“If you keep laughing at death, one day death will laugh back.”

Darkness.

I was dead. My mind swirled away from my body, sending my crumbling consciousness into the never ending void of blackness that was death. Amber Aura was gone. It was over. Everything I had ever done had led me here. And now my life has reached its conclusion.

The wasteland had beaten me in the end. I had been a fool to think I could stop that.

I died…

For about five minutes...

My eyes jolted open with a start, letting the bright, clinical lights of the Institute flood my vision once more. I looked around, making out the very familiar sight of one of the cells in the Institute. It seemed to be the very same cell they had locked me in during my first visit with Mirra.

I felt oddly naked for some reason, and upon looking down I noticed I was without my stable barding and pipbuck. I reached down and rubbed the fur where my pipbuck used to be, feeling my soft coat. It felt weird to not have it on, I could hardly remember the last time I had been without it.

“I’m glad to see you’re awake,” A familiar voice spoke up from behind me. I twirled around, my eyes landing on the silver brain bot that was watching me from the other side of the cell. “I was worried for a moment that you wouldn’t come back to us.”

I pulled myself up and trotted over to the barred door of the cell, looking the brain bot over. “What’s going on? What did you guys do to me!? How long have I been out?” A pang of fear shot through me. I only had five days until Pureblood launched the Utopia program! How much of that time was still left? Four days? Three? A few hours? minutes?

The brain bot held up a claw like appendage to silence me. “Don’t worry, you have only been under for a few minutes. Simply long enough for us to place you in this cell.”

Oh thank the goddesses, there was still time. The sudden relief was quickly washed away with worry.

“What did you do to me? That pod… Why did you put me in it? What did you do?” I asked, my mind flaring with fear again. I doubted that they put me inside of that thing to simply knock me unconscious. What would have been the point of that?

The brain bot chuckled. “Don’t worry. We didn’t harm you. And I’m sure you will realize the exact details of what has transpired in due time.”

I looked over the brian bot carefully, his voice bringing back memories of many of the things I had heard across the wasteland. “You’re Silver Ace, right?” It felt weird to say those words. I had been following traces of him all across the wasteland for the past month. It seemed surreal to finally be talking to him in the flesh… or at least, as much flesh as a brain in a jar could have.

The three monitors attached to Silver Ace’s metal chassis bobbed, signifying a nod. “I am. I’m surprised that you have heard of me. Not many ponies have. Especially all these years after the war.”

I felt my eyebrows knit together. “Are you kidding? Remnants of your past have been popping up all over the place! I’d be surprised if I found myself involved in something that didn’t have your hoof prints all over it.”

“You must be very observant then… or very good at piecing things together. Even Twilight Sparkle was unaware of just how involved I was in everypony's affairs,” Silver Ace commented, his monitor eyes looking over me with greater interest. “All the same, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Where’s my pipbuck?” I asked, holding up my bare hoof. It looked weird to me without it, like a part of my hoof had simply disappeared. “I want it back.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Your pipbuck has some very valuable assets on it that I am in need of. I’m sorry,” Silver Ace informed me, a metal claw detaching from his metallic form and holding up my unclamped pipbuck.

I raised an eyebrow. “Valuable assets on my pipbuck? What are you talking about?” I tried to think of what I might have on my pipbuck that was of any importance whatsoever, but nothing came to mind.

Silver Ace’s face remained neutral as he looked down at me. “Nothing of importance to you, I assure you. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that it will be returned to you,” the claw retracted, once more pulling my pipbuck out of sight.

“What is your role in all this?” I asked, my curiosity peeking. “I can never seem to get a good grasp on what your plan is. At first I heard you were working with Fluttershy in the MOP, then I found out that you and Pureblood are working on something. Then I learned you were the original director of the Institute and that you had some role in the creation of Luna’s megaspell under the Hollow Shades. Now you seem to just be Purebloods lackey. I don’t get it.”

The mouth on Silver Ace’s monitor cracked the slightest bit of a smirk. “You’ve found out more about me than I realized. In truth, all I want is for the war to be over.”

I cocked my head in confusion at that. “Um… the war is over. It ended in balefire over two hundred years ago.”

Silver Ace’s expression became saddened. “Is it over? Do you truly believe that the war is over Amber? You have traveled alongside a zebra companion. How many other ponies aside from yourself have been accepting of her? How many dirty glares and hateful comments has she needed to endure? Ponies still hate zebras. They still blame them and kill them for what happened in the war. Even now, Red Eye emasses forces in Fillydelphia and the Enclave descends from the skies above to lay siege to Equestria. You faced off against Kamari. You saw his plans to destroy Equestria, to wipe out pony kind for a war that you claim is over. He was far from the only zebra to believe this. Kamari was but a small sample of a much larger force. The Remnant, zebras that wage an unholy war against pony kind. They won't stop until every pony is dead.”

I thought about how Xayah always wore her cloak over her when she entered populated places. How ponies always kept their distance from her whenever she walked into the room. She had fled New Appleoosa shortly after settling down there, the hatred and discrimination against zebras driving her and her family away.

“So what does that have to do with the Utopia Program? Pureblood? Or… Well, anything you have done for that matter?” I asked, trying to piece together what he was telling me. “I mean, Pureblood doesn’t seem all that interested in peace. Or… well he does, but not the kind of peace that you would want.”

Silver Ace seemed to hum to himself for a second as he thought that over. “You are very perceptive. You are right in the fact that Purebloods plans are not exactly what I desire, but for the time being, he is what I need.”

“So you’re using him?” I realized, my eyes widening a little. If so, Silver Ace was ridiculously good at playing the long game. Two hundred years was a long time to manipulate somepony.

Silver Ace held up a metal claw. “Using him? Nothing of the sort. His plans simply line up with my needs in the present.”

“But not in the long term,” I pushed. “You’re planning something else, aren’t you?”

Another smile appeared on Silver Ace’s lips. “Perhaps. But that said, who isn’t planning something? Every pony and zebra in the wasteland has something planned. Every raider, ever wasteland wanderer. I’m sure you have plans of your own that you would enact if given the chance.”

“And these plans of yours require Pureblood hypnotizing all the ponies in the Wasteland and turning them into slaves?” I said, my eyes narrowing. “That doesn’t sound like peace to me, it sounds like tyranny.”

Silver Ace was silent for a minute longer. “No. It doesn’t sound like peace, does it. But stopping what Pureblood has put in motion is beyond either of us now. Utopia will be activated. That is inevitable,” Silver Ace’s brain bot shifted and began floating towards the door, leading back out into the Institute. “I am glad that we got to have this talk Amber. I feel like it has been a long time coming. My apologies for needing to keep you in this cell, but as I’m sure you are aware, you have proven to be quite dangerous. I will have a synth come by and deliver you food as soon as possible as well as anything else you might need. Do try to make yourself comfortable.”

The door slid open and he floated out of the room, one of his monitor eyes looking back at me one last time before he disappeared from my view entirely.

I pushed myself up against the back wall of my cell and slowly slid down the metal surface until I was once more sitting on the cold floor. I was getting really tired of being stuck as Purebloods prisoner and being helpless to do anything but sit and wait as the clock slowly counted down to the end times.

At least Inferno seemed to be oddly quiet. I was surprised that the cyber pony hadn’t been taunting me the moment I woke up. Or that he hadn’t decided to do something terrible to me while I was unconscious. I waited for a second, expecting his vile visage to enter my view, but nothing happened.

Thinking back, I tried to figure out exactly what it was that Pureblood and Silver Ace had done to me. They had put me into some sort of pod. I remembered the pod inserting some sort of thing into my neck, but that was about it. Everything had quickly just faded away into darkness.

I let my hoof reach up and touch the back of my neck where the machine had plugged into me. I was surprised to find no trace of whatever pug had been inserted into my flesh. Not even a scar remained to suggest it had ever been there.

“Weird…” I whispered to myself, letting my hoof drop back down to my side. It seemed that even after getting so many answers, I was only being presented with a plethora of new questions.

The door I had just watched Silver Ace exit slid open and an auburn coated synth in full Institute armour trotted in, an Institute laser rifle strapped to their side and their face covered by a metallic, white synth helmet. I pulled myself up as the synth approached.

“You must be the synth Silver Ace was going to send,” I grumbled, giving the synth a less than enthusiastic glare. It had arrived a lot faster than I had been expecting.

The speed of its arrival was far from the only thing the synth did that I wasn’t expecting. “Amber, I’m here to get you out of here,” The synth declared, ignoring my question and moving over to the cell door, swiping some sort of keycard in front of the locking mechanism. There was a click as the lock disengaged and the door to the cell slid open.

I felt my ears pick up as the synths voice reached my ears. I knew that voice! “Scarlet?” I asked, hope suddenly flooding into me for the first time in days. “Is… is that you?”

Scarlet Dusk pulled off the synth helmet, revealing her long orange mane and gave me a sheepish grin. I felt my heart thud rapidly with relief at the sight of a familiar face. “Hiya. Come on. We need to get you out of here. I’ve managed to go for a bit without drawing any attention to myself, but they're going to notice you’ve gone missing pretty damn quick,” She spun around and quickly started moving out of the room.

Lost for words, I moved to follow after her, glanced back at my cell only briefly as we moved out of the synth retention centre. Escape had seemed impossible, but here I was, out of my cell and among a friend. Of course, it was too early to celebrate our escape yet. We were still estranged in the middle of the largest and most secure facility in the wasteland, hundreds of miles under Tenpony Tower and surrounded by synths. We still had a long way to go until we could be considered free.

But damn was it good to see a friendly face again.

“How are you even doing this? I thought that Pureblood took control of all the synths?” I asked, recalling Purebloods shocking fast takeover of the Institute and moving up beside Scarlet as she took another sharp turn down a side corridor.

Scarlet put her helmet back on, concealing her expression from me. “Glasswing did a good job of hiding it the last time you were here, but your threats scared him senseless. He didn’t want to risk pissing you off,” She explained. That was good to hear. Though Glasswing was far from the worst person I had to deal with, I was glad to know I had at least freaked out that Insincere prick. “He gave me a lot of freedom around her after all the stuff that went down. Enough so that I managed to sneak into the synth control centre and remove my controls from the Institute entirely. They’ll have to catch me if they want to reprogram me.”

I gaped. “That’s something you can do? Just remove the Institutes control of you at the push of a button?” A thought crossed my mind. “So I could technically free all of the synths from the Institutes control?”

Scarlet gave me a sceptical look. “I mean… theoretically, yes. But you’d have to free each synth individually, and it takes a few minutes to do that. Freeing all of them might take weeks, if not longer. Plus, the Institute can still deactivate and reprogram any synth if they get close enough to say their deactivation code. Any courser that gets close could immediately undo all of that work.”

“What If we deactivated the coursers?” I pushed, trying to formulate some kind of a plan.

Scarlet was about to respond when she gave a quiet yelp and ducked backwards, pulling me behind a doorway. I made a small squeak of fright at the sudden movement, but quickly went silent as Scarlet clamped a hoof over my mouth. Before I could ask what was happening, I saw four synths trot past the doorway, a Canterlot ghoul leading them.

How had I not noticed that on my EFS? Were they blocking my- Oh fuck me, I had forgotten Silver Ace had taken my Pipbuck... I missed EFS.

The ghoul paused beside the door, their eyebrows scrunched together as they glanced around, clearly sensing that something was off. They took a step towards the door and glanced inside, small ribbons of pink mist wafted around them as they stuck their head inside.

I pushed myself back a little more, moving slightly behind a desk and moving as close to Scarlet as I could. We both held our breath in anticipation as we waited for the ghoul to notice us. I saw Scarlet wrap a hoof around her magical laser rifle, her whole body trembling as she prepared for attack.

Grunting, the Canterlot ghoul rolled their hazy eyes and trotted out of the room, following after the squad of synths. I felt my breath release and air flood back into my lungs.

After a few seconds of waiting, Scarlet ducked back into the hallway and continued walking. “You can't shut down the coursers. They’re the Institutes most dangerous assets for a reason,” She started, keeping her voice low and bringing back up the interrupted conversation. “They’re fast, impossibly good hunters and cannot be reasoned with. I’m sure you remember our last encounter with a courser.”

I remembered it all too well. The fight had been short and quickly overshadowed by our confrontation with Azar, but in the few short seconds I had fought the courser, I had come dangerously close to being rendered to ash. Had Mirra, Scarlet and Rubber Band not been there to back me up, I had no doubt it would have killed me.

I remembered Emissary bleeding to death after his brief encounter with a courser in Tenpony Tower. He had been one of the Friendship Expresses top agents and even he had hardly stood a chance against the courser that slew him.

Scarlet quickly moved down another hall, pulling up beside a large grate. Her magic wrapped around the grate and reefed it aside, making way for us to move into the cramped, dark tunnel behind.

“Where are we going?” I asked, ducking my head as I slowly crawled into the tunnel after her. “I don’t have my pipbuck anymore, and even if I did, I don’t have a way of teleporting us out.”

Scarlet let her magic pull the grate back into place. “I’ll explain everything once we aren’t so out in the open. I think I might know a way out of here.”

With that, she turned and darted off down the small tunnel, moving out of sight as she entered the blackness beyond. I took a deep breath, and plunged into the tunnel after her.

The two of us burst into the small maintenance room that Scarlet had made into her home in the sewers below the Institute. It didn’t look all that different than it did the last time I was there, but I did notice a few more pieces of stolen Institute technology that had been attached to her terminal.

I shook myself off, trying to rid my coat of the foul sewage water we had waded through to get to the room and looked around, thankful to be away from Pureblood or Silver Ace’s grasp. We weren’t out of the Institute yet, but this was a start.

Scarlet turned around to face me, her eyes filled with worry. “Amber, what are you doing back here? Who were those brain robot things? And Canterlot ghouls? What are they doing here?” she paused for a second as she looked me over a little closer. “That golden brain bot thing said he was the Director? That doesn’t mean what I think it means does it?”

I gave a grim nod. “His name’s Pureblood. He was some pre-war Canterlot noble or something that survived the war by putting his mind inside a robot. Turns out he's working for Red Eye and that the Institute has been helping out his slaver operations in Fillydelphia without even knowing it.”

Scarlets brow furrowed. “I never thought I’d see the day that somepony pulled the wool over the Institutes eyes like that. They always seemed like they were the ones in control.”

“Believe me, I didn’t see it coming either,” I grumbled. Thinking back, I probably should have. All the signs had been there from the beginning. I had previously noted that Fillydelphia was the only place of notice in the wasteland that had miraculously remained free of Institute spies. Maybe if I had been a little smarter, things would have turned out better at the Ponypalooza hotel. “What is important now though is that Pureblood plans to activate the Utopia program. It's still booting up, but I think we only have about five days left before it goes live.”

Scarlet gave a confused look. “But… didn’t queen Insecta try to launch that program too? Why didn’t she need to wait that long?”

“She probably did,” I said, thinking back to that whole ordeal. “She had been meddling with the maneframe and by extension the Utopia Program for a few days before I intervened. And even then, the maneframe became unstable after what she tried to do. Insecta’s plan was a desperate attempt to regain her hive. She was sloppy, and almost destroyed the maneframe in the process. Pureblood has been planning this for over two hundred years. He’s going to make sure it's done right.”

Scarlet nodded, her face looking somewhat distressed. “So what are you going to do?”

I hesitated at that question. In truth, I had no idea. How was I supposed to go up against an army of synths, coursers and Canterlot ghouls? And it wasn’t like I could just use the same tactic as when I went up against Azar. Pureblood would be ready for something like that, and back then I had had an army to back me up and the Director to use as a distraction. Something told me that I wouldn’t be able to use Pureblood as a distraction against Pureblood.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do. Not by ourselves,” I said, accepting the fact that I was currently in no position to go against Pureblood. I currently didn’t even have a weapon. “We need to escape the Institute and Rescue my friends first. Then we can come up with a way to end all of this.”

Scarlet nodded in response. “Yeah… Getting out of the Institute is gonna be tricky, but I think I found a way out.”

My ears perked up. “You know a way out of the Institute?” I could hardly believe it. “I thought there was no entrance? That you had too teleport to get in?”

Again, Scarlet nodded. “That’s how it works now, yes, but it didn’t use to be like that. From all the files I’ve read, I’m under the impression that the teleportation technology the Institute uses wasn’t properly developed until close to the end of the war. Before that, there were six different entrances into the facility, one in each Manehattan Ministry Hub. The largest and most commonly used was the entrance below the MAS Hub, now known as Tenpony tower. But the Institute blocked that one off long ago for obvious reasons. The last thing they want is other ponies finding their way down here.”

“And the other five?” I asked hopefully. If I could find a way out, I could also use it to get back in. “Are they still usable?”

“The Ministry of Moral Hub was the closest hub to the balefire bomb that went off in Manehattan, according to Glasswings terminal, it's so radioactive that it’ll melt metal in seconds,” Okay, we definitely weren’t going out that way. “The other ones were later closed off by the Institute following the war, opting to only use teleportation to get in and out. But there was one entrance, they never closed up. I don’t know which Ministry Hub it's under though. They kept it as an emergency escape route in case the teleporters stopped working.”

“Okay, so how do we get to this entrance?” I questioned, thankful to hear that there was in fact a way to escape.

Scarlet bit her lip nervously. “That’s where it gets tricky. According to the files I read, it's a secret entrance in Glasswings office.”

“Why’s that so bad? Didn’t we sneak into his office last time through the vents? We could be in or out before anypony even knows that we-” I stopped as I realized the problem. “Oh fuck…”

“Yup, vents are still full of ambient radiation from when Pureblood flooded the Institute,” Scarlet Dusk affirmed. “The vent we used to get here was pretty okay, but the one leading to Glasswings office is still highly radioactive. We might be able to get through, but we’re going to need a lot of Rad-X and Radaway.”

“And I’m guessing just going through the front door isn’t an option,” I groaned.

“Nope. We’d be spotted in seconds. The moment we’re seen, we’re going to have this whole place down on us,” Scarlet stated. She skipped over to her stolen terminal and pulled up a visual of the inside of Glasswings office. My heart skipped a beat when I saw what was inside. “Not to mention that once we do get inside we’re going to have to deal with that.”

Pureblood was floating in the middle of the room, his monitor like eyes staring out the window that overviewed the main atrium of the Institute. Two power armoured Canterlot Ghouls flanked him, each one equipped with a massive gatling gun.

“Oh fuck me,” I grumbled, staring at the screen disdainfully. Why did the world seem to hate me so much? I took a deep breath. “Okay. First things first, we need to get Radaway and Rad-X. Any ideas on how the fuck we’re going to do that?”

Scarlet tapped her chin thoughtfully. “The Institute does have an entire wing dedicated to medicine, and considering how hyper paranoid they are about radiation, I’d be surprised if they didn’t have a large stash of Radaway somewhere.”

I nodded. “Good, that’s a start. Do you think we’ll be able to get there through the vents? Like we did getting here, or will there be too much radiation?”

Scarlet was quiet for a few more seconds. “It’s hard to say. I have no real way of knowing how much radiation is inside the vents and in which ones. If you still had your pipbuck, we could check with your geiger counter, but that doesn’t sound like it's going to be an option.”

I cursed Silver Ace again for taking away my precious pipbuck. How the hell did ponies live without that thing?!

“We’ll have to do our best,” I finally decided, looking back at the terminal displaying the video feed of Pureblood. “We might have to take a longer route, but we need to get into the medical wing undetected.”

“And then we’ll head for Glasswings office and get out of here,” Scarlet finished, turning her own gaze to the monitor screen. “It feels weird to think I’m actually going to make an attempt to get out of this place. Feels like I’ve been in here for a lifetime,” Her face fell. “I guess I have…”

Something tugged at the back of my mind. A small, niggling fact that wouldn’t leave me until I addressed it. “Not exactly… There’s something else I need to do here first.”

Scarlet raised an eyebrow at me suspiciously. “What?”

I felt my eyes dart around a little as I tried to put what I needed to do into words. “I have a friend. Pyre Blaze. She’s a synth like you… I need to remove her from the Institutes control. Just like you did…”

Scarlet gave me a startled look. “Amber, that’s suicide! Pureblood knows that whoever controls the synths controls the Institute. That whole wing is going to be heavily guarded. We’d be found out in seconds!”

My face fell. I could feel some built up stress and sorrow filling my mind “I… I know, but… Scarlet, I have to. She’s my friend. Right now all I have left is friends and I think the wasteland is about to start taking them away from me too… I might have already lost Xayah... There's a good chance that Pureblood is controlling Pyre right now and I… I don’t want to lose her. I’ve already lost one friend, I can't afford to lose another one. So- so I have to try, don’t I?”

Scarlet was silent for a moment as she stared at me. I realized that at some point I had started to cry. When had that happened? I don’t remember starting to cry.

“A-amber? Are you alright?” Scarlet words were soft and filled with worry.

I felt my legs trembling somewhat. Was I alright? Was I ever alright? I doubted I had ever even been close to okay ever since Stable 25 had been flooded with pink cloud. I had watched as my father’s heart was ripped from his chest right in front of me. How is any pony supposed to recover from something like that?

I glanced down at my body, my blurry vision making out the fresh scar that raced down my front and across my stomach. No. I wasn’t alright. I was the opposite of alright. I was broken. My friends were gone, Pyre was probably under Pureblood control, Inferno was a constant fear at the forefront of my mind and…

Pureblood had violated me. He had cut me open and surgically implanted me with a fetus. I had watched as my body was ripped open and tubes were slid beneath my flesh. It wasn’t quite rape, but the vile feeling of violation wouldn’t leave me alone all the same.

I sat back onto my rump and stared down at my hooves. Sniffling, I wiped a tear from my eye and dared myself to look back up at her. “No… I… Pureblood did things to me… really bad things…” I felt my hoof instinctually reach out and touch my stomach. It didn’t feel as heavy as when the fetus had first been placed into me, but maybe I was just getting used to the feeling. “I… I don’t really want to talk about it, but… I don’t know how much longer I can keep going on like this. The wasteland is beating me Scarlet… I’ve been trying to fight it for so long, but it just keeps beating me back down…”

A somber look crossed Scarlet's face as she pulled herself up beside me, our flanks touching as she wrapped me in a tight hug. She simply sat next to me, letting me cry into her coat. I could feel her hoof slowly brushing out my mane, untangling the knots that had accumulated over my time in the wasteland.

After a few moments, she leaned back a little and looked me in the eye. “Amber, a few years ago I was foalnapped by raiders. They put me through hell before they finally sold me to Red Eye… I watched as the love of my life was beaten and broken, left to bleed out in the wasteland,” She cast her eyes away, a tear of her own forming and racing down her cheek. “Fillydelphia wasn’t better. I was whipped, beaten. Forced to dig in a radioactive hole. My love came back to me, only to be ripped away from me again. The wasteland beat me down a long time ago, but I never stopped fighting it. As long as you can find something to hold onto, even if that thing seems impossible, you can always beat the wasteland. You just need to not give up.”

“What do I even have to hold onto?” I said, sniveling. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to do anymore. I set out into the wasteland to save Stable 25. Well now it's gone. Am I expected to save the whole wasteland? I can’t save the whole Wasteland. No pony can. Maybe the Stable Dweller had a chance, but they’re dead. Blow apart by a balefire bomb in Maripony…”

“You have friends. Hold onto them,” Scarlet suggested, tightening her hug a little. “Whenever I felt like I couldn’t go any further, I reminded myself that if I were too curl up and die, I would never see Crank again. I promised myself that I would never stop trying to be with him again, even if it killed me… It did kill me I suppose, but that’s my point. I refused to give up. The wasteland can't break you until you refuse to give up.”

I looked away from her, another wave of tears seeping from my eyes. “I… I can't do what you two did. I thought I could once. I thought Xayah and I had a love that could make it through all that bad. But it didn’t turn out well. I don’t think she wants to see me again… I don’t even know if I want to see her again… The last time we saw each other, well… things didn’t go so great.”

Scarlet gave me a sad look. For a few moments, she was quiet, thinking over what I had said. When she finally spoke, her voice was hushed. “Do you love her?”

I bit my lip. “I, um… I don’t know anymore…”

“It’s a yes or no question,” Scarlet stated firmly, giving me the smallest of smug smiles. “Do you love her?”

Damn it, I wasn’t ready to answer that kind of question. I could almost still feel the piercing pain as Xayah’s sniper blasted a hole through my chest, blood seeping from my body as I fell to the floor. I remembered the pain and hurt in her eyes as I stood before them, choosing to defy the wishes of the Director, condemning foals to death by fire.

“Do I love her…” I mumbled, my thoughts feeling clouded. “Yeah. Of course I do… Who wouldn’t. She has no place in our little group of misfits. No reason to try and save the ponies of the wasteland that treat her like a monster. All she wants is a place to belong. She could have stayed in Friendship City when we first met, but she didn’t. She came with us. She came with us because she decided the best thing to do was protect ponies. All ponies. How can somepony not love someone like that?"

Scarlet smiled warmly at that. “Well then I guess we’re going to need to get out of here so you can tell her that,” She stood up and helped pull me back to my hooves. “And yeah, let's go save your friend Pyre from the Institute. Fuck the wasteland if it thinks it can stand in our way.”

I felt the last of the tears roll down my face, these ones more akin to tears of joy. “Yeah. Fuck the wasteland,” I took a deep breath. “Thank you. I didn’t realize how much I needed to understand that.”

Scarlet shrugged. “I know better than anypony what it's like to lose everything that you hold dear. If I can help you dig your way out of this hell, I’ll do it.”

My smile faltered. “Scarlet, when I first left you in the Institute, I talked to Crank. I told him I wouldn’t stop until I found a way to reunite you two. I’m not planning on going back on that promise. I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way. Somehow, I promise I’ll find a way.”

Scarlet’s face filled with concern. “Amber, that's… that's a dangerous thing you're promising. All Crank ever wanted was to protect me. You saw what that did to him. The two of us have spent a lifetime trying to find each other again, it never turns out well for anypony, especially those that try to get involved. I don’t want you meeting the same fate as us.”

I shook my head stubbornly. “I don’t care if it kills me. I’ve messed up in the past Scarlet. I’m soaked in blood. If all of the pain I have gone through and inflicted upon others only ever amounts to one thing, it will be getting you two back together. The wasteland can throw me its worst, it can beat me down until my body is mangled and broken. It won't matter. I’ll find a way. If anypony deserves a happy ending, it's you two.”

Scarlet stared back at me with wide eyes, not sure how to properly respond to the sentiment. “A-amber, I… Thank you. That means a lot to me. I suppose I’m so used to the wasteland doing its best to keep us apart that I don’t know what to say when something actually comes along to help us.”

I let a smile creep onto my face. “You don’t need to say anything. You two deserve to be together.”

Scarlet's face flushed a little at that and she glanced down at her hooves. “I, um… I don’t suppose he’s still in there? In your head, um… Crank I mean…”

I felt my smile get wiped from my face. I suddenly felt a pang of alarm and fear. “Inferno, the other cyber pony in my head, he did something to him. Crank’s still in there… I hope, but I can’t reach him anymore. Inferno said he had him locked up tight. That he’s looking for a way to kill him for good!” I felt panic flare through me. I couldn’t let that happen!

I was once more reminded that Inferno was being oddly silent. He hadn’t made a single peep since I had woken up in that cell. What was he doing? Had he lost his control over my mind for some reason? Was he waiting for something? Trying to make me think I was free of him before he dragged me back into torment?

I didn’t have answers for any of these questions. With any luck, meeting Scarlet had given Crank the power to fight back and regan control, but I found that unlikely. Inferno had gone silent before Scarlet rescued me and I couldn’t feel Crank’s presence in my mind like I had the last time I had seen her.

I could tell from the worry on Scarlet's face that the news greatly concerned her. I tried to force on a comforting smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to fix it. I think something happened, because I can't feel Inferno right now. With any luck I’ll find a way to deal with him before anything happens to Crank.”

Scarlet nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Right. We should probably get going. We aren’t going to be able to rescue anypony is we just sit around here all day.”

I nodded in agreement. “Lead the way. Let’s hit the medical wing first. If we're going to end up causing a scene in the synth control centre, let's try and get as much done before then as we can.”

I hated small tunnels. Vents were clearly not meant to be used as passageways for ponies and as a result, I found myself constantly getting stuck or having nasty cramps all along my back and hooves as we crawled our way through the ventilation system.

I looked up, trying to get a good grasp on what direction we were heading, only to bonk my head on the low hanging roof of the vent above me. I yelped, shifting my position to put my hoof atop the quickly raising bump on my head in a futile attempt to stop the throbbing pain.

The attempt to see what was ahead of me had been a waste of effort anyway. It was too dark to see more than a foot or two in front of me and almost the entire tunnel ahead was obscured by Scarlet's rump.

Try not to make too much noise,” Scarlet whispered back. “I doubt that these tunnels are sound proof.”

I grunted and I let go of my head and continued pulling myself forwards after the Auburn coated synth. “Any signs of radiation?” I asked, my own voice low and hushed.

Scarlet paused at an intersection and looked down one of the hallways. “Damn. I’m no expert on radiation, but I’d say green glowing air is a bad sign,” She shifted and headed down the opposite tunnel. “This way should still lead us to the medical wing. Might just take a bit longer though.”

I nodded. If it meant escaping and rescuing my friends, I didn’t care if I had to take the long route. I cast a glance down the tunnel we had wanted to go down to see that Scarlet was right. The whole tube was glowed a baleful green and specks of some sort of radioactive dust wafted through the dim light.

Arching my back to turn around the tight corner, I clambered after Scarlet. I saw her take a small turn up ahead and hurried to keep up with her.

I always seemed to forget how big the Institute is. I seem to be reminded of that fact on a regular basis down here, yet it always seemed to find new ways to make me realize just how vast of a facility had been built below Manehattan. The ventilation system was huge. Just moving from one side of the facility to the other took us upwards of an hour.

“I think we’re almost there,” Scarlet whispered from ahead of me. I gave a nod, not bothering to look up to avoid bumping my head against the roof of the vent again.

That was a mistake, as I ended up crawling head first into Scarlet's rump, having not noticed she had come to a stop. She made a startled eep at the contact and I could feel myself blushing furiously. I couldn’t see her face, but I was pretty sure she was blushing as hard as I was.

“Um… Sorry,” I squeaked, shimmying backwards in the vent slightly.

“I-its alright,” Scarlet responded sheepishly. “And we’re here.”

I raised my head, careful to not thump it against the roof again. Around the edges of Scarlet’s silhouetted form, I could make out streaks of Clinical white light shining through from the room beyond.

“Do you see anything?” I asked, craning my neck in an attempt to look past her. There wasn’t enough room in the vent to see much farther than her shoulder.

“There are two synths guarding the door,” Scarlet responded quietly. “They’ve got their back to us though. We might be able to sneak in without being seen if we are quiet.”

I gave a small nod, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” She answered back, her horn glowing slightly as she began slowly unscrewing the screws keeping the vents grate in place. After a few seconds there was a small click as the final screw came loose and the grate slid out from the front of the vent. Scarlet magic caught it before it could hit the ground and make a noise. “Follow me,” She ordered softly, slipping out of the vent and ducking behind a large medical bed.

I pulled myself to the edge of the vent and looked out, spotting the two synths that Scarlet had mentioned. They were both armed with the Institutes variant of magical energy weapons and clad in a full set of Institute armour.

Trying my best to not make any noise, I crawled out of the vent and pulled myself up beside Scarlet. “Any idea where they keep their radaway?” I asked, my eyes sweeping the room to try and spot any sign of the radiation resistant drug.

Scarlet shook her head before whispering back. “No, look around. Stay low.”

I nodded and moved out from behind the bed, keeping low to the ground and one eye always on the two synths. I saw Scarlet slink off in a different direction and begin combing through a small white cabinet full of supplies.

Silently, I hauled myself over to a small metal crate resting against the far wall and pried the lid open, careful to not make any noise while doing so. I grinned as I found four healing potions inside, but otherwise no radaway.

I cast the two synth guards another glance as I moved to the next crate, careful to not draw any attention to myself. I was disappointed to find the next crate completely empty.

A small "psst" from across from me drew my gaze up to where Scarlet was crouching behind what appeared to be a large X-ray machine. She pointed over to a door beside her with a glowing neon sign above it reading ‘Pharmaceuticals’.

Nodding, I began creeping back across the room, ducking out of cover for only a second as I quickly scuttled from one side of the room to the next. The guards didn’t seem to notice anything.

Coming to a stop next to Scarlet, I looked over the door. It was locked, because of course it was, but thankfully, it appeared to be locked by a terminal. Grinning, I crawled up to the terminal and began hacking. Scarlet looked over my shoulder curiously as I worked, clearly impressed by my technical knowhow.

I knew she had a fair amount of knowledge when it came to machines, Crank supposedly having taught her a thing or two about them. Her hacking into the Institutes database was an impressive feat, but even still it was pretty rare that somepony had as much skill with them as me.

It was one thing I wasn’t useless at, I suppose.

After a second, the door slid open with a near silent squeak. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the synths hadn’t heard anything. One of them shifted slightly, but to my relief, they seemed to still be oblivious to our existence.

Scarlet moved into the room first, quickly beginning to look around for anything to help with radiation. I followed after her, making sure to close the door behind me to cover any trace of us being there. It only took a few seconds of looking before we found a large metal cabinet that seemed to store most of the Institutes healing supplies.

“Damn, locked as well,” Scarlet grumbled, tugging on the door with her magic. She turned and fished around inside her tail for a second before pulling out a red screwdriver and a few bobby pins which she had apparently stored in her hair. She quickly passed them over to me. “Here, I’ll see if I can find anything else that might help us.”

I looked down at the screwdriver and bobby pins with disdain. “I, um… I can’t pick a lock to save my life,” I admitted shamefully. “If Brisk were here, it would already be open. I’ll probably just jam the lock.”

Scarlet gave me a confused look. She stared at me for a second before letting her gaze flicker down to my cutie mark. “But… don’t you have a lock picking cutie mark?”

I face hoofed. “Celestia damn it. It’s not a… Does no pony know what the original use of a screwdriver is? I fix things. Machines, terminals, robots, that kind of thing. I never needed to pick a lock back in the stable.”

Scarlet grimaced. “Damn. I can try to pick it, but I’m no expert on the matter. Truthfully, Crank usually just broke down the doors I needed to get through,” She turned her attention to the lock and slowly slid the screwdriver in. “You look around and see if…”

I cut her off with a wave of my hoof as I saw the door slide open. I grabbed her tail in my mouth and yanked her back, pulling her behind the cabinet with me. She gave a small yelp of surprise, but quickly quieted herself as her eyes landed on the opening door.

“You think she came in here?” The raspy voice of a Canterlot ghoul asked as the three figures trotted into the room. Two of the figures were Canterlot ghouls, each dressed in expensive looking clothing. The one in the centre however was a large griffin clad in a full suit of power armour. I guessed it was one of Stern’s lackeys. “Wouldn’t she be heading for an exit?”

“There is no exit,” The griffon growled, their voice low and grating. “The only way out was with the teleporters, and the Director had those shut down the moment he learned Amber Aura escaped.”

Shit, guess they knew I was out and about then. On the plus side, at least that meant they didn’t know about the secret exit in Glasswings office.

“Then why the fucking medical wing?” The second Canterlot Ghoul growled. “Shouldn’t we try and cut her off on the way to the teleporters in case she attempts to get to them or turn them back on?”

“Silver Ace has already positioned a full squad of coursers there in case she was stupid enough to go that direction,” The Griffin responded. “But something tells me she’s going to want to resupply before she makes any big moves. Now get searching! The last thing you need is the Director finding out you let the bitch get away.”

At the griffin's command, the two ghouls split up and began searching, one moving back into the larger room we had come from while the other continued to search the pharmaceutical room with the power armoured griffin.

Gulping, I gestured for Scarlet to continue picking the lock. We had to get those supplies before we were discovered. With wide eyes, Scarlet nodded, and moved to pick at the lock once more, the screwdriver held tight in her mouth.

“How the fuck would she have even gotten all the way here?” The Canterlot ghoul grumbled, lazily tossing aside a chair. “It’s not like she could have snuck across the entire Institute already.”

“She’s traveling with a synth named Scarlet Dusk. She was spotted on the video feed breaking Amber out of her cell,” The Griffin grunted in response, his sharp talons slicing through the lock of an adjacent cabinet so that he could look inside. “According to Glasswings files, that synth has been causing trouble all over the Institute using the ventilation systems. Bitch somehow managed to remove her files from the Institutes database, we won't be able to control her.”

“Fuck. Been a long time since I thought about that Scarlet bitch,” The ghoul quipped back. I winced as I watched him casually flip over another chair. They were getting far closer to our hiding spot than I would have liked. “The Director should have just killed that cunt the first time around, instead of keeping her around as a weapon against Crank. At least he had them put her ruined carcass where that fucking cybernetic freak could find it. Bet the bastard cried his mother fucking eyes out when he found her body. I tell ya, the Director knew how to keep that monster on a fucking tight leash.”

Scarlet froze, the screwdriver stilling in the lock as her mind caught up with what the ghoul was saying. I could see her trembling slightly as her eyes flickered back to the ghoul and griffin, her eyes flaring with rage.

They had planned to use her as a weapon against her lover. I had known this, she had known this. But the sudden confirmation was like a slap in the face. And now, all of a sudden there was a name to the monster responsible for that vile act… Pureblood.

He had taken Crank away from her. Torn him apart and replaced his flesh with cybernetics. Forced him to commit atrocities in his name. And on top of all of that, he had murdered her and replaced her with a synth, all to keep Crank in line.

I could read the thoughts flashing through Scarlet's mind as clear as day. She wanted revenge. And just like how the desire for revenge had ravaged me when I had hunted down Kamari, it was going to tear her apart and get her killed.

Scarlet’s mouth let go of the screwdriver and went to reach for her gun. I could see her eyes narrowing at our two pursuers as she slowly pulled the weapon up to bear, calculating the best way to blast them apart.

I quickly reached out, touching my hoof gently to her shoulder. She stiffened at the touch, but didn’t fire, simply glaring daggers at the two in loathing, her trigger tight in her mouth.

“They aren’t Pureblood,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice as hushed as possible. “Live and fight another day. Don’t worry. Will make sure we kill Pureblood. Just not like this...”

Shivering, Scarlet nodded and lowered her gun, turning back to the lock and continuing to pick away. I let myself sigh with relief, feeling a wave of stress wash off of me.

The clattering of yet another piece of chair reaffirmed that stress as I saw the ghoul and griffin get closer to us.

We had to hurry. We weren’t going to remain undetected for long.

There was the smallest of clicks as Scarlet successfully picked the lock. She didn’t even so much as smile as she reached a hoof inside and pulled out a large hoof full of rad-X and radaway. She shoved them into her saddlebag and began slinking away from the cabinet and back towards the door. I followed after her, trying my best to stay as low to the ground as possible.

Scarlet moved up to the door leading back into the main area of the medical wing. I could feel my hope slowly rising. We were almost out.

“Fuck! Looks like she’s already been here,” I heard the griffin growl. I glanced behind me to see him combing through the cabinet we had just been pilfering through. “Looks like they only took the radaway…”

Shit! We needed to get out of here now!

Before we could exit out of the room, the door slid open, making way for the second Canterlot Ghoul. “She’s not out here. Seems like your suspicion was…” The ghoul's eyes dropped down to Scarlet and I, standing frozen less than a foot away from him. “What the fuck! They're right h…!”

I pouched forwards, my forehooves slamming into the ghouls chest and knocking him backwards. The wisps of pink cloud oozing from his rotting hide stung my flesh as I smashed into him, burning away strips of my hide.

The ghoul stumbled, caught off guard by the sudden attack. The griffin spun around with lightning speed, his wings flaring open as he took to the air and lunged at us. Now out in the open, I was able to see his battle saddle held what appeared to be a large mini gun and a rocket launcher.

“Shit! Run! Go!” I screamed, pushing Scarlet forwards and rushing through the door and into the main section of the medical wing. Scarlet kicked into gear immediately, darting forwards and making a beeline for the open vent on the far side of the room.

I heard a loud whirring sound behind us, giving me just enough warning to push Scarlet aside as the griffin's minigun opened fire, spewing a steady stream of lead towards us. Sparks shot through the air as the hail of bullets ricocheted around us, marring the pristine floor of the Institute.

The two synths standing guard twirled around, their magical energy weapons raising and aiming towards us. I scampered back, one of the blasts of deadly blue energy lancing past my face and charring the wall behind me. I saw Scarlet dance away from the shots as well, doing her best to avoid the synth's deadly weapons from rendering her to a glowing pile of ash.

The two Canterlot ghouls staggered forwards, pistols rising in both of their magics as they took aim at us. Scarlet fired off a shot of her magical energy weapon at the closest ghoul, only for the pink cloud spilling from the pores of their flesh to patch the wound back together.

The Griffin flashed forwards, his talon’s extended and violently latching around my neck. I choked out as the power armoured griffin beat their wings and lifted me up into air, their talon still constricting around my neck.

I struggled, my back hooves kicking up and bucking him in the chest. The griffin hardly flinched as my rather pathetic strength went up against that of a lion in power armour. His grip tightened for a second before he tossed me upwards into the air, my back colliding hard with the high ceiling and knocking the air out of me.

I flailed my hooves wildly as I began falling back towards the ground. I twisted in the air, trying to land in a way that wouldn’t shatter my skull. Thankfully, Scarlet reached out out with her magic, wrapping her aura around me and slowing my descent enough that the impact with the ground was only hard enough to bruise me.

I rolled to my hooves as one of the Canterlot ghouls fired a shot at me, the bullet slicing into my side and making me bite back a scream of pain. I stumbled back, jumping behind a large crate to avoid getting shot further.

I really wish I had a weapon right about now.

Mechanically, the Synths charged forwards, their weapons focusing in on Scarlet, her being the only armed opponent they had to deal with. Scarlet jumped to the side in a desperate attempt to find cover, her weapon firing wildly around her. Scarlet was many things, but a fighter was not one of them. Her shots were only met with air.

The Griffin swooped in towards me for a second strike. I pushed myself up against the side of the metal crate, trying me best to avoid being in a spot he could grab onto me again. Turns out he didn’t need to use his talons to hurt me.

The air was pushed aside with a booming whoosh as a rocket was launched from his battle saddle. I only had enough time to throw myself to my right before the explosive projectile detonated against the side of the crate, blasting my cover into bits. I felt a sharp pain flare through me as a bit of metal from the exploded crate lodged itself in my hind leg.

The Canterlot ghouls rushed Scarlet, their hooves latching onto her and pulling her back as she went to fire at the enclosing synths once again. She bucked backwards, her hooves connecting with one of the ghouls fetlocks and shattering it.

The ghoul howled, stumbling backwards. Once again, the pink cloud spilled around the wound, snapping the shattered bone back together. But Scarlets the attack wasn’t enough. The second ghoul was already on her, grappling her from behind and pinning her to the ground. The two synths quickly moved forwards, their weapons pressing against Scarlet's head to keep her from standing.

Damn it! No!

I moved to go help her, only for pain to shoot up my leg as one of the synths turned and fired at me, their shot blasting a hole into my forehoof. I dropped to a knee, my injured leg giving out from under me as I struggled to make my way to the far side of the room.

There was a loud thump as the power armoured griffin dropped down from above and landed in front of me, their wings splayed out menacingly and their large mini gun beginning to whir to life. “Do you really think you had any chance of escape bitch? No weapons? No way out? Give up! It’s hopeless.”

He wishes I didn’t have a weapon.

My horn began to glow a brilliant Amber as I channeled all my energy into a single spell. A blast of amber energy lanced forwards, striking him in the face and sending the griffin staggering backwards, the right side of his helmet being rendered to slag from the blast. I felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me from the exertion of casting the spell. Shooting lasers like that was not my specialty.

The griffin scowled, wiping away a small trickle of blood from his now bleeding brow. He glared at me, his face filled with rage. “You’re going to pay for that you cunt!” He cast Scarlet a dirty glare. “Kill the rogue synth first.”

Scarlet’s eyes went wide with fear as one of the Canterlot ghouls pushed the barrel of their revolver between her eyes, their rotting mouth twisting into a sickening grin. She tried to pull away, only for the two synths to hold her in place.

Fuck that! There was no way I was letting them kill her! I had made a promise to Crank, and by fucking Celestia, I was going to keep that promise.

My horn flared as I wrapped Scarlet in my magical aura. The Canterlot ghoul realized what I was doing too late. He fired his revolver, the bullet slashing through the air and hitting nothing but the ground as my magic teleported Scarlet next to the vent we were trying to escape through.

“Scarlet, go!” I shouted, slumping against the ground as fatigue washed over me. “Save Pyre and get the fuck out of here!”

Scarlet stared at me with horrified eyes as she pulled herself into the vent. “No! I’m not going without you!” her horn flared and I felt her magic wrapping around my body.

“Kill her!” The griffin shrieked, his claws lashing out to slice out my throat.

I gave a scream of terror as his talons came inches from my neck, only for a blinding flash of light to surround me. A second later I materialized beside Scarlet, her own expression filled with exhaustion from overusing her magic. Her horn was smoking and I could tell she was going through horn burnout.

“Go, go!” Scarlet shouted, pushing me down the tight tunnel. I didn’t waste a second beginning to crawl forwards, trying to get out of there as quickly as possible. I glanced back to see the Griffin trying to reach at us through the vent, his armoured body too large to first in with us.

My eyes widened with horror as I saw the griffin reposition himself so that the barrel of his rocket launcher was aimed down the vent.

“Shit! Run! Run!” I screamed, trying to push myself forwards faster. I slammed against the corner of the vent ahead of me, spinning down a side tunnel as fast as possible, Scarlet trailing behind me as fast as she could.

Boom!

The griffin sent a rocket flashing through the vent, detonation on the side of the wall behind us. We screamed as the tunnel flared with fire, singeing our hides while bits of shrapnel dug into our coats and sliced open our flesh. I was launched forwards, the shockwave of the blast slamming into me and sending me careening down the tunnel. My head slammed against another turn in the ventilation shaft, sending pain shooting down my spine.

Scarlet tumbled to a halt behind me, groaning with pain and bleeding from a large laceration on her hip. Thankfully she still seemed alive and conscious.

I dared myself to cast a glance behind us, making out the collapsed vent that we had just come through. Had we been a second slower, we would have been burned alive and buried within the walls of the Institute. As it was, we wouldn’t be going back that way even if we wanted to.

I coughed, my throat feeling like it was filled with gravel. “A-are you alright?” Scarlet just gave a low moan in response. “Do you know the way to the synth control centre from here?”

Wiping away some of the blood on her body, Scarlet glanced up at me. “I… uh… I think so. I don’t have these vents super well memorized, but I think I can lead us back.”

I nodded, trying to twist myself into a more comfortable position. I reached down and passed her one of the four healing potions I had found before drinking one myself. She gave me a grateful look as she took the potion in her hooves and drank it, unable to lift it with her burnt out magic.

I could feel relief flood over me as the healing potion did its magic. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I love healing potions.

After a few seconds of catching our breath, Scarlet sighed and began moving forwards. “Alright, we had better get going. The longer we wait around, the longer they all have to figure out that blast didn’t kill us and where we’re going next. And something tells me we pissed that griffin off enough he's going to want to go for a round two with us. ”

I nodded, wishing I could just lay here and rest a while more. We hadn’t even gotten into the synth control centre yet, and that was supposedly going to be a harder challenge.

As we began moving down the tunnel again, the muffled sound of Pureblood’s voice began to blare over the Institute's speakers. “Amber Aura has been spotted in the Medical wing! I want all security measured everywhere doubled! Bring! Me! Back! My! Prize!”

Oh fuck my life.

I groaned as I pushed myself as tightly as I could against the side of the large generator supplying power to the rest of the synth creation wing. I had been hiding in that spot for at least ten minutes now, waiting for some sort of opening to move out and get to the large terminal accessing the synth controls, but I wasn’t getting an opening and my sides were beginning to cramp.

Scarlet hadn’t been exaggerating when she said the synth control centre would be the most heavily guarded area. I counted at least ten fully armoured synths as well as four Canterlot ghouls. More than we had any chance taking on in combat. Maybe if I had my gun we would stand a chance, but Braeburn’s Liberator could be anywhere in the Institute for all I knew, and even then our hopes of winning that fight were rather slim.

Clearly Pureblood was taking no chances with somepony retaking the Institute. The last thing he needed was a situation like what Azar and Insecta had tried to pull.

Thankfully we still hadn’t seen any sign of a courser, so silver linings I guess.

The terminal we had come to use was only a few feet away from me, had it not been for the lack of openings, I could practically reach out and touch it. Only a few feet past it, I could see the wall of cryochamber like pods that Pureblood had placed me in earlier to do… whatever it was that he did. On the opposite side of the room was the large wall of monitors displaying live feeds from all the synths across the wasteland.

I wondered if one of those monitors was showing the world through Pyre’s eye. Though I knew I didn’t have the time to check or find out.

I glanced across from me where Scarlet was bunkering down under a desk. It wasn’t the most concealed hiding spot, but no pony had seemed to notice her yet. She returned my look and gave me a shrug. We had wishfully hoped that they would all leave the room at some point, but that was looking rather unlikely now.

Just as I was getting restless and preparing to do something rash, the door to the wing slid open and the power armoured griffin from the medical wing stalked in, his helmet still half ruined and his face scowling.

For a second I feared he might spot us on his power armours EFS, but I quickly realized that wouldn’t be possible. I had only worn power armour once, and it had been for a fairly short time, but I had quickly learned that the EFS was displayed on the visor of the helmet. The very helmet that my horn had rendered nearly useless.

The Canterlot ghouls in the room all turned to face the enraged griffin as he approached them. “Darkclaw, any word from the Director?” one of the ghouls asked as.

The armoured griffin, I now knew to be Darkclaw, gave a low growl in response. “Amber is still on the loose. We find it likely that she will try and find a way to get the teleporters back on. With her extensive history in Stable-Tec technology, it is very likely she will be able to do so if given the opportunity.”

I felt myself smirk a little. They still thought we were trying to escape via teleportation. I could see Scarlet give me a smug little smirk as well. Hopefully if all went well, they would remain unaware of the secret exit.

Darkclaw pointed at one of the synths. “Have Coursers been dispatched?”

The synth gave a robotic nod. “All coursers have been set to search and destroy Amber Aura and her accomplice Scarlet Dusk.”

Welp, that wiped my smile off my face. All of the coursers? Having seen quite a few coursers in my last visit to the Institute, I knew from experience that that was a lot of fucking coursers.

“I have also received word that the coursers have found Scarlet Dusk’s hideout in the sewer system. We have two courser posted there. They will not be able to seek shelter there anymore,” The synth continued.

Damn it. We were quickly running out of safe places in the Institute that we could go to. How long did we have until even the vents weren’t safe for us.

I practically jumped out of my skin as somepony dropped down next to me. I went to buck them in the face, only to realize that it was Scarlet. I let out a deep breath, my heart still pounding in my chest.

“Quick, while that griffin is diverting their attention,” Scarlet whispered, nodding towards the synth control terminal. “Cover my back.”

I nodded and followed as she slinked up to the terminal. I quickly hacked into the terminal, unlocking it and making way for Scarlet as she began furiously searching the files.

“Pyre Blaze was her name, right?” Scarlet whispered, perusing through the long list of synths that the Institute had under their control. I gave a nod of confirmation. “Alright, got it. I’m deleting the file now. This will take a minute.”

“If you catch the cunt, keep her alive,” I heard Darkclaw scowl. I peeked over my shoulder to see him still talking to the four ghouls. Thankfully, the synths seemed to be keeping a closer eye on the entrances and exits of the room, leaving us temporarily in the clear. “I want her brought to me. I’m going to flay her fucking hide for what she did to my face.”

I gulped. Great, just what I needed. The griffin wanted revenge. Wasn’t my life just peachy.

The door on the far side of the room burst open, making way for a group of four dark black ponies in long leather coats. I felt my blood run cold.

Coursers.

“Status report!” Darkclaw growled, turning to face the four coursers as they marched forwards. “Any sign of the bitch yet?”

“Two unaccounted lifeforms were detected in this wing,” the leading courser monotone, their eyes sweeping across the room.

Shit!

I grabbed onto Scarlet and pulled her behind the large metal pods to keep us out of view. No sooner were we out of sight, did the coursers gaze pass over the position we had just been standing in.

“What? In here?” Darkclaw’s voice snarled, his head whipping around. He turned to the Canterlot ghoul and scowled. “Check the vents! Go!”

“Shit shit shit, Amber, what do we do?” Scarlet asked, trembling as the ghouls began spreading out to look for us. We had been uncertain if we could have fought our way out of here while only against the ghouls and synths. We had no hope against them plus four coursers and an angry power armoured griffin.

I looked around, searching for anything that could help us. I found nothing. Then my eyes landed on the contents of the pod we were hiding behind and my jaw dropped open.

It was him. I’d recognize that face and get up anywhere. He was a tall beige stallion, dressed in what looked like an old detective outfit consisting of a long brown coat and wide brimmed fedora. Their body lay in the pod, the back of their neck hooked up to some sort of strange looking plug that to my horror, seemed to connect directly to the brain.

“The mysterious Stranger...” I gasped in a low voice, staring up in awe at the unconscious buck inside the pod. What the fuck was he doing here in the Institute? Why was he in this pod?

“The mysterious who?” Scarlet asked, peeking around the pod to make sure the coursers weren’t getting any closer. To both of our horrors, they were.

“Mirra... she met a stranger a long time ago. After a while he started helping me out too. I never found out who he was,” I said, my eyes still locked on the stallion inside the pod. “What is he doing here?”

Scarlet looked up at the pony with me, her own expression just as confused as me. She cocked an eyebrow as a memory crossed over her. “Wait, I remember these pods… this is what they put me inside of before they replaced me with a synth…”

My heart all but stopped. I had seen Glasswing use these very pods to transfer my mother's mind into Insecta’s body. If these pods were intended to transfer a ponies mind into another body or synth, then…

I stared down at my own body, my hoof reaching up and feeling the back of my neck where the scar caused by the Institutes machine should have been. Like before, no traces of the scar could be found.

No… no please not this! Anything but this!

“Amber? Are you alright?” Scarlet asked, clearly seeing the sudden distress that crossed across my features. Her voice barely reached my ears as I tilted my head to look into the pod that Pureblood had put me into only a few hours prior. I had to bite back the urge to scream as I saw what was inside.

Inside the pod, was me.

Everything suddenly made sense. There was no way Pureblood was going to let me walk around with his fetus inside of me. The chances of me damaging it would be too high. He had to find other means to keep the fetus safe from me…

No wonder Inferno had been so quiet. Why I hadn’t been able to feel Crank’s mind, even after meeting up with Scarlet. They weren’t inside of my mind anymore… or rather, I wasn’t inside of my mind anymore.

Pureblood had replaced me with a synth. I had begun to think that the Wasteland had found a way to take everything from me, but now it had managed to take it a step further. It had managed to take away my body as well.

“Amber… I’m sorry…” Scarlet soothed, her eyes staring up at my body inside of the pod. “I know what this feels like, and that it isn’t easy, but right now we need to focus. Live to fight another day, remember?”

I shook my head, trying to shake away the weird feeling of seeing my own body and knowing that the body I currently inhabited was not entirely my own. “I… yeah… Yeah I’m fine…” I wasn’t fine. I was so fucking far from fine. How was I supposed to be fine after finding out I was a synth? “I think we have one more synth we need to free before we leave here."

“Check the pods,” Darkclaw snarled.

I winced. Fuck, still being hunted by coursers! We can sort all of this out later.

Scarlet grabbed onto my hoof and pulled me back behind a bulky machine pushed against the wall as a courser came around the side of the pod. I pushed up behind a large, metal machine that looked to be powering the pods somewhat. I crouched as low to the ground as possible, praying that the courser couldn’t see me.

I could practically feel the courser breathing down my neck as it slowly took a step closer. Odd, I didn’t think robots would need to breathe. Authenticity I supposed. I shut my eyes, my whole body going rigid with fear and anticipation.

There was a moment of painful silence. “Negative,” The courser replied stoically, moving back out from behind the pods. I let out a near silent sigh of relief. That had been closer than I would have liked.

“Then your sensors must be faulty,” Darkclaw growled. “Now quit wasting my time and find her or I’ll have the Director scrap you all for parts!”

“Negative,” The courser repeated, his icy gaze once more scanning the room. “There are two unaccounted life signs in this wing.”

Darkclaw gave a low hiss and snapped his beak. “Clearly there isn’t. Stop fucking with us and do your damn job you stupid machine!”

The power armoured griffin was on his back before he had a chance to react. The Courser glared down at him, one black hoof pinning Darkclaw to the white floor. “Negative. Amber Aura is here.”

“Pyre Blaze deleted from database,” The terminal chirped, its synthetic voice cutting through the silence of the room and drawing everyone's attention towards it. I felt myself cringe as all nineteen sets of eyes in the room turned to face the terminal as Pyre Blaze was freed from the Institutes grasp.

“She is here,” The courser reaffirmed, sounding oddly smug about his statement.

Darkclaw gave a grunt of frustration and pushed the courser off of him as he pulled himself back up. His hawk like eyes darted around, trying to spot anything that might lead him to us. “Lock down the whole wing! Rip everything apart until Amber Aura is…”

He was interrupted as one of the Canterlot ghouls gave a startled yelp. “You’re… you’re going to want to see this!” The ghoul was staring up at a few of the large monitors displaying video feeds of synths around the wasteland. It seemed that a lot of synths had suddenly turned their gaze upwards to look at one very specific thing.

The magnificent city of Canterlot sat atop its mountain, surrounded in a haze of pink clouds. Slowly, creeping toward the looming city through the thick cloudlayer, Enclave Raptors began to descend, surrounding the city like files. The whole wasteland seemed to take a deep breath.

“The fuck is the Enclave doing at…” Darkclaw started with a scowl. He was cut off once more as the Enclave fired. The magical energy beams of the Raptors powerful weaponry lashed out, blasting apart the foundations of Canterlot. The whole city teetered, ancient towers cracked and split, raining debris down upon the wasteland below. One final laser basted out, slashing across the city and flashing through the windows of the great throne room. There was a burst of light as the blast blew out the few remaining stained glass windows.

And with that, the city began to fall.

“Come on, while they’re distracted,” Scarlet whispered to me, gesturing towards the synth control terminal. I nodded, crawling after her as she hauled herself up to the terminal and began searching for my name amongst the list of synths.

“The Director is not going to like this,” One of the ghouls gulped, their eyes still transfixed on the image of the Canterlot ruins. It truly was a ruin now, being just as destroyed as the rest of the wasteland. Nothing more than a broken pile of ruble.

Darkclaw scoffed. “The Director will ensure that the Enclave pays for this intrusion,” His stalked forwards, his armoured talons clacking against the ground. “Those flying rats will learn their place once he brings about Utopia. They cannot defend their minds from us. Not if they never see us coming.”

“Alright, I found you,” Scarlet said, tapping a few keys on the terminal. I found looking at my name among the list of synths to be disturbing and quickly averted my gaze. “Just a few more… there. Come on, let's get out of here before they spot us.”

I nodded and turned to look towards the vent we had used to get in here. It was just a straight stretch to it. A quick dash and we would be out before anypony saw us.

Gesturing for Scarlet to follow, I quickly began moving across the room, trying to move as quickly and quietly as I could. Scarlet trailed only inches behind me, her eyes continuing to dart back and forth from our exit to the gathering of ghouls, griffin and synths on the far side of the room.

I felt my heartbeat quicken as we neared the vent. We were almost out of here. A few more steps and we would be…

Blam!

A blast of magical blue energy lanced past me, the shot slashing at a few strands of my mane and singeing it black.

I flinched back, my eyes darting to look over at the four coursers that had all just abruptly spun in place to glare at us. A smug looking smile spread across the lead coursers features. “Gotcha.”

Gotcha? Really?

“Go! Now!” Scarlet shouted, pushing me forwards towards the vent. I put on a burst of speed, rushing the last few feet as the courser’s weapons began firing blast after blast of lethal energy our way.

I screamed as one of the blasts lashed through my hind leg, the flesh around the wound cauterizing as the magical energy burned my hide. Pain flared up my body and I stumbled, slumping to the ground as my hind leg went limp behind me.

Darkclaw finally took notice of us, his reaction time not nearly as impressive as the coursers. His eagle eyes narrowed as they landed on my collapse from. There was a click as a rocket slid into place in his battle saddle.

I felt Scarlet haul me onto her back and toss me forwards into the vent. I yelped with pain as I was shoved into the tight space, my aching leg forcing a whine of anguish to escape my lips. A second latter, Scarlet clambered in after me, her face filled with panic. “Go! Go!”

I wasted no time pushing forwards and trying to crawl out of here as fast as possible. As I rounded a corner, I glanced back, making out the forms of the four coursers as they pulled themselves up beside the vent.

“Scarlet! Move!” I shouted, trying to move myself faster as I watched all four of the coursers lethal energy weapons aim at us through the opening of the vent.

Scarlet gave a frightened squeak and rushed forwards pulling herself around the corner only seconds before the coursers opened fire. Blue energy lashed through the vent, blinding lights flaring across our vision. A few shots grazed Scarlet's tail as she ducked around a corner, the magical energy burning the hair until it was little more than a small stump.

“Get the sprites,” I heard one of the coursers order, their normally monotone voice filling with what sounded like frustration. I could hear Darkclaw give a yell of rage from somewhere far behind us.

The fuck were Sprites? Not something I wanted to wait around for to find out about.

“Alright, that’s everything we need right? Time to get out of here?” Scarlet yipped, quickly crawling after me as we made our way down the tunnel.

I nodded, trying to position myself in a way that would let Scarlet pass me in the small confines of the tunnel. “Yeah, let's get out of…”

A loud buzzing noise assaulted our ears. I twisted my head to look behind me, making out the shadow of what appeared to be hundreds of tiny bugs filling up the tunnel behind us.

Scarlet’s eyes widened as she turned to see what the noise was. “Fuck! We got sprites on our tail!”

Robots. Sprites were tiny robots. From what I could tell, they looked to be tiny, black eyebots only with a slightly more insectoid like design. No doubt a changeling invention. And there were a lot of them. Did I mention they also had lasers? ‘Cause they also have lasers.

Why does the Institute get all the cool things? And why does my life hate me so much? I would love it if my life didn’t hate me.

I spun around another corner, trying to get out of the way as the incoming swarm of robots surged down the tunnel after us. A few of the bots fired off blasts from their weapons, most of the shots missing, but a few of them making their way into our hides and ripping open burning gashes in our sides.

Pain shot across my body as one of the Sprites shots lashed through my already wounded leg.

Scarlet fired wildly behind her, spraying the sprites back with her own fire. A few of the sprites exploded in a burst of sparks and shrapnel as her magical energy weapon blasted into them, but more and more kept coming. There seemed to be no end to the constant onslaught of insectoid like bugs.

“Take the turn up ahead!” I heard Scarlet shout frantically from behind me, her voice almost completely obscured by the overpowering buzzing and laser fire. “We’ll try and lose them in the Incinerators!”

We were going to try and lose them in the what!?

Before I could voice my concern, a blast of magical energy from one of the sprites lashed through Scarlet's side, sending her collapsing onto her front. She screamed, rolling onto her back and trying desperately to scoot away as the swarm of insectoid bots closed in on her.

Small, saw like blades extended from the fronts of the frontmost sprites, reaching forwards to rip into Scarlet. The air was suddenly filled with a second blaring buzz as the saws descended to tear open her hide.

I spun around, my horn flaring, pain shooting down the crack that Viscera had marred upon its surface. I yelled in pain, trying my best to hold up my spell as I cast the sad excuse that I had for a shield spell.

The sprites slammed into the magical, amber barrier, sparks flying as their spinning blades repeatedly pounded against its glowing surface. The sprites in the back opened fire, their lasers bashing against the shield and forcing me to grit my teeth to keep the spell from collapsing.

“Go! Run!” I shouted, beads of sweat dripping down my brow.

Scarlet gave me a thankful nod, pushing herself back to her hooves and half limping, half rushing forwards. It took a bit of work to move past me in the small confines of the vent, but we didn’t have the time or energy to care or be gentle.

The second Scarlet was past me, I gave as strong of a heave with my magic as I could, sending the swarm of sprites staggering back through the air a few inches. A few of them exploded, but there were so many it hardly made much of a difference.

I twirled around, moving to try and make after Scarlet before the deadly swarm could pull themself back together and advanced on me. My whole body ached and my horn was throbbing so much that I was starting to see double.

“Hurry! We’re almost there!” I heard Scarlet shout from somewhere ahead of me. I could barely see anything in the darkness of the tunnel as I rushed forwards, only glimpses of the metal walls rushing past me and small flashes of light as the sprites fired off beams of energy after me.

Then, without warning, my vision flared with a burning, crimson red. The tunnel ahead of us burst into a vast, metal chamber. Large metallic pipes hung from the ceiling above, looming over and occasionally dispensing what appeared to be trash, scrap and the occasional broken down synth. The floor of the large chamber was a mix of maintenance platforms lining the outside edge and a central pit that dropped a few dozen feet below us into what I could only assume was a huge fire pit.

So like… why did Scarlet think this was a good idea? This just seemed like suicide!

“Jump! Go!” Scarlet shouted, leaping from the vent and landing on one of the maintenance platforms below us. I gulped and jumped after her, a wall of boiling air slamming into me as I left the cold tunnel and surged into the burning inferno of the incinerator.

My hooves skidded as I hit the grated platform running, my breath coming out in ragged pants as I tried to get air into my lungs. I found it difficult with the smoke that was billowing from below me and through the air.

Up ahead, I saw Scarlet push herself up against the wall as one of the pipes above unloaded a torrent of junk. Her coat steamed as she pressed up against the hot metal, but aside from a wince of pain, she did little to react aside from continuing running.

With a loud buzz, the swarm of sprite burst from the vent. Finally free of the confines of the small tunnel, they began to blot out the air above us, filing into the incinerator chamber and rushing forwards to try and intercept us.

I ducked low, one of the sprites blasting a beam of energy over my head. My wounded leg skidded underneath me, making me collapse to my front and need to roll back to my hooves as a few sprites swooped down at me with their spinning saw blades. One of the blades cut deep into my side, forcing out a howl of pain from me.

I bucked at the sprite with my back hooves, my pathetic excuse for strength doing little more than knocking it back a few inches, but that was all that I needed to push myself away and keep running. Scarlet shot a few beams of light over my head, the wild shots bursting a few sprites open, but being otherwise ineffective against the incoming swarm.

More junk collapsed down from the piping above, dropping loads of scrap metal down onto the platform beside me. I jumped, trying to avoid having the junk ram into me and push me over the ledge into the inferno below. A rusting, broken synth that had fallen in the junk, grabbed onto my hoof, desperately trying to stay out of the fire below.

With a yelp of surprise, I kicked the synth into the flames and continued running. It wasn’t until a few seconds later I realized I had just killed them needlessly.

“This way! Hurry!” Scarlet screamed, turning a side corner and darting out of sight.

I put on a burst of speed, trying my best to keep up with them despite the agonizing pain in my rear leg. Two of the sprites zipped towards me, making me dance to my right to avoid them slashing through my throat.

I bolted around the corner, my head low as I tried to make myself as arrow dynamic as possible. I could hear the buzzing of the sprites getting louder as they moved in on me, my damaged leg slowing me down to the point that I couldn’t keep running from them. Any longer and I would collapse and be overrun.

“Amber! Look out!” I lifted my head up just in time to see Scarlet halfway down the tunnel. She had stopped running and had her mouth clamped tightly around a lever on the wall.

It was then I realized that we hadn’t gone down a tunnel at all. Scarlet had made us charge head first into an incinerator!

I bent my back legs and sprang forwards, trying to move as far across the expanse of the incinerator as I could. A second later Scarlet pulled down on the lever hard. The hallway behind me filled with fire as small holes in the wall that I had been too busy running to notice burst to life with jets of blazing flame.

I screamed as the flames licked at my hide, flailing on my front and rolling around to put out the fire. I had felt the pain of being burned alive by Inferno inside my dream, I didn’t need to feel it again in real life.

The sprites that had been closest to me collided with the wall of fire, exploding in small bursts of fire, wires and shrapnel. I ducked back, my fore hooves covering my neck as bits of burning metal shot out from the bursting sprite bots and slashed at my back, cutting open bleeding wounds in my flesh. The rest of the sprites came to an abrupt stop, hovering on the other side of the fire wall, their lasers charging up and firing beams of deadly energy through the flames at us.

Scarlet grabbed me in her hooves and pulled me away from the blasts, inching down the hall until we were out of the line of fire. There was a second of silence as the sprites stopped firing, followed by the sound of buzzing as they sped away.

“Oh Celestia, are you alright?” Scarlet gasped, looking over the burn marks across my back. “I tried to wait as long as I could, but I couldn’t wait any longer.”

I gave a grunt and a grim nod. “I’m fine. I’ve had a lot worse. I just need a healing potion and I’ll be fine,” Scarlet nodded, pulling out our second to last healing potion and passing it to me. I gave her a grateful smile before drinking it. My hind leg itched as the potion worked it magic. I held up the other for her to drink. “Here.”

Scarlet shook her head. “We only have one left. We need to save if for something more important,” She nervously looked back at the cuts and burns across her body. “B-besides, I’ll be fine.”

I narrowed my eyes, but silently put the potion back down. I glanced in the direction the sprites had been. “You think we lost them for good?”

Scarlet grimaced. “The sprites will need to find another way around, but they’ll find a way to get here eventually. Considering they have a built in layout of the Institute, ventilation system included, it probably won’t take them long. I’d recommend we get out of here before they do that.”

I nodded, feeling the last little bit of itching as my injuries healed over completely. “Do you think you know how to get to Glasswings office from here?”

Scarlet bit her lip and looked around. “I… maybe. I think I can get us back to the medical wing, and then I should be able to figure it out from there.”

I gave her a reassuring nod. “Then let's go. We’re almost out of this. Only one more stop.”

Finding the vent that took us to Glasswings office took less time than we had expected. Something I was incredibly thankful for. As much as I would have loved to be able to take my time and be careful, I was on the clock. Every second I spent sneaking around within the walls of the Institute was a second lost that I could have used to put a stop to all this madness.

Scarlet crawled forwards and came to a stop in front of a turn in the ventilation shaft. She looked down the shaft, frowning slightly. “Considering the pulsing green glow down there, I’m going to assume we’re coming up on that radioactive section of the tunnel,” She tossed me back a packet of radaway and some rad-X. “Get ready. I’d like to spend as little time in there as possible.”

I gave her a nod of understanding, taking the rad-X. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

We moved through the tunnel, the greenish, radioactive air tingled at our skin. I had no doubt that had I still had my pipbuck, it would have been click click clicking just as fast as it had been in the Glowing Sea. Even with the Rad-X, I found it very likely that we both had come down with some radiation poisoning.

After a few seconds of crawling, we came to a large grate that led out into a room beyond. I had come through this vent before, the first time I had snuck into Glasswings office.

If the Institute scientists ever managed to retake this place from Pureblood, they should really invest in some security measures inside their ventilation system.

On second thought, I hoped they didn’t do that. Trying to deal with the Institute was hard enough, and I didn’t want to need to combat against more than just sprites and rads in here.

“Good news. It looks like Pureblood isn’t here,” Scarlet whispered, pressing her face up against the grate and peeking out into the office beyond. “But those two power armoured guards are still here. Do you have a plan for taking them out?”

Plan for taking out power armoured Canterlot ghouls? Yeah no, I didn’t have a plan for that.

“You can’t kill Canterlot Ghouls normally, right?” I asked, trying to peek out myself. “You gotta blow their heads off or something like that?”

Scarlet nodded. “Yeah. Crank and I ran into one on a visit to Glyphmark many years ago. The darn thing almost killed us.”

I grimaced. “Something almost killing Crank is a bad sign for us. That pony was a one pony army.”

Scarlet winced. “He wasn’t always a killing machine… he used to be a lot different…”

I mentally scolded myself for forgetting just how closely Scarlet had known Crank. Even having seen his past, I often found it easy to forget that Crank hadn’t always been a cybernetic monstrosity.

“Regardless, We’re still going to have to find a way to take them out before either of them can sound the alarm,” I continued. “I’m still without a weapon and I don’t think your energy weapon is going to do much damage against a Canterlot ghoul, not to mention power armour.”

“Alright… So what do we do?” Scarlet murmured, her gaze still locked on the two ghouls. “And we better think of something quick. Even with all that rad-X, we’re still collecting rads fast.”

I sat there, looking out into the office for a moment. Suddenly an idea crossed my mind. “Last time we were here, Glasswing made a time bomb out of a balefire egg he had stored in his desk…”

Scarlet’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy?” She hisses back at me. “First of all, that would cause a massive explosion. Half the Institute would hear us. Secondly, we don’t even know if there’s another one in there. For all we know, Glasswing only had one.”

I shook my head. “Glasswing doesn’t take chances. Something tells me he had that Balefire egg in his office in case of emergencies. If he only had one, there is a good chance he got it replaced, especially after that fiasco with Insecta and Azar. he was probably paranoid.”

“Everypony would still hear us,” Scarlet retorted. “That crazy griffin and all those coursers would be on us in seconds.”

“Do you have another plan?”

Scarlet grit her teeth. “Well… no… but the second we set off that Balefire egg, we’re going to need to get out of here as fast as possible.”

I nodded. “Do you know where the secret exit is?”

“Behind the wall,” Scarlet informed me, pointing to the far wall of the office. “We’ll need to hack Glasswings terminal to gain access.”

I felt myself grin slightly. “Luckily you’re looking at the best hacker this side of the wastes.”

“Don’t get arrogant on me now.”

“You ready?”

“Absolutely not… Let's do this.”

Scarlets hooves slowly twisted out the screws on the grate and pulled the grate into the vent with us. After the amount of crawling around inside these vents we’d been doing, we were getting pretty damn good at sneaking around without making noise.

Silently, Scarlet crept from the vent, moving around the edges of the room and ducking behind a large metal shelf. I quickly followed suit, making sure to stay as low to the ground as possible. Thankfully, the two armoured guards seemed to be more focused on the doorway.

You’d think that word would have gotten out that they should have been guarding the ventilation exits by now, but hey, I wasn’t complaining.

Scarlet motioned for me to move forwards toward the central desk. I gave her a nod before creeping across the room, slinking up to and behind the desk. I peeked over the top, making sure neither of the guards had noticed me. Thankfully, they seemed as oblivious and unaware as ever.

My hoof raised to open the drawer of the desk, only to stop when I found it locked. I had to resist the urge to scream in frustration. Ponies needed to stop locking up their stuff. How was I supposed to steal things and sneak about if they keep locking me out?

I made a gesture with my hoof for Scarlet to join me by the desk. She nodded and began crawling forwards, only to abruptly pull back as one of the ghoul guards turned around.

“Fucking hell. This place is boring,” The ghoul groaned, trotting in a small circle. “I miss the decor of Canterlot. This place looks like a fucking hospital. Hurts my eyes.”

The other armoured ghoul turned and gave them a quizzical look. “We’ll get our golden towers back. You just need to wait five days. Then we will all have a kingdom of Utopia.”

The two ghouls continued talking back and forth, but neither turned away from us fully. I gritted my teeth as I looked back at the lock on Glasswings desk. Damn. Looks like I was going to have to do some lock picking.

Motioning to Scarlet, she tossed me two bobby pins and quickly rolled a red screwdriver across the floor to me. I picked the screwdriver up in my mouth, giving it a dirty look for daring to look so similar to my cutie mark.

I turned back to the lock and inserted my first bobby pin into it. I tried to think back to the short lesson Brisk had given me on lock picking shortly after we had left the Stable. I had done this before, I could do it again.

Snap!

I cursed under my breath and withdrew the broken bobby pin. I glanced over the desk at the two ghouls, praying that they had turned away and that Scarlet had an opening to move over to me. To my dismay, they had not yet moved.

Stifling a groan, I inserted my second bobby pin into the lock and began to twist at the lock with the screwdriver. I felt a sudden tension on the pin and quickly released my grip on the screwdriver, letting the bobby pin reset back to its original place.

“Alright, not there,” I mumbled under my breath, a bead of sweat trickling down my brow. I readjusted the pin and began to twist with the screwdriver again. After a second, I heard a small click, and the lock popped open.

I had to resist the very tempting urge to yell in triumph. Fuck you lock! I beat you this time! I silently pumped my hoof into the air, trying to get out some of that excitement.

I quickly slid the drawer open and looked inside. There wasn’t a balefire egg, but there was the next best thing…

“...I’m just saying, those things freak me out,” The Canterlot ghoul rambled, thrusting one of his metal clad hooves into the air. “Those fucking coursers look like ponies, but they sure as fuck don’t act like it.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, pulling myself up from behind the desk. Both ghouls turned to stare at me, their eyes wide with surprise behind their visors. “Is this yours?”

A Spark grenade rolled to a stop by their hooves. They both glanced down, too stunned to properly react.

“Oh son of a-”

The air around the ghouls burst with static, both of their armours locking up as a powerful wave of static energy washed over them. The burst of light died down, leaving the two ghouls immobilized on either side of the doorway.

I stuck my tongue out at them, giving them both a smug look. I turned my grinning face over to Scarlet who gave me a small smile in return. “Shall we?”

Scarlet quickly trotted over to the two frozen ghouls and began removing their weapons. They had both been equipped with large gatling guns, so big in fact that neither of us were strong enough to carry them. I groaned and I rolled the gun off to the side, once again finding myself without a weapon.

I clicked on Glasswings terminal and watched as the screen booted up. It was locked, as I had expected from anything belonging to Glasswing, but nothing that I couldn’t hack. A few moments later, and I was in.

“You’re looking for the door manual override,” Scarlet said, looking over my shoulder and I went through the many files on the terminal. There were hundreds of files, probably all filled with super classified Institute secrets that I would have loved to read through. Unfortunately I was pressed for time, and didn’t have the time to go through any more than I needed to.

My eyes landed on an override option, but not for a doorway.

>Safe manual override

>Safe current status: Locked

[Lock]

[Unlock]

Unable to hold back my curiosity of what Glasswing might hide behind a safe in his office, I clicked unlock. There was a small click as a large side panel on the wall beside us moved away, revealing a small, hidden storage room. Scarlet gave a small gasp of surprise as she looked inside.

It was a balefire bomb. Not a balefire egg, but a full on, city levelling balefire bomb!

We both took a small step back as we were faced with the pulsing explosive. I cast Scarlet a worried look before returning my attention to the glowing bomb.

“We can't leave this here,” I said flatly, my eyes darting around to make sure there was only one balefire bomb. “We can’t let Pureblood be in possession of this.”

Scarlet gave a timid nod of agreement. “Y-yeah… lets get this thing and-”

The door to the office abruptly slid open. We both spun around to face the doorway, only for a rocket to come blasting through the opening and hurtling towards us. Scarlet and I dove to the side, the speeding projectile detonating between the two of us and sending us skidding across the ground.

I raised my head, making out two forms trotting through the doorway towards us through the smoke of the blast. I felt myself growl out of instinct as I made out the distinct form of Darkclaw, his scared face smiling devilishly as he aimed his rocket launcher and mini gun towards me.

The second figure I recognized as well, though it took me until the smoke cleared to recognize her completely. Fleur stood beside the power armoured griffon, my shotgun held aloft in her magic and my saddlebags slung over her rotting withers.

“Told you they’d be here,” Darkclaw chuckled, flapping his large wings and launching himself towards me. I tried to push myself back, only for his talons to wrap around my neck and pin me to the ground. Scarlet moved to attack him, but his wing shot out and knocked her magical energy rifle away from her. “You both thought you were being clever? Soon as I realized you needed the radaway to get here through the vents, I knew exactly where to find you.”

“Yes yes, you’re a real genius,” Fleur De Lis Drawled, slowly trotting over to stand next to the powerful griffon. She looked down at me pitifully before returning her attention to Scarlet. “You should have been put under the Directors control when we infiltrate the Institute?”

Scarlet gave her an abashed smile. “I might have deleted myself from the Institutes database…”

Fleur gave her an unamused glare for a moment before shrugging and looking over at Darkclaw. “Have a courser dispatched to this location. Tell them we have Amber Aura and that we have a rogue synth we need neutralized. The Director is going to be very pleased”

I struggled against Darkclaw’s tight grip, trying to get myself free. The griffin simply lifted me up into the air before slamming me back down, thunking my head heavily against the hard ground.

Darkclaw raised his free talon and clicked an intercom that was snuggly placed over his ear, relaying the message Fleur had just instructed. As soon as he was done, he looked back down at me and smirked, showing off his teeth. “How does it feel, Amber Aura? Having worked so hard to escape, only to be dragged right back to your cell.”

“Try not to get too arrogant, Darkclaw,” Fleur cooed, making sure that Braeburn’s Liberator was aimed at Scarlet’s head. “Amber here has been known to get out of rather impossible situations before. If you think you’re the worst bastard she’s faced, think again.”

Darkclaw rolled his eyes, practically ignoring Fleur's remark. He leaned in closer, making sure I had a good view of his scarred eye. “You’re going to pay for what you did to me bitch. Soon as the Director is done with you, I’m going to make you squeal.”

I turned my head, trying to look at Fleur from my spot on the ground. “Please, you have to let us go.”

Darkclaws talon flashed up and slapped me across the face, making my head jerk backwards. Three claw marks were ripped into my cheek, drizzling blood. Thankfully they didn’t seem overly deep. “Shut up bitch,” The griffin scowled. “You aren’t talking your way out of this one.”

Fleur huffed, trotting over and leaning down to face me. She had a scowl on her face, but there seemed to be an intrigued glimmer of curiosity in her eyes as well. “And why, after everything you have seen, would you think I would let you and your friend go after the ruckus you both caused?”

“Fancy Pants,” I stated bluntly, the name making her recoil away and give me an angry glare. I paused, letting the name sink in. “You’d let us go because of Fancy Pants.”

Fleur gave a low growl. “Fancy Pants is dead. He died over two hundred years ago when the bombs fell.”

“He died before the bombs fell,” I retorted. “Pureblood killed him during a party called the Grand Galloping Gala.”

“What are you talking about?” Fleur hissed, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t know anything. I saw him after that party… I saw him the day the bombs fell. He told me that-”

“Pureblood replaced him with a changeling. I watched him do it in those memory orbs,” I spat back. “He had access to the Institute. You know that he was perfectly capable of working with changelings. And he had plenty of motive. You told Fancy Pants that night yourself that you were afraid Pureblood would kill him.”

“Not literally!” Fleur growled, stomping a hoof on the ground.

Darkclaw hissed. “Silence! Both of you!” his talon tightened around my throat, making me choke. Scarlet took a step forward to help me, only for his mini gun to point at her, making her freeze in her tracks. He returned his angry glare to me. “You aren’t talking your way out of this. You’re unarmed, and no pony here is going to help you.”

Fleur turned away from me, still aiming my shotgun at Scarlet. “There is nothing you can do Amber. The courser will be here shortly. It’s over. You’ve lost.”

“Whatever happened to civilization needing balance?” I choked out. Darkclaw’s talon tightened around my throat again, making my last work get cut off with a small gag.

Fleur paused and glanced back at me. She hesitated for a moment before gesturing to Darkclaw. “Let her speak.”

The talon continued to tighten. “Are you kidding? She’s trying to get under your-”

“I said let her speak! That’s an order!” Fleur demanded, taking a step towards us. Darkclaw grumbled, but the grip around my neck loosened, allowing me to breath a painful breath of air.

“Fancy Pants told you that civilization needs balance. That without governance, society will devolve into anarchy,” I started, still trying to pull air into my lungs.

“And it has, just as he said,” Fleur spat, now once more looming over me. “The aristocracy was destroyed in Balefire and the world has broken into violence, bloodshed and savagery!”

“But he said something else as well, didn’t he,” I pushed, suddenly feeling a little more sure of myself. “He said that if aristocracy turns to tyranny that society will stagnate and be rendered to nothing but greed and a constant play for power. Do you really think that Purebloods idea of governance would actually help the ponies of the wasteland?”

Fleur stiffened, looking down at me with widened eyes. I couldn’t tell if I had gotten through to her or if I had hit a nerve and was about to have my face melted off with a breath of pink cloud. After an agonizing long second of her glaring at me, she gave a grunt of frustration and turned away from me.

I felt my heart sink as she trotted away. I tried to reach out to her, draw her back in, but she was too far away. “What Pureblood is doing is madness! Utopia is going to ruin everything that Fancy Pants ever believed in! I might be able to stop it, but you have to let me go!”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Darkclaw snarled, his talons restricting around my throat once again, their sharp points digging into the sides of my neck. His mini gun shifted to point at my face. “If Silver Ace really wants you so much he can make another damn synth!”

Scarlet’s eyes went wide with horror. She lunged forwards, trying to get between me and the mini gun. Darkclaw growled, his tail flashing out and knocking her back to the ground.

I shut my eyes as the mini gun before my face whirred to life, spinning faster and faster as it prepared to fire.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Blood splattered down atop me, soaking my coat in crimson.

I peeked an eye open, making out the gruesome image of Darkclaw’s now ruined face. Braeburn’s Liberator hovered an inch away from his head, all three of its barrels smoking from the shots that had ripped through the armoured griffin's brain.

I blinked, trying to get some of the blood and gore out of my eyes and turned to look at Fleur. She was panting, her face twisted into a grimace.

“You had better know what you’re doing,” she growled, dropping my triple barrel shotgun by my hooves and shrugging off my saddlebags.

“Thank you…” I said, surprised she had actually decided to save us. I quickly slung my saddlebags over my back and hugged my shotgun, glad to finally have a weapon again. I checked over my ammo, grimacing as I saw I only had three slugs left for my shotgun. I'd really need to stock up on ammo at some point.

“You two had better get out of here. The coursers will be here very soon,” Fleur said, trotting over to the window that overlooked the Institute and glancing out.

I nodded and pulled myself over to Glasswings terminal, activating the door override and watching as the wall behind me slid open, revealing a long, dark hallway leading off to who knew where. I gestured over to Scarlet. “Grab the Balefire bomb. Let's get out of here.”

“That isn’t going anywhere,” Fleur reaffirmed, moving to stand between Scarlet and the open safe with the Balefire bomb. “I might be giving you a chance, but that stays here!”

Scarlets eyebrows furrowed. “We can’t let Pureblood have that. Who knows what he will do with a weapon of that magnitude!”

Fleur gave a low growl. “I’d recommend that you both get out of here before I change my mind to let you go. Just because I’m letting you go, doesn’t mean I’m simply going to turn my back on the Director. Now you can either get out of here while you can, or try and fight me for the Balefire bomb. And you don’t have time to waste fighting me. The second the coursers arrive, you’re both dead.”

“You could come with us,” I offered, holding out my hoof to the ghoul. “We could try and bring balance to the wasteland together?”

Fleur gave my hoof a nervous glare before giving a sad shake of her head. “I’ve been on this path for over two hundred years Amber. That kind of dedication isn’t going to just go away. I’m giving you a chance because it’s what I would have done, back before all of this. I’m saving you because I know what the Director did to you was wrong and that… that deep down I’m pretty sure Fancy pants would have done the same… Given a second chance I might not make the same choice twice. If we meet again, we won’t be friends. Now go!”

“But what about Pureblood? Won't he be angry when he finds out you let us go?” Scarlet asked, trying to take another step towards the Canterlot ghoul.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me,” Fleur retorted hastily. “You killed Darkclaw and knocked me out… No pony liked Darkclaw anyway, so thats no big loss...” She glanced over at the two Canterlot ghouls that were still standing immobilized by the door. “You killed the guards too. You truly are a deadly combatant,” I saw both of the ghouls eyes widen in fear behind their visors at that remark.

I gave a grim nod and turned to face the hidden tunnel. Scarlet moved to join me. “Thank you Fleur. We’ll be back. We’ll stop this.”

Fleur moved to Glasswing terminal and clicked the door override, making the secret panel in the wall begin to slide shut between us. “No, you won't. There is no stopping this,” And with that, the wall panel slammed closed, blocking us off from the Institute and sending us into total darkness.

I sat for a second, fumbling around in search of the button to turn on my pipbuck flashlight, only to remember that I no longer had my pipbuck. I groaned and let the tip of my horn glow an amber light, illuminating the hallway.

The hallway was fairly large, having been built out of some sort of metal that had long since begun to rust. It was clearly intended to at one point allow large groups of ponies and changelings to move into and out of the Institute without being detected, though it clearly hadn’t been used for quite a few years.

I turned and examined the secret doorway that had closed behind us. Had it not been for a small terminal that rested in the wall beside me, there would have been no sign that the secret entrance had ever existed.

“Come on, we should get out of here. Something tells me the coursers might know about this passage,” I said, turning from the door to face Scarlet. Scarlet had frozen a few steps ahead of me, her eyes transfixed on the tunnel ahead. I cautiously trotted up to her. “Hey? Are you alright?”

“I’m… I’m out…” She breathed, letting a long breath out of her mouth. “I’d been in there for so long, I had begun to think escape was impossible.”

I gave her a gentle nudge. “Well you're free now. You don’t need to go back in there ever again.”

Scarlet glanced at me, then back at the secret door behind us. “I… He’s still in there though. Crank. I’m going to need to go back and save him. Somehow...”

I gave her a pained smile. “We’ll figure something out. I promised to get you two back together didn’t I?”

Her gaze met mine and she allowed herself a slight smile as well. “When you first said that, I thought you were crazy. I’d seen you do crazy stuff before, but I never really thought… If you say you’re going to get us back together, then you will…” She turned and looked down the dark hallway again. “It feels weird to be leaving. In a strange way, I’ve never really been outside of the Institute, not in this body anyway…”

I looked down at my own body, now without my Stable barding and pipbuck. My body felt so familiar to me, and yet so alien at the same time.

“I suppose I’ve technically never left the Institute either,” I quipped, taking a deep breath and tearing my eyes away from my synthetic form, my mind flashing back to looking at my own body within the pod in the Institute. “So how about we enter the wasteland for the first time together?”

Scarlet gave a small chuckle at that, a real one for once. “That’s so cheesy, but sure. Just a couple of synths, taking on the world. Let's face it together.”

The tunnel was very, very long. It was hard to tell exactly how far we walked in the dim light of the passage, but if I had to guess, I’d assume we had traversed over half of the city of Manehattan by this point.

After almost an hour of walking, the tunnel came to an abrupt end at yet another secret door, like the last doorway, this one was closed by a terminal inset into the wall. I pulled myself over to it and quickly got to hacking. It didn’t take long, the password was apples.

There was a loud screeching noise, and the wall slid open, leading us into a fairly large office. We trotted in, glancing around at our surroundings.

“You said this was a ministry hub?” I asked, trotting over to the desk and looking over the terminal. My eyes landed on a name tag that had been placed at the front of the desk, though years of dust had gathered atop it, making the words illegible.

“I think so,” Scarlet said, looking around the office. It was fairly empty, clearly not a place that had gotten very much use, even before the bombs.

I swiped my hoof over the name tag, trying my best to remove some of the dust and read the name printed across its surface. ‘Applejack’ it read.

I remembered reading a terminal entry when I had visited the MWT Hub. ‘She hardly spends any time in her own ministry and when she does, it's either out in Ministry Walk or down in her office in the basement. Fuck if know why she asked to have her office there instead of the top floor like it was supposed to be,' I remembered reading.

Now I knew the answer to the bucks question. Applejack had asked for her office to be in the basement because that was where the secret entrance to the Institute was.

“We’re in the MWT Hub,” I said, informing Scarlet a few seconds after I realized where we were myself. “My friends and I stopped here a few days ago to get the parts we needed to teleport into the Institute. It was the place Viscera…” I froze, memories of the horrors Viscera had inflicted upon us flashing through my mind.

“Amber? Amber, are you alright?” Scarlet asked, moving up to stand next to me.

I let my eyes trial up the wall and come to a stop on the ceiling above. “Y-yeah. Yeah, I’m fine… there’s just… there’s something here that I need to do.”

Without explaining further, I moved out of the room, heading for the stairs that led to the higher floors. Scarlet silently followed after me, a confused look across her face.

I found the room I was looking for almost immediately. How could I not? The horrors that had happened there would forever haunt me.

I pulled open the door and moved inside, wincing as the overpowering smell of rot attacked my senses. My eyes rolled over the mangled bodies of ponies, ghouls and hellhounds that littered the floor before finally coming to a stop on a very specific body lying in a disheveled heap.

His grey coat had gone an almost pale white and his matted pink mane was caked with blood. His neck was bent at a bad angle, his slit throat exposing the neck muscles beneath.

I limped over to him, slumping down and wrapping my hooves around Heartbeats frail body. He had been one of the best ponies I had ever known. He had deserved better than this. He had deserved better than being brutally murdered for a group of raiders sick and twisted amusement. He had deserved better than being left to rot in a dark room in an abandoned building.

I lifted his body up and slung it over my back. I turned, facing Scarlet as she looked at me through the doorway, a hoof over her muzzle to try and block out the smell of rotting corpses.

“I’m going to bury him,” I said, my tone leaving no room for argument. “I never should have just left him here in the first place,” Not that I would have been able to take his body with me then if I had tried. I had hardly gotten the rest of my friends out alive.

“We don’t have a shovel,” Scarlet pointed out, slowly moving in to help carry the weight.

“I don’t care,” I interjected, beginning the slow walk out of the building and out into the street beyond. “I’ll dig the grave with my hooves if I have to. I did it before.”

Scarlet simply nodded and continued to help carry the body.

I sat back, looking at the three graves that lay before me.

Two of them belonged to Train Tracks and Rail, the two Four Star ponies Xayah and I had buried just under eight days ago, only a few short hours before Viscera had forced Pyre to snap Heartbeats neck. The third grave was fresh, having only just been dug. I didn’t have much of a way to make a headstone, so I had spent the last few minutes carving the name ‘Heartbeat’ into a fallen piece of the tram line that had fallen a few feet away.

Scarlet walked up and sat down next to me, staring in silence at the graves before us. After a few seconds of silence, she decided to speak up. “I saw you traveling with him over the Institutes surveillance systems. I hadn’t realized you had lost him.”

I gave a grim nod. “We shouldn’t have. He was only with us to help out Brisk’s Buck addiction. But Brisk was over it and he could have left. Instead I told him he could keep traveling with us…”

Scarlet gave me a sympathetic look. “You know it wasn’t your fault right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I told Pyre the same thing. If Viscera is still alive, I’ll make sure she gets what’s coming to her.”

Our quiet moment was interrupted as a loud noise drew both of our attentions up to the sky above us. The dark shadow of an Enclave Raptor passed overhead, temporarily blotting out the defused light of the sun above. Large patrols of power armoured pegasi flew beside it, making the sky look as if it were filled with an angry swarm hornets. The Enclave had made it too Manehattan and who knew what they were going to do next.

“Amber? What’s our next move?” Scarlet asked, her eyes still fixed on the large airship above us. “We’re going to go try and free your friends, right?”

I stood up, still looking up at the Enclave Raptor. What was our next move? I tried to think about what we had to do, but my mind kept going back to all the bad that stood between us.

My friends were enslaved in Fillydelphia and Pyre could be anywhere in the wasteland by now, the Stable Dweller was dead and the Enclave had descended from the sky, Red Eye was preparing for his big ascension to godhood and Pureblood was preparing to launch the Utopia program. I had five days. Five days to stop everything. Probably less now that I had spent so much time trying to escape the Institute. Without my pipbuck, it was impossible to tell just how much time I had left. I didn't even have my real body anymore.

I let my eyes drop back down to Heartbeats grave. How could anypony stand up to that much hatred? How was I supposed to stand up against so much evil if I couldn’t even save my friend.

Taking a deep breath, I puffed out my chest and looked back up at the looming airship. I wondered if Star Breeze was still doing field work, or if she had joined back up with the Enclave proper now that they had come down from hiding in the clouds.

Suddenly a laugh escaped my lips, causing Scarlet to look over at me in baffled amusement. “What’s so funny?”

“A few hours ago, I had finally admitted to myself that the wasteland had beaten me. I gave up. I lost hope,” I felt another chuckle building in my chest. “And now here I am. Free and once again ready to take whatever it is that the wasteland has for me head on,” I looked back down at Scarlet, a smug grin twisting onto my lips. “I always thought the wasteland was trying to beat me. Eroding away at my confidence and endurance, tearing away everything I cared about… But I was wrong. The wasteland was never trying to fight me. It’s been asking me for help? Asking for help in the only way it knew how. By showing me what needed to be stopped.”

Scarlet cocked an eyebrow. “Amber, what are you talking about?”

“A few weeks ago, somepony named Watcher told me that the whole wasteland seemed to be going to war with each other. He was right. Everything has come crashing down. We are literally racing against a second armageddon. The Enclave, the Institute, Red Eye, the Utopia Program. For the first time in perhaps over two hundred years, everypony's cards are all splayed out on the table. There are no more games. No more secrets. For the first time ever we know exactly what we need to do.”

I reached down and helped pull Scarlet up to her hooves. She gave me a crooked grin that wasn’t nearly as confident as my own.

“First we’re going to free my friends from Fillydelphia,” I said, more and more courage building up in my chest. “Then we’re going to march right back to the Institute and put an end to Purebloods madness. If the Enclave wants to stand in our way, then we’ll tear them down too. We’re going to get my body back, we’re going to save Crank, we’re going to deactivate the Utopia program for good and we're save the mother bucking wasteland!”

Scarlet forced smile twisted into a wide grin. "Alright then. Let's get started."

Footnote: Maximum level reached

Author's Note

Whew, I did not think I was going to be able to get a chapter out by the end of October. I'm always super busy with school this time of year, not to mention halloween festivities. (I tend to celebrate halloween pretty intensely)

Fallout: Equestria Belongs to Kkat