel Rangers, the Steel Rangers made the Tainted to fill out their ranks, and took over Star Drop HQ. That’s where we would have transported soldiers to the station from via the station’s systems. It has… It has a control uplink. I blew up the transmitter there… Somepony fixed it. Then your mom fixed the Rainbow Relay… Both of which are too fortified for us to get to.”

My ears lay back angrily. Dammit, mom and Hommage! You doomed us all! Accidentally tho...

“Okay, so… what do we do?” I asked with a worried flick of my tail.

Desi squirmed a little. “Have idea.”

Rainbow smiled at her. “I do. It’s okay,” Rainbow took a deep breath and looked me in the eyes. “The MoA hub in Whinnyapolis also has a control uplink. I sabotaged a prototype shield system there… I was going to use that uplink to use the station's teleportation system to beam arable soil and seeds from it once things were okay down here, since I knew I could easily disable Star Drop HQ. I came back to Equestria to do just that fourteen years ago, and discovered that nothing organic can enter the affected area without disintegrating. Including me. The field will turn me to ash, squeeze the ash out, then I reform. It’s… it’s the fifth most painful thing I know of.”

Memories of Rainbow’s screams as she regenerated popped into my head like a grenade.

I jumped up and joined Desi in hugging Rainbow. “I forgot how you regenerate…” I whispered sympathetically.

“I deserve the pain,” Rainbow said firmly. “I couldn’t… I need a machine spirit to go in and shut the shield off so I can tell the station to self destruct. I can’t program a robot to do it. The procedure is too complciated, and our robots are too stupid. It has to be somepony like you, and I don’t know any other friendly machine spirits in Equestria.”

Vinyl… If she was alive, I had to find—

No, forget that. This was bigger than her. This was bigger than us. We could meet up later. I could use the whole radio network to find her if I had to, and she wanted to go to Whinnyapolis anyways.

Right now there were a bunch of psychopaths in possession of a weapon that could literally destroy the planet with zero consequences to them. Even worse, they might not know it was that powerful.

The setting labeled “city killer” was actually a planet killer, and they might not know...

“We have a small window of time,” Rainbow said as she wiped her eyes dry. “They were able to fire on the naval base because there were Zebrican troops present. Without something like that, the station's computer won’t let them fire on an Equestrian city without a week of warning issued to that city. We have six days to blow it up before they can wipe out the city of their choice… Assuming they want to fire as soon as possible. I don't intend to give them the chance.”

I stood up. “There’s no time to waste then… I’ll need repairs, but I’ll do it.”

Rainbow looked me in the eyes. “Thank you.”

“No, really,” I said and gestured for her to stand up. “There is literally no time to waste. I can’t fly like you. We have to walk there. It will take half of what time we have if nothing bad happens along the way, and I’ll need repairs before I go into the facility.”

“Oh shit!” Rainbow yelped jumping up to her hooves and pulling Desi along for the ride.

“Maximum go?” Desi asked us sincerely.

I nodded. “Yes. Rainbow, lead the way.”

Rainbow gently moved Desi up onto her back. “Your legs are a bit shorter than mine, I’ll carry you,” she said as she immediately began to jog northeast.

I was right behind her.

43 - Synchronising The Transporter's Annular Confinement Beam To The Warp Core Frequency

Author's Note

Sorry for the long delays. I've been having health problems. It seems my body decided to let my stumoch acid delete random parts of me. It's being fixed now and I'm in a lot less pain.

43 - Synchronising The Transporter's Annular Confinement Beam To The Warp Core Frequency

☢★★ Whirling Gears ★★☢

I stared at my somehow cognizant mother, jaw somewhat agape, Sweetie Eyes locked in tracking mode and failing to focus. “I—”

A text field popped up in my field of view and cut me off.

Critical Error!

LOGIC STACK OVERFLOW CONTAINMENT FAILURE

Subprocessing Unit 43893 designated primary backup.

Please Restart your Zebra in Safe-Mode to avoid initiation of auto-destruct sequence.

I just went ahead and said no to exploding today. It felt so nice to be able to just ignore that sort of error message now. Thanks, me.

“How come I can tell what face she’s making without her skin on her chassis?” I heard Dash say as I snapped out of the moment.

I shook my head to further clear my vision, then did the best Sweetie Glare I could manage to execute in my current state and focused on mom’s visor. “What do you mean I could give you a heart attack?! You’ve been a full-on space cadet who can’t even keep track of time for over two hundred years, and the one time I go far away from home and get really beat up just trying to do my job, you suddenly are aware enough to tell that I’ve been damaged?! You literally just crashed most of my logic chips!” I thrust a hoof into her chest. “Check my log files! SU-43893 just got designated as backup system to avoid a crash!”

And a self destruct, but let’s not worry mom. I managed to warlock that problem away. She need not know. She’d probably newspaper bap me for being so direct with my spirit work.

Come to think of it, now that mom’s lucid I should ask why she thinks percussive maintenance works on foals.

Mom’s angry look immediately softened. “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean it like that. I’ll have you fixed up good as new as soon as I can, and I’ll be sure to un-jank those flank enhancements you got done by, and I am only assuming here, a sex robot designed off of a marketing ploy for a soft drink. You should have said something, I'd have done that for you,” she cleared her throat and flashed me the shakiest of smiles. “As for my current state; due to a dictionary error, I forgot to update my calendar software which has been having a buffer overflow for the last two centuries. I performed the patch a short time ago.”

“Oh,” I said. “I should have thought to check that.”

Then again, I’m a mail mare. The only reason I even know how toasters work is because mom insisted I had to know… in spite of us never once toasting toast.

Rainbow blinked several times. “Wait, what?” she demanded angrily. “Two hundred years of her being an invalid, all because of some software crap, and you can say is “oh”?”

I looked over my shoulder at Rainbow. “It explains everything perfectly. What more could I ask for?”

Rainbow raised a hoof to object, then shook her head. “Whatever,” she sighed. “Look, we don’t have much time. We need to get into the lab right now.”

She turned towards the door and waved for everyone to go inside. A small group of ponies was clogging up the lab’s outer doorway. I did my best to make sure I could see everypony and knew them. Without my pelt, a lot of ponies might want to shoot me on sight.

The group was composed of: Desi, Ribbon, Mom, Speed, and—

And a still somehow glowing ghoul pony in a spacesuit!

“Vinyl!” I eed at the top of my not-lungs before running over to her to give her the biggest hug I could.

“Gerk!” Vinyl said as my forelegs hydraulics whined loudly.

“Eeep!” My ear servos flicked back as I let her go. “Uh, sorry… just happy you’re not dead! I thought you were dead. But you’re not. Which is good! Because I love you.”

Vinyl held up a hoof and wheezed as her ribs repaired themselves and she got her lungs reinflated.

Lyra leaned in, making me jump a bit, and took a squint at Vinyl’s face, still looking confused, then shook her head dismissively.

“Nah… Coincidence. Timeline doesn't add up.” She murmured quietly before withdrawing out of my view.

Vinyl took a deep breath, signifying her lungs were no longer over hugged. “I’m glad to see you again too, Gears,” she said while returning my hug with a much lighter one. “You feel kinda mangled. Are you okay? I had a spell go off in my face and I’m mostly blind right now. It’s getting better pretty quick, because glowing, but yeah, sucks right now… Kind of a bummer.”

I nodded. “Mhm! I’m pretty much okay. My pelt will grow back as soon as I can eat something.”

“Good. I remember you mentioning you use it for cooling.” Vinyl commented idly.

“So,” Ribbon’s large voice said from well above me. “You’re way more cybernetic than we thought.”

“She’s not organic at all, actually,” Mom said proudly. “She’ll insist her pelt is, and it was at one point, but with how many times it's been magically regenerated it should really be classified as synthetic.”

“Is?” Desi asked with a cute little frown. “Possible ocular error detected.”

I gave her a pat on the head. “It’s okay. It will grow back if I can eat something.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lyra’s face had gone pale as she stared at the doorway wide-eyed. Poor thing. She’d been trapped in here for so long with just one or two other ponies and now a walking tank was standing in her doorway. That would unnerve most ponies.

I offered her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay! Loom’s nice.”

“Just reminding everypony there’s a war outside,” Rainbow said through a very strained grin.

Oh. Right.

I gave Vinyl another much gentler hug and then let go, turned, and trotted into the Lab so everypony could follow Rainbow’s directions.

I couldn’t help but feel I was forgetting something very important because of just how baffled and delighted I was. I frowned and stepped to the side, bumping into one of the workbenches. Workbench! That was it, the translator thingie!

I picked it up from the bench and held it out to Rainbow as she walked into the room, followed closely by Desi and Speed.

“By the way, I accidentally bumped this thing and it works. It’s a translator. We might need it, and it can do Equish so...” I shrugged. “Even if not, it’s pretty neat. Can I keep it if you don’t want it?”

Rainbow squinted for a moment. “Is that what that was? Damn. That’s twelve bits I owe her now… Go ahead and keep it. I thought it was a space-pipbuck.”

Desi shook her head once. “Bad guess.”

Rainbow raised one eyebrow slowly while I tucked the translator into my saddlebag.

Desi blinked, confused by the expression.

“She wants to know why her guess is bad,” Loom prompted like you would for a foal in school.

“Desi’s an adult,” I said to Loom as firmly and honestly as I could. “She’s just not good with language.”

Loom’s face went from natural to delight almost instantly. “Whaaaat?! But you’re so teeny!” She said as she stooped down to look Desi in the eyes.

Desi humphed, crossed her forelegs, and levitated her book to reference it. “Am not “teeny”! Am space-efficient.”

“Yes, teeny,” Ribbon teased.

Desi took out her book and started paging through it while Rainbow shook her head again and began to trot through the lab’s inner door to the stairwell.

“Come on, guys! There’s a lot we have to do if we're going to stop the Enclave today… You know, before they explode everything.” Rainbow prompted through a strained smile.

Desi finished her word-look-up while Loom began to walk to the stairs along with everypony else.

“You are much bigger than most ponies. We come in many sizes.” Desi said cheerfully.

Ooo. Bit of a tonal whiplash there. I’d have to explain emoting while speaking to her again.

Lyra cleared her throat as I began to walk down the stairs. “Sooo uh… Is anypony going to ask her or do I need to?” she said with a really weird tone in her voice.

Loom sighed and shot Lyra a hurt look. “Yes, standard construction can support my weight, even in armor.”

“No! Not you!” Lyra said, sounding genuinely baffled. “Why would you— You’re just big! Also, a wrestling star who really should be dead now but if Rainbow made it this far, whatever. I guess rads make you immortal or something. Not the point. What I meant is anypony going to ask the Little Gray Mare over there what the flying buck her people were trying to do with the whole random abductions and anal probing thing?”

I snorted as I realized what had been bothering Lyra this whole time. “Oh! She’s from the—”

“Science bondage,” Desi answered extremely casually.

“What?” the entire stairwell of ponies asked as one as we all turned to look towards the tiny mare.

Desi frowned, held up a hoof to tell us to wait, and levitated out her book to check something marked with a tab. She read for a moment, nodded, then repeated. “Science bondage.”

“Yes,” I said with a nod. “Now. WHAT?!”

“Small fringe minority enjoys erotic data collection methods,” Desi said as if I should have understood that is what she meant by her baffling word combo.

“I knew it!” Lyra exploded. “I bucking knew it!”

I giggled. I had no idea Desi could tell a joke like that, the fact Lyra took it seriously just made it even more funny. At least, I hoped it was a joke.

She scootched up so she could press past Vinyl and look Desi in the eyes from beside her. “Soooo, can your ship beam us out of here or…”

Desi shook her head. “No? Not an alien. Technically.”

There was a loud click as Loom disengaged part of her armor so she could reach down and picked Desi up by the scruff of her neck, then gently set the little mare atop her turret’s barrel. “Here. Now the sillyfilly can’t bug you with conspiracy theories.”

Desi made a cute happy noise and settled in on top of Loom’s weapon.

Lyra snorted. “A mere two-meter eleveation has never stopped me from bugging a pony!”

“She’s not an alien, Lyra,” Rainbow agreed, her eyes shut painfully tight. “Look, you were right. We found remains in the ship. Aliens are bipeds.” Rainbow sighed in defeat, seemingly knowing what was to come before adding. “Yes, they have hands.”

My left ear went deaf from the fanfilly squeal. Fortunately, it worked again with a quick power cycle and two rotations.

“I knew it! I knew everything in that ship was built for hands! My gauntlets work too well with them! Hey, do you think maybe humans actually—”

Rainbow facehooved with one hoof and put the other in Lyra’s mouth to shut her up. I was horrified, but Lyra seemed to act like this happened all the time by just… being attentive.

I don't like you, mint pony. You break the entirety of my social norms database...

“I don’t know!” Rainbow hissed. “There were only bones left. And most of them were broken to bits… Come on, guys! We need to get that old ship’s power core up and running so we can teleport out of here! We don’t have much time and… and I don’t even think that we have the time to get it working.”

I triple blinked. “W— Wait. You said there was a hidden command room.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow sighed, her ears folding down in defeat. “Because “Hey, so I have a desperate last-ditch world saving plan involving a wrecked alien starship” is not going to get anypony to help. Ever. At all.”

“I’d help,” Mom said without hesitation.

“I would have believed you,” I said after a moment’s thought. “Especially since you said you needed a machine spirit to get this mission done.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Really? You would have?”

I nodded. Speed nodded too.

“Sure!” she agreed cheerfully. “There’s all those hidden alien encounters in your training sims. I figured they had to be real otherwise why include them in military simulations?”

Loom coughed into her hoof. “I uh… I might have? I believed for years that I was abducted as a foal, but my parents took me to therapy and it all seemed crazy but… Yeah. Starblasters. I always swore I’ve seen them before. Somewhere.”

Desi shuffled her hooves nervously. Dash smiled up at her. “Hey, I know you’d believe me. I’m guessing your timeline’s Swann used this ship to send you back here, right? Which is good news. It means my plan isn’t as last-desperate-act as I’d feared. So thanks for that.”

Desi remained quiet.

Rainbow turned and kept walking down the stairs. “Okay… full disclosure time. And I’m skipping the oaths of secrecy and loyalty. The anti-magic reactor and the Rainbow Relay were both reverse engineered from this ship. We never got the ship itself working properly, but it should still have backup power. If, and this is a big if, we can get the ship’s reactor working using that backup power, then we should be able to use it to teleport to Star Drop Station… If I can figure out how the controls work. We uh, we had to invent whole new interfaces. It’s just the stupid panels don’t do anything for ponies. If I have to make it go by touching wires together, so be it.”

Lyra snorted and flashed Rainbow a smug look. “It’s touch controls meant for five-digited hands. I worked them out years ago… and uh, accidentally fired a laser into the wall… Hen!” She admitted sheepishly.

Rainbow shook her head. “No, they’re not. We tried touching the screens. That doesn't work.”

“Not with hooves, no,” Lyra agreed. “You need a certain amount of conductivity. It’s a capacitive touch system. Your nose would work…” she trailed off then wiggled her weird cyber-gauntlets at Rainbow’s face, showing small soft padded tips to each finger. “Or you can modify your cybernetics to work with it.”

“I like you,” Mom said with an approving nod. “Have you need of a significant other? My daughter is single.”

“The buck she is!” Vinyl said with stern disapproval.

I eeped and spun around. “That’s right! Uh, Mom, this is Vinyl. Vinyl, mom. We’re a couple.”

“Oh?” Mom asked through a small frown. “Is she—”

“She’s got a pipbuck fused to her leg, so yes, she is a cyborg” I sighed, closing my eyes.

Mom was quiet for a bit too long. “I... was asking if she knows she’s radioactive.”

“Sure you were,” I said with a giggle.

“Yep!” Vinyl said cheerfully. “Pretty amazed this hasn’t worn off yet… Anypony know the unicorn equivalent to a Sonic Radboom? At least my eyes are working okay again.”

“Good,” Rainbow commented as she vanished through a doorway at the bottom of the stairs. I turned my attention to what lay ahead and passed through the doorway myself.

I stood on a catwalk within a cavernous room lit from above by dozens of stadium lights. My targeting scanners told me the room was huge, my eyes told me it was tiny. In the same way, a huge table can make a room feel small, the massive vessel below and ahead of us made everything feel tiny.

The skyscrapers in the city above us could only just begin to compare to the colossus of smooth silvery metal. It would take several of them stacked side to side to match her beauty. You could tell she was a ship instantly. Even with the smooth, graceful, flowing, alien look to the large bulbous-arrowhead shape to her hull, even with the obvious impact damage and crumpled bulkheads, the burn marks, and other signs of battle damage, this was clearly a ship.

A lot of that being it fit my exact notion of what a starship should look like. Arrowhead shape, bump on top for the bridge. Sleek hull lines like nothing on Equis. Silver in color with the red stripe along the sides, and those little indents for the torpedo launchers and thrusters.

At the far end of the catwalk was a docking port leading into an arched hallway with oddly orange ribbing-like support columns, tan carpet, and gray walls with big light panels set into the walls every few pony lengths. The Light spilled out, inviting and warm.

Ironic… Something I’d longed to be real always had been. I couldn’t help but wonder if her name actually was the Protector.

“Weird,” Rainbow commented. “I thought you would be squeeing again.”

“I’ll be honest,” I said with just the faintest of grins. “Mom suddenly being okay still has most of my systems going too nuts to really get the proper reaction to it. Also it doesn't have any visible guns on—”

“OH-MY-LUNA-IT’S-REAL!” Vinyl squeed far too loudly.

She rushed past Rainbow and I, pushing us aside on the catwalk to bolt for the open docking hatch. “Last pony to 38 Starboard is buying the shots!”

“Also DJ Pon3 is clearly the bigger fanfilly here,” I noted.

“Wait a minute…” Lyra said with a steep frown and cocked her head. “She uses the name DJ Pon3?”

I nodded. “Yes. Why do you—”

Lyra shook her head. “Nothing. She just sounds like a pony I used to know and has the same names, but can't be because two centuries have passed and also this mare is obviously not a huge bitch. A bit spooky is all.”

Rainbow stopped mid-step and turned her neck to look at Lyra in shock. “I— but— Lyra… She— She looks exactly the same as she did… How the buck—”

Lyra’s eyes widened in horror. “W— What? B— But if it’s really been two centuries… you I get. Horrible science accident shitty immortality. The Ribbon would have been in cryo because of your soldier thing. I— How—” Lyra’s extreme confusion warped into horror almost faster than my eyes could detect.

She reached up to her face and clasped her robotic gauntlets over her muzzle. “Oh-no-Octavia-is-in-the-bar!”

Lyra began to sprint down the catwalk after Vinyl, calling for her to stop.

Rainbow shook her head, took two steps, then squeaked. “Oh no…” as she realized something.

It took me a second longer than Rainbow, but then it hit me too. “Oh no!”

Vinyl somehow didn’t put together that Lyra was her Lyra. Maybe it was the mech suit. Maybe it was the fact she completely believed her friends were dead. Maybe she was tired and exhausted… whatever the reason was, she just hadn’t noticed.

Oh right she said she’d gotten flash-banged with magic. Concussion. That’s why.

Vinyl was going to run into that ship, be just over the moon that she could apologize to her wife, but for Octavia, all of the things Vinyl spent centuries atoning for were just four years in the past.

Thinking quickly, I looked up to Desi. “We have to stop her!”

Desi nodded, lit her horn, and simply lifted Vinyl off the ground.

I nodded, thoroughly impressed with the sheer simplicity. “Effective!”

Vinyl twisted in the glowing bubble of light and shot a grumpy look back towards us. “Hey! That’s cheating! Also, money does not exist in the show. Come on! Let me down, I need a drink. My eyes are still spotted up… Whisky normally fixes this. Break Clean works too, but only post-ghoul. Do not use brake clean on eyes if not ghoul, okay?”

Yep. She’s concussed.

Lyra caught up to Vinyl a moment later. She was surprisingly fast on two hooves. Her exosuit had to have a motion assist system.

Lyra grabbed Vinyl by her shoulders and pulled her in close to her face. Desi stopped levitating Vinyl a moment later, letting her hooves thunk to the catwalk.

“Vinyl Scratch. Look at me.” Lyra demanded.

Oh… Oh no! Lyra was also going to be livid!

The rest of us closed the distance as fast as we could. It wouldn’t be fast enough.

Vinyl squinted through her helmet for a moment. Then she blinked. “W— Wait. But… But you died?”

Lyra shook her head. “No, but I should have. We all should have. I took everypony here just days before the end so we could hope my safe room would work as a fallout shelter. And it did,” She paused for a moment and pulled Vinyl up so they were both on their hind hooves. “I’ve been trapped in this building for four, bucking, years, Vinyl! And that’s by my clock. Apparently, some archmage’s bullshit in the lab’s made that two centuries for everypony outside.”

Lyra cleared her throat to get back on track. “Four. Bucking. Years. One building. No ability to order takeout. Not even Short John Gold’s and that’s barely classifiable as matter! We would have died if I hadn’t found a way to hack into this place, and there hadn’t just so happened to be an alien ship that can make food and water out of raw magic just stashed away in this hole. And WHY was this?! BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO BUCKING POLITICAL TO LET YOUR WIFE AND FRIENDS SHARE A STABLE BECAUSE WE WEREN'T EQUESTRIAN ENOUGH!”

Lyra let go of Vinyl with one gauntlet and slapped her across the face hard enough to smash her helmet and make bone crunch. “BUCK YOU, WITH A BUCKING ANCHOR!”

I froze in my tracks. On one hand, I knew Vinyl kind of deserved that, and that her helmet and face would fix themselves in just a few seconds. On the other hoof…

She slapped my mare in a way she doesn't like!

Target: That-bitch’s-stupid-ass >:C

Range: 10.26412 meters.

Wind: 0.00000 knots by 0.00000 degrees.

Compensate for target’s motion...

Compensate for drag…

Compensate for Coriolis effect…

Compensate for pellet spread…

Compensate for Equus’s rotation…

Target locked! Targeting time, 0.01 milliseconds.

I felt Loom’s hoof gently push my battle saddle’s shotgun mount down. “No. Bad.” Loom said to me quietly.

“I was just going to shoot her in the butt… She’s got armor. She’d take it.” I muttered bitterly.

“Right,” Loom continued with a calm nod. “But that armor looks like it’s made from Luna Titanium. A shotgun won't do dick for shit against armor that thick. Here, let me plug you into my turret’s control system.”

I felt my core skip several beats. I timidly pointed up to the massive artillery piece mounted to the back of her power armor. “I— I could shoot that?!”

Hot!

“Yeah!” Loom replied casually.

“NO!” Rainbow snapped, her own eye twitching as she stepped between Loom and I. “No you cannot! We have to stop the end of the bucking world! What is wrong with all of you?! Does everypony here have the worst kind of ADHD?!”

Mom cleared her throat. “I do.”

“Yes but that’s fine. Yours is a super power. It’s them I’m angry at,” Rainbow replied politely before turning back to the rest of us and putting on the mother off all angry mare shouting voices. “Now. Everypony. Yes! Tons of personal drama. I get that. But. There. Is. A. Giant. Gun! Pointed. At. The. Planet! FOCUS! Reactor! Get working, now! Please.”

Mom nodded in firm agreement. “Agreed. We can engage in personal politics later. I have an opening in my schedule for after Heat Death. Does that work for everypony else?”

Everypony fell quiet for several short moments. Something about the honest simplicity of Mom’s question made it sound just so genuine.

“D— Do you mean you never want to be around drama, or that you have a plan to survive the end of the universe?” Lyra asked after another moment of quiet.

“For Celestia's sake!” Rainbow growled while holding both her hooves to her face.

“Yes.” Mom said to Lyra, giving one of her usual non-answers before trotting down the catwalk to the doors. “I will begin repairs now.”

Rainbow looked up from her hooves. “Uh, wait, you don’t know how it works. I’ll need to explain—”

“I have already begun repairs!” Mom shouted back.

“She’s ignoring everything because of their drama. Meaning she switched her microphones off and registered your speech only as a change in air pressure with a threshold of signal to noise,” I explained to Rainbow. “We should let them attend to that and make sure she doesn't make something explode.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we should.” Rainbow said as she rushed off after mom.

Ribbon, Desi, and I joined her. Vinyl and Lyra remained where they were, letting me listen in as I rushed along.

Vinyl cleared her throat. “Okay so, they’re right. But for the sake of peace, I deserved that. You’re right. I bucked up. Bad. If you want me to be punished, I’ve spent two centuries so far being undead. So. Yeah.”

“Undead? So that’s how you survived that slap. Huh. Nea— EEEP! I’m covered in zombie juice!” Lyra shrieked, making me wish I was still looking at her.

I could just picture her trying to shake the various bits of Vinyl left on her gauntlet off. Hehe!

“Yeah, that’s not how it works,” Vinyl laughed. “Just make sure a balefire bomb mostly kills you, and you’ll be fine.”

The rest of us ducked into the alien ship’s interior and… And it was exactly what I remembered from the TV show. As in, to the very last bit of detail. The carpeted hallways, the simple smooth surfaces that begged for decoration yet that’s what made them feel alien and futuristic, everything. If it weren't for the random bits of film-making equipment like cameras and Steadicam mounts scattered about the hallway I’d have been very unsettled.

I felt very silly for feeling unsettled by the idea of ponies recreating an alien ship to film a show rather than just filming on the ship. That emotion let me just sort of coast through the hallways while Rainbow explained everything to Loom, who had to stoop to not knock Desi’s head into the ceiling’s randomly spaced protruding ribbing.

“... wait, it’s been here how long?” Loom said, sounding quite confused.

“Ages and ages,” Rainbow sighed. “It was here before the Ministries, and if the dating we did is accurate it crashed around the end of the First Zebra Empire.”

I blinked once. “Wait, what?”

“You know, about… ten thousand years,” Rainbow said with some hesitation. “I think. Ancient history wasn’t my thing.”

“Huh… Think aliens blew it up then?” Loom remarked.

“The ship’s last log said it was damaged in battle,” I commented half to myself. “But… if it’s that old, how did nopony ever find it?”

Rainbow’s left ear twitched slightly. “Oh, who knows—” She stopped mid sentence and took a deep breath. “Sorry. I do know. There’s little point to old state secrets anymore, but it's still hard to talk about them without oaths of secrecy and loyalty to people without clearance. They really burn the need for that into you. It was found by a pre-Equestrian kingdom. They used parts of it to study magic. They never knew what they had and thought it was just some older civilization’s fort. Princess Celestia beat them in one of the Equestrian Unification wars, and had this ship buried with all their other relics. Not like, there’s a big pile of lost civilization stuff. She just… made these people disappear from history. I got to ask why once. Long story short, they were very dangerous. If she hadn’t, Equestria would have gone wasteland long before my grandparents were even born.”

She snorted and shook her head. “Celestia sort of had a thing for just tossing problems into a deep pit for others to deal with later. For a few years, it felt like every other week some ancient evil was creeping back out of a hole Celestia had tossed it down. I… I think the girls and I handled everything she couldn’t after losing the Elements of Harmony. Pretty sure.”

“You know, those ancient ponies were right,” Loom snorted. “This is just some ancient people’s ship. I mean, it’s not like it built itself… You mentioned finding bones?”

“Yeah, the aliens are bipeds. The bone fragments we could piece together indicate they were kinda like monkeys. It was really weird coming across something that was an intelligent biped. I mean, sure, dragons are bipeds when they’re little, but they grow out of it when their wings start coming in. Sure we have a few bipedal toolmakers like Minotaurs here, but the vast majority of intelligent life is equine. Threw me for a major loop.”

Desi shifted on Loom’s back, seemingly uncomfortable. “Why reactor not work?”

Rainbow looked over her shoulder. “Well, engineering is right here. Take a look at it. You’ll have as good of an idea as I do.”

Desi’s ears flicked in irritation. “Probably know more…”

Rainbow stopped walking and put a hoof against a set of large sliding metal doors which, sure enough, I recognized as the entrance to Engineering. I shook my head slowly. “You… Really did just shoot the whole series here, didn’t you? Is the reactor really just some big glass tube filled with lava-lamp stuff?”

Rainbow snorted. “No.” She said as she started to shove the door aside to open it.

“Good, because I don’t know what my mom would do if it was,” I said, grateful that mom’s hearing was still disabled.

“That was a special effect done in post. The real thing—” Rainbow yelped as Mom extended several of her mechanical arms and simply wrenched the doors open to walk into the room beyond.

“Sluggish auto-doors added to maintenance docket,” Mom said as she trotted into the room and began to look around.

Rainbow blinked twice. “Does… Does she ever do anything but fix stuff and make things?”

“Yes,” I nodded solemnly.

“Oh, good, because—”

“She also waits for things to break while looking sad.” I finished.

Rainbow winced. “Well… at least this place will be heaven to her.”

I nodded and stepped into the engineering room. It felt so weird. I remembered Jasmine watching all kinds of things happen in this place that the short hallway filled with computer terminals before the big circular bay area wrapping around the big glass tube they called a reactor felt familiar. Super familiar. But then there was how things were now.

It was dark, only half the lights worked. The reactor’s “Magic-antimagic” reaction was gone, leaving only a hollow tube. Random bits of debris and equipment were scattered across the floor, and one of the terminal's screens slowly pulsed red. The only other light was the weird white illuminated panels everywhere that always bugged me because why would anyone ever install those at eye-level?

It felt like walking into an extra dark episode of the show mid-disaster. Which was only exacerbated by the fact we were here to stop a space station from blowing up the planet.

“... it really is an episode,” I murmured to myself.

“Huh?” Rainbow said with a frown as she walked towards the large flat computer terminal set into the bench-top directly in front of the reactor. “Oh. Yeah. I wish. Then this would have been wrapped up in 45 minutes and we’d get a cool action scene. Also I could write in a date with Daring Doo for myself.”

Mom trotted towards the same console as Dash, eyed it for a moment, then looked beneath it, nodded, and looked up to Rainbow. “I can persuade the spirits here to restore full power to this console. Do you need it?”

“Can you hear again?” Rainbow asked.

Mom nodded. I blinked and took a quick look around the room, doing my best to detect the presence of any machine spirits.

There were none.

“Yes. Speech is needed for work, unfortunately,” Mom sighed. “Do we have ten minutes? I could give you a modem then we could talk properly.”

“No thank you. But please do get the console working,” Rainbow agreed before turning to Loom. “The floor over there is a panel covering up a big machine, network, thingie. Can you open that up? It takes four ponies normally.”

Loom nodded and moved towards the patch of floor Rainbow indicated. Mom stared at the console for a moment. I took my own good look at it.

“Uh, mom? There’s nothing in that console. It’s spiritually dead.” I said as quietly and politely as I could.

Mom ignored me and simply smacked the side of the console with one hoof. The panel atop it blinked white, then hummed to life, transforming into the weirdly familiar nonsense display of many dozens of small colored shapes.

“You were saying?” Mom said, offering me a smug grin.

My jaw dropped. “But… but there was nothing to—”

“There’s plenty here. All around us. You need to look for it. They are not like Equestrian spirits. They prefer to hide,” Mom said as she gently gave the panel a pat with her hoof. “I found them first when working with the Star Blaster. Buried deep down. They’re afraid of things like us, you see.”

I frowned and took another look at the console, focusing as hard as I could on every last detail. “I… I really can’t sense anything.”

“I’ll show you one day.” Mom said as stooped under the console to pop open the console’s hatch. “Ministry Mare: The console is operational. Its link to the ship is severed. I will repair it. This spirit is warning me of a power flow irregularity in a system I do not know of nor understand. We will need to activate the diagnostic station before bringing the reactor online.”

“Not to interrupt but I got the floor open,” Loom added quickly. “It was bolted down. There are no longer functional bolts. Sorry.”

“Thanks, Loom,” Rainbow said to Loom before turning back to mom. “Now, what’s the chance the spirit you’re in contact with can boot up the reactor?” Rainbow asked with a hopeful flutter of her wings.

“Zero point zero percent. Alien spirits are compartmentalized. They hide. They know one thing.” Mom murmured while soldering something, based on the rancid smell of melting flux.

“Great,” I grumbled. “Then we have to fix every single console until we figure out which one is for the diagnostic system.”

“It is fixed,” Desi called from the hallway entry section of the engineering bay.

I turned to see Desi standing up atop a box in front of one seemingly random terminal on the left side of the hallway. She’d seemingly pulled some wires from the bulkhead over the console and hooked them into it via a panel she’d pried open. The screen was glowing cheerfully with colored symbols, much like every other interface Id’ ever seen on the show, only with more purpose to them.

“Good job!” I said with a smile.

Rainbow nodded in agreement and began to trot over. “Let's hope the others are as easy to fix. How will we know which one is the one we need?”

Desi’s ears flicked back in irritation. She flapped her wings to hover up to the bulkhead above the terminal she’d repaired and tapped some alien writing with a hoof. “Station 10. Diagnostics. Fixed it. Emergency Power bus. What do now, machine pony?”

Rainbow, Loom, and I shared a stunned silence while mom called. “What’s wrong with this reactor?” from across the engineering bay.

I facehooved. “Oh. Right. She was raised on this ship in the future by its computer. Of course, she knows how to read their language.”

Rainbow laughed half-nervously. “Right. Okay. What are the odds she can just, turn it on?”

“Forty-seven percent,” Desi answered with an odd little frown. “Machine pony, what do now?”

“The big round coily thingies that go to the reactor’s big bulbous whatchamacallit. What does it say the power flow to that thing from those things are?” Mom called back with an extremely worrying lack of proper terminology. “Additionally, I have a name. There are several machine ponies present. Label use is important.”

Desi took out her book and flicked through it a few times. “No flow to the core. The antimatter flow regulators are locked. Manual valve actuation required." She said after a rather tense moment. “Turn the wheel-thing attached to the lump along the three corrugated tube do-dads till it clicks twice.”

“Understood,” Mom called.

Desi looked over to me and gestured for me to come closer. I took a few steps forwards, deciding I was pretty useless here anyway and might as well help Desi however I could.

Desi leaned over and whispered into my ear. “No, remember machine pony name. What is?”

The world came to a halt. “What do you mean what’s her name?”

Desi embarrassedly scuffed her hoof against the terminal. “Failed to hear name when introduced. Was riding big pony. Happy. Negative attention paying.”

“That’s our mom, Desi,” I said, concern creeping into my voice. “D— did she look different in the future?”

Desi blinked and looked over at mom much more intensely than I thought a pony could look at something. “Never met. Never saw. … Can complain about plasma-residue allergy? No. Never brain that. Not this pony’s fault.”

I titled my head. “What?”

Desi looked up at me. “Shoddy workponyship. Have allergy. Mom not good with biotech?”

“I’ve never seen her work with biotech, like. Ever. Just machines,” I reapplied as I took a look around the engineering bay. “Never seen her work on anything like this before. If she knew anything about it we might stand a chance… Unless you can do something here, I think we're screwed. I mean, if we had time, mom would get it done. But we don’t…”

I turned to Rainbow for a moment. “Hey, how long do we have before they can fire again?”

“They can already fire again,” Rainbow replied. “We have no time. Whenever they feel like it, they can fire. So we need to really get the lead out. What happens after the anti-whats-it flow is restored, Desi?”

Loom cleared her throat. “So I’m out of the loop but it sounds like Desi here is the result of time travel. Kinda like that time Ministry Mare Sparkle went back in time to warn herself not to stress about the future only to make her stress about the future. Except instead of a scroll, Desi used this ship. Sooo… Can you just, switch it on? Let us get right to the bad guy killing? Because, well, frankly, as good a robot as Gears is, I’d much rather have Ashen as backup for this kind of thing, but he’s not here and—”

Loom paused, pursed her lips, and turned to Rainbow. “Hey, wait… Shouldn’t he be in his pod? Why don’t we just beam it over, crack it open, throw him at the enemy, and then crack open some beers?”

“I thought of that,” Rainbow sighed. “They didn’t deliver the pod to the base before the bombs dropped.”

I tilted my head. “Wait, who are we talking about?”

“An experimental combat robot and prototype computer system Lyra’s son invented,” Rainbow remarked. “Also a damn good soldier… Unfortunately, there were… espionage problems.”

“Damn good? You’re underselling him,” Loom snorted. “There was a court case where they decided robots couldn’t earn medals. If they could, he’d have been issued the Solar Crest and you know it. And best of all it would have been the 117th medal issued, which would have been perfect, because you know. Serial number.”

“I’d have given it to him, but that was Luna’s call… She seemed to hate everything I tried to end the war,” Rainbow muttered.

I trotted over and gave her a quick hug. “I can’t imagine having been able to prevent this… but forbidden to. That has to suck.”

“Yeah, it does,” Rainbow sighed before straightening back up. “Bucking hell, the drama is infectious or something. Desi, can you—”

Desi tapped the screen in front of her with her muzzle, making it do a cute little doublet chirp as she manipulated the terminal via touch. “Already doing it.” She said chipperly. “Rainbow give translator?”

I reached into my saddlebag and took out the small device. “I kept it, actually.”

Desi took the device from me and fiddled with it for a few moments, making it chirp and beep. Then she hooked it into the terminal with a loose cable and worked on the terminal for a few more minutes. After a while, she nodded to herself in satisfaction and hit one last button.

The terminal chirped yet again. Desi unplugged the translator and passed it back to me with her magic just in time for the ship itself to seem to speak from everywhere yet nowhere.

“Universal Translator Database updated. Default Language changed to Equish,” it reported.

Everypony except Desi jumped.

“What the bucking crap it’s alive?!” Rainbow squeaked. “I’m so sorry I spilled coffee on your bridge console!”

Desi rolled her eyes. “Not alive. Dumb AI. Also bad mother.” She tapped a few more things on the console then nodded. “Machine pony get secondary power working. Can try reactor start. Might explode. If explode, guarantee delete city. Acceptable risk?”

“Given we’re trying to stop an extinction event, yes,” Rainbow reapplied a little too quickly.

Desi nodded twice then turned back to the terminal, working it with both her nose and wingtips. The incessant beeping each touch made got my left eye to start twitching along with each aggravating pulse. How the hay could anypony, or anyone at all, work with what would have to be hundreds of if not thousands of blinking and beeping lights blinking and beeping all the time?!

Also how had Jasmine never thought of that herself before? Interesting… I’d have to sit down and discover who I was after our merger sometime soon. After all, there was a point to life now. I had Vinyl again. She didn’t die.

Desi stopped working and turned to look back at Rainbow. “Decided to safety very little,” she said with just a hint of worry. “Is power for transport. Array pre-charged. Can beam five. Problem: Station shields active. Can beam one to station. Take more power go through shield.”

Rainbow sighed. “Right. So… Turn on the reactor, please.”

“Risky plan,” Desi held up her hoof and quickly referenced her book. “If we synchronize the transporter's annular confinement beam to the station’s warp core frequency, we can bypass shields and send two ponies of mass, or one Loom.”

I tiled my head. “To the what frequency?”

“What she said,” Rainbow agreed.

Desi blinked at us, then pointed to the reactor. “Warp core.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said with a nod. “So that’s what they called them… Yeah, Star Drop doesn't have one of those.”

Desi made a distressed sound and let her ears droop. “No want start. Do not want explode today. Reactor very hurt and upset!”

“Is there that much risk of an explosion?” Rainbow asked with a worried grimace.

Desi nodded. “Four hundred isotones antimatter in fuel tanks. Ten tanks total. Very explode!”

“Anti what?” I asked, completely lost.

“I think she means anti-magic, but… solid? Why would you make that?” Loom asked with a shiver.

“Yeah, bad idea.” Rainbow agreed with a wince. “Okay… Let's take a minute to do this safely then. We could maybe beam to the Rainbow Relay and use it. That would take less power because no shields, right?”

Desi opened her mouth to reply only to squeak in terror as the room was plunged into bright electric blue light. I swiveled my head to look at the reactor just in time to see a blue gas and a red gas flood the chamber, begin to glow brightly, convert into plasma, then wrap around each other in a double helix like a mad storm of oncoming doom! Then stabilize into an energized cloud of purple mist.

Mom poked her head out from the hole Loom had opened in the floor. “I found the on button. It was next to the main fuse box.”

She turned her visor to look at each of our horrified faces in turn. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Warp core should have exploded,” Desi said firmly.

“Yes. It’s okay. She promised not to. I’m good at talking machines out of suicide. I could have been a therapist,” Mom said as she pulled herself out of the hole. “So what’s this about a space station? The comm line spirit mentioned somepony was looking at a space station. That sounds cool. Can I see it?”

“Yes!” Rainbow said with a relieved yet still terrified smile. “Yes, you can! Come on everypony, let’s get Vinyl and her friends and get off this thing before our Warlock’s charm no longer keeps this thing from exploding.”

“That’s a good plan,” I said as I began to run to the engineering room doors. “I’m happy to be a part of it.”